The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river forms in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. It flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state of Oregon before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. The river is 1,243 miles long, and its largest tributary is the Snake River. Its drainage basin is roughly the size of France and extends into seven states of the United States and one Canadian province. The fourth-largest river in the United States by volume, the Columbia has the greatest flow of any river entering the Pacific outside of Asia, and the 36th greatest discharge of any river in the world.
Dallesport is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Klickitat County, Washington, United States. The population was 1,328 at the 2020 census.
The Cascades Rapids were an area of rapids along North America's Columbia River, between the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. Through a stretch approximately 150 yards (140 m) wide, the river dropped about 40 feet (12 m) in 2 miles (3.2 km). These rapids or cascades, along with the many cascades along the Columbia River Gorge in this area of Oregon and Washington, gave rise to the name for the surrounding mountains: the Cascade Range.
The Columbia Plateau is a geologic and geographic region that lies across parts of the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It is a wide flood basalt plateau between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, cut through by the Columbia River.
The Owyhee River is a tributary of the Snake River located in northern Nevada, southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon in the United States. It is 280 miles (450 km) long. The river's drainage basin is 11,049 square miles (28,620 km2) in area, one of the largest subbasins of the Columbia Basin. The mean annual discharge is 995 cubic feet per second (28.2 m3/s), with a maximum of 50,000 cu ft/s (1,400 m3/s) recorded in 1993 and a minimum of 42 cu ft/s (1.2 m3/s) in 1954.
The Clark Fork, or the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, is a river in the U.S. states of Montana and Idaho, approximately 310 miles (500 km) long. The largest river by volume in Montana, it drains an extensive region of the Rocky Mountains in western Montana and northern Idaho in the watershed of the Columbia River. The river flows northwest through a long valley at the base of the Cabinet Mountains and empties into Lake Pend Oreille in the Idaho Panhandle. The Pend Oreille River in Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia, Canada which drains the lake to the Columbia in Washington, is sometimes included as part of the Clark Fork, giving it a total length of 479 miles (771 km), with a drainage area of 25,820 square miles (66,900 km2). In its upper 20 miles (32 km) in Montana near Butte, it is known as Silver Bow Creek. Interstate 90 follows much of the upper course of the river from Butte to Saint Regis. The highest point within the river's watershed is Mount Evans at 10,641 feet (3,243 m) in Deer Lodge County, Montana along the Continental Divide.
Revelstoke Dam, also known as Revelstoke Canyon Dam, is a hydroelectric dam spanning the Columbia River, 5 km (3.1 mi) north of Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada. The powerhouse was completed in 1984 and has an installed capacity of 2480 MW. Four generating units were installed initially, with one additional unit (#5) having come online in 2011. The reservoir behind the dam is named Lake Revelstoke. The dam is operated by BC Hydro.
The Dalles Lock and Dam is a concrete-gravity run-of-the-river dam spanning the Columbia River, two miles (3 km) east of the city of The Dalles, Oregon, United States. It joins Wasco County, Oregon with Klickitat County, Washington, 192 miles (309 km) upriver from the mouth of the Columbia near Astoria, Oregon. The closest towns on the Washington side are Dallesport and Wishram.
The John Day Dam is a concrete gravity run-of-the-river dam spanning the Columbia River in the northwestern United States. The dam features a navigation lock plus fish ladders on both sides. The John Day Lock has the highest lift of any U.S. lock. The reservoir impounded by the dam is Lake Umatilla, and it runs 76.4 miles (123.0 km) up the river channel to the foot of the McNary Dam. John Day Dam is part of the Columbia River Basin system of dams.
The Feather River is the principal tributary of the Sacramento River, in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. The river's main stem is about 73 miles (117 km) long. Its length to its most distant headwater tributary is just over 210 miles (340 km). The main stem Feather River begins in Lake Oroville, where its four long tributary forks join—the South Fork, Middle Fork, North Fork, and West Branch Feather Rivers. These and other tributaries drain part of the northern Sierra Nevada, and the extreme southern Cascades, as well as a small portion of the Sacramento Valley. The total drainage basin is about 6,200 square miles (16,000 km2), with approximately 3,604 square miles (9,330 km2) above Lake Oroville.
Celilo Falls was a tribal fishing area on the Columbia River, just east of the Cascade Mountains, on what is today the border between the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington. The name refers to a series of cascades and waterfalls on the river, as well as to the native settlements and trading villages that existed there in various configurations for 15,000 years. Celilo was the oldest continuously inhabited community on the North American continent until 1957, when the falls and nearby settlements were submerged by the construction of The Dalles Dam. In 2019, there were calls by tribal leaders to restore the falls.
Watts Bar Lake is a reservoir on the Tennessee River created by Watts Bar Dam as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority system.
Lake Revelstoke or Revelstoke Lake or Revelstoke Lake Reservoir is an artificial lake on the Columbia River, north of the town of Revelstoke, British Columbia and south of Mica Creek. This lake is the reservoir formed by the Revelstoke Dam, which during its construction was also known as the Revelstoke Canyon Dam, inundating the Columbia's canyon in this area and the historic Dalles des Morts and some of the former gold diggings of the Big Bend Gold Rush. The dam's site is at what had been the head of river navigation by steamboat from Northport, Washington via the Arrow Lakes.
Priest Rapids was a narrow, fast-flowing stretch of the Columbia River, located in the central region of the U.S. state of Washington. It was flooded by the construction of the Priest Rapids Dam in the 1950s.
The era of steamboats on the Arrow Lakes and adjoining reaches of the Columbia River is long-gone but was an important part of the history of the West Kootenay and Columbia Country regions of British Columbia Canada. The Arrow Lakes are formed by the Columbia River in southeastern British Columbia. Steamboats were employed on both sides of the border in the upper reaches of the Columbia, linking port towns on either side of the border, and sometimes boats would be built in one country and operated in the other. Tributaries of the Columbia include the Kootenay River which rises in Canada, then flows south into the United States, then bends north again back into Canada, where it widens into Kootenay Lake. As with the Arrow Lakes, steamboats once operated on the Kootenay River and Kootenay Lake.
Dalles des Morts, also known as Death Rapids in English, was a famously violent stretch of the Columbia River upstream from Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada, now submerged beneath the waters of Lake Revelstoke.
The Columbia Hills are an area of hills and small mountains along the north bank of the Columbia River in Klickitat County, in south-central Washington state, US. They have a maximum elevation of 2,667 feet (813 m).
The Wood River, which flows in a southwesterly direction, is in the East Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia. The former confluence was near the top of the Big Bend of the Columbia River. After the enlarged Kinbasket Lake formed the Mica Dam reservoir, the flow entered Wood Arm.
Sentinel Gap is a water gap formed by the Columbia River in the Saddle Mountains, near Mattawa in Washington state. The gap is "a water gap where erosion by the Columbia River was able to keep pace with folding, faulting and uplifting across the Saddle Mountain anticline". During Ice Age floods in which waters from the Channeled Scablands found passage to the Pacific Ocean here and at Wallula Gap, this opening was "repeatedly reamed out, which probably widened and steepened the walls of the gap". Strandlines from the floods can be seen on the basalt walls of the gap.
