Saint Mary River | |
---|---|
Location | |
Countries | United States and Canada |
State | Montana |
Province | Alberta |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | near Gunsight Lake |
• location | Glacier National Park, Lewis Range, Glacier County, Montana, United States |
• coordinates | 48°37′13″N113°44′37″W / 48.62028°N 113.74361°W [1] |
• elevation | 7,560 ft (2,300 m) [2] |
Mouth | Oldman River |
• location | near Cottonwood Park, Alberta, Canada |
• coordinates | 49°37′38″N112°53′13″W / 49.62722°N 112.88694°W [1] |
• elevation | 2,739 ft (835 m) [1] |
The Saint Mary River is a cross-border tributary of the Oldman River, itself a tributary of the South Saskatchewan River. The Saint Mary together with the Belly River and Waterton River drains a small portion of Montana, in the United States, to the Hudson Bay watershed in Canada.
The river rises as a stream on Gunsight Mountain in Glacier National Park and flows into Gunsight Lake, then flows into Saint Mary Lake, exits the park and flows on into Lower St. Mary Lake in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. From the reservation, the St. Mary River flows into Alberta and into the St. Mary Reservoir. It flows into the Oldman River which eventually reaches the Saskatchewan River.
It passes near the town of Cardston, Alberta, and the city of Lethbridge, Alberta.
The St. Mary River also provides water for irrigation in Southern Alberta. The St. Mary River Irrigation District (SMRID) is Canada’s largest irrigation district delivering water through 2,060 kilometres (1,280 mi) of canals and pipelines to approximately 1,505 square kilometres (372,000 acres) of land south of the Oldman and South Saskatchewan Rivers between Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.
The irrigation project was started in 1898, and on September 4, 1900, the first water was brought to Lethbridge by the project. In December 1945 the Canadian Pacific Railway transferred control of the projects to the government of Alberta, creating the St. Mary and Milk River Development (SMRD). A dam was created in 1946 on the St. Mary River, to service the irrigation system, and water finally reached Medicine Hat in 1954 upon the completion of the St. Mary Main Canal. [3]
Milk River is a tributary of the Missouri River, 729 miles (1,173 km) long, in the U.S. state of Montana and the Canadian province of Alberta. Rising in the Rocky Mountains, the river drains a sparsely populated, semi-arid watershed of 23,800 square miles (62,000 km2), ending just east of Fort Peck, Montana.
The Saskatchewan River is a major river in Canada. It stretches about 550 kilometres (340 mi) from where it is formed by the joining of the North Saskatchewan River and South Saskatchewan River just east of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, to Lake Winnipeg. It flows roughly eastward across Saskatchewan and Manitoba to empty into Lake Winnipeg. Through its tributaries the North Saskatchewan and South Saskatchewan, its watershed encompasses much of the prairie regions of Canada, stretching westward to the Rocky Mountains in Alberta and north-western Montana in the United States.
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The North Western Coal and Navigation Company, also known as Alberta Railway and Coal Company or Alberta Railway and Irrigation Company, was a coal mining company formed in London, England in 1882 by Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt, one of Canada's Fathers of Confederation. As part of his vision for Canada, Galt was committed to finding industries that would bring settlers to the District of Alberta of the Northwest Territories. The company was founded to create a coal mining industry that could bring settlers to the Northwest Territories. It was based in Lethbridge, Alberta, with his son Elliott Torrance Galt, managing day-to-day operations. The company's superintendent was William Stafford. Money for this company came from a consortium of investors from Canada, England, and the United States.
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Waterton Lake is a mountain lake in southern Alberta, Canada, and northern Montana, United States. The lake is composed of two bodies of water, connected by a shallow channel known locally as the Bosporus. The two parts are referred to as Middle Waterton Lake, and Upper Waterton Lake, the latter of which is divided by the Canada–United States border with Canada containing about two thirds of the lake while the southern third falls in the United States. The Boundary Commission Trail ends at the lake as the last border marker was placed there on 8 August 1874. The United States Geological Survey gives the geocoordinates of 49°03′00″N113°54′03″W for Upper Waterton Lake. Lower Waterton Lake is north of Middle Waterton Lake and is separated by a channel known as the Dardanelles.
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