Columbia River System

By Matt Landry - Jun 18, 2003

The Columbia River is one of American West infamy. Lewis and Clark, in their famous cross American journey, travelled the Columbia as their last great waterway to the Pacific ocean. The present day Columbia River has it's headwaters in British Columbia and flows South through Washington where it takes a sharp turn west at the confluence of its biggest tributary, Idaho's Snake River. At the Snake, the river sets it course due west to the Pacific Ocean. On its westward journey, the Columbia creates a natural boder between the American States of Oregon and Washington, before eventually dumping into the Pacific near Astoria. By the time the Columbia reaches Astoria it has travelled over 1,200 miles.

The Columbia has a number of important and well known tributaries including the Deshutes, Willamette, Cowlitz and Lewis. The Snake River can lay claim to a 1,500 pound fish that was caught in 1928.

The Columbia of Lewis and Clark's time is not the Columbia of today. With 11 major hydroelectric projects on the mainstem, and hundreds more on its tributaries, the Columbia holds the dubious honour of being the most hydroelectrically developed river system in the world.

The Columbia River is home to both Pacific Coast sturgeon species-- the Green Sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris) and the White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus). The White Sturgeon of the Columbia River are some of the largest on the West Coast, and in the world. The Columbia Sturgeon though, like other populations, have been pressured to near extinction. The damming of the river has cut off access to the Pacific for the anadromous Sturgeon. Before the arrival of white settlers and subsequent development of the Pacific Northwest, White Sturgeon were well dispersed throughout the Columbia River Basin from the estuary at the mouth of the river, up the Snake River to southern Idaho. The hydro projects have hurt the Sturgeon populations two-fold; they block upstream migration as well as altering the rivers habitat and affecting water temperature levels.

Although white sturgeon were brought to near extinction by commercial fishing in the late 1800's, populations have slowly recovered and sturgeon are once again an important fishery resource in the Columbia River system.

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