The Wood River, which flows in a southwesterly direction, is in the

East Kootenay The Regional District of East Kootenay (RDEK) is a regional district in the provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, Canada. In the 2016 census, the population was 60,439. Its area is . The regional district ...

region of southeastern

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. The former confluence was near the top of the Big Bend of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

. After the enlarged

Kinbasket Lake Kinbasket Lake (or Kinbasket Reservoir) is a reservoir on the Columbia River in southeast British Columbia, north of the city of Revelstoke and the town of Golden. The reservoir was created by the construction of the Mica Dam. The lake includes tw ...

formed the

Mica Dam Mica Dam is a hydroelectric embankment dam spanning the Columbia River 135 kilometres north of Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada. It was built as one of three Canadian projects under the terms of the 1964 Columbia River Treaty and is operated b ...

reservoir, the flow entered Wood Arm.

Name origin

In their respective journals, the waterway was called Flat Heart River by David Thompson (1811) (reflecting his men's timidity), Little Canoe River by

Gabriel Franchère Gabriel Franchère ( 3 November 1786 –12 April 1863) was a French Canadian author and explorer of the Pacific Northwest. Franchère was born in Montreal to Gabriel Franchère (4 March 1752 - 16 May 1832) and Marie-Félicité Morin (20 August 176 ...

(1814) (adjacent to

Canoe River The Canoe River is a river in southeastern Massachusetts. It is longU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 and part of the Taunton River Watershed. The Canoe R ...

mouth), and Portage River by Alexander Ross (1824) (largely unnavigable). In 1874,

Sandford Fleming Sir Sandford Fleming (January 7, 1827 – July 22, 1915) was a Scottish Canadian engineer and inventor. Born and raised in Scotland, he emigrated to colonial Canada at the age of 18. He promoted worldwide standard time zones, a prime meridian, ...

referred to the valley of Portage or Wood River. The name origin is unclear but may have indicated that the woodlands rather than the river provided the means of traversing this section.

Course

The Wood River leaves the southwest corner of Fortress Lake, which lies west of the

Continental Divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

Hamber Provincial Park Hamber Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located 130 kilometres (80.7 mi) north of Golden. Straddling the Great Divide on the provincial boundary with Alberta, the park is surrounded on three sides by Jasper ...

. Significant tributaries over the first or so are Alnus Creek, Serenity Creek, Ghost Creek, Clemenceau Creek, Pacific Creek, and Jeffrey Creek. This section includes swampy land, gravel flats, and steep falls. The next section down to

Boat Encampment Boat Encampment is a ghost town in the East Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia. The locality was at the tip of the Big Bend on the north shore of the Columbia River. The general vicinity, on the former Big Bend Highway, was by road a ...

was about . . Not even the lower part of the river was navigable by

steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the ship prefix, prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S ...

s. Jumping Jack Creek flows into Wood Arm.

Trails

The Athabasca trail northeastward from Boat Encampment comprised Wood River, Jeffrey Creek, Pacific Creek,

Committee's Punch Bowl The Committee's Punch Bowl is a small tarn on the continental divide straddling the border between the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. George Simpson, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, named the lake for the London-base ...

Athabasca Pass Athabasca Pass (el. ) is a high mountain pass in the Canadian Rockies on the border between Alberta and British Columbia. In fur trade days it connected Jasper House on the Athabasca River with Boat Encampment on the Columbia River.Whittaker, Jo ...

Whirlpool River The Whirlpool River is a short river in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. It is an early tributary of the Athabasca River. The Whirlpool is formed in Athabasca Pass, collecting meltwater from the Hooker Icefield and the Mount Brown Icefield. ...

Athabasca River The Athabasca River (French: ''Rivière Athabasca'') is a river in Alberta, Canada, which originates at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park and flows more than before emptying into Lake Athabasca. Much of the land along its banks is pro ...

, Brûlé Lake, and terminated at

Jasper House Jasper House National Historic Site, in Jasper National Park, Alberta, is the site of a trading post on the Athabasca River that functioned in two different locations from 1813 to 1884 as a major staging and supply post for travel through the Can ...

(first location). Gradually, the eastern terminus moved westward, having a final location in the vicinity of Henry House. Wood Arm has submerged about of the original route from Boat Encampment. The present trail to Jeffrey Creek comprises swamp or flooded woodland, which mirrors the difficulties faced by the early explorers. The other option has been to walk in the fast, deep current of the river between each gravel bar. Franchère mentioned the slow and exhausting progress after diverting farther into the woods to make headway. Ross counted the 62 streams he crossed one day. In the 1840s,

Paul Kane Paul Kane (September 3, 1810 – February 20, 1871) was an Irish-born Canadian painter, famous for his paintings of First Nations peoples in the Canadian West and other Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans in the Columbia Dis ...

explained the difficulty of extracting his horse which was stuck in a mud hole up to its head.

Maps

*David Thompson's 1811 route. * * *Wood River map (present).

Footnotes

References