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Slave River

River in Alberta and Northwest Territories, Canada

Summary

River in Alberta and Northwest Territories, Canada

Field	Value
name	Slave River
image	Slave River Watershed.png
image_caption	Slave River Watershed
source1_location	Peace-Athabasca Delta
source1_coordinates
mouth_location	Great Slave Lake
mouth_coordinates
subdivision_type1	Country
subdivision_name1	Canada
length_km	434
source1_elevation	210 m
mouth_elevation	160 m
discharge1_avg	{{plainlist
* {{convert	3414	m3/s	cuft/s	abbr	on}}
* max: {{convert	7930	m3/s	cuft/s	abbr	on}}
* min: {{convert	543	m3/s	cuft/s	abbr	on}} (for Fitzgerald, Alberta)
basin_size_km2	616400

3414 m3/s
max: 7930 m3/s
min: 543 m3/s (for Fitzgerald, Alberta) The Slave River is a Canadian river that flows from the confluence of the and Peace River in northeastern Alberta and runs into Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. The river's name is thought to derive from the name for the Slavey group of the Dene First Nations, Deh Gah Gotʼine, in the Athabaskan languages. The Chipewyan had displaced other native people from this region.

Rapids and kayaking

The Slave River and the rapids surrounding Fort Smith are known for whitewater kayaking. The river consists of four sets of named rapids: Pelican, Rapids of the Drowned, Mountain Portage, and Cassette. The rapids range in their difficulty to traverse, ranked from Class I to Class VI according to the International Scale of River Difficulty. Huge volume, massive waves, and the home of the northernmost river pelican colony in North America characterize this river. These islands serve as a sanctuary to the birds and are closed to human traffic from April 15 to September 15.

Crossing the Slave River has proven to be fatal; the earliest recorded fatalities as a part of Cuthbert Grant's expedition of 1786 at the Rapids of the Drowned (a class II-IV rapid set).

Course

The Slave River originates in the Peace-Athabasca Delta, at the forks of Peace River and , which drains the Athabasca River and Lake Athabasca. The Slave River flows north into the Northwest Territories and into the Great Slave Lake north of Fort Resolution. From there the water reaches the Arctic Ocean through the Mackenzie River.

The river is 434 km long and has a cumulative drainage area of 616400 km2.

Portage and navigation

Prior to the extension of railway service to Hay River, Northwest Territories, a river port on Great Slave Lake, cargo shipment on the Slave River was an important transport route. Locally built wooden vessels were navigating the river into the late 19th century. The rapids required a portage of 16 mi. | access-date = 2012-05-31 Tractors were imported from Germany to assist in the transport of goods around the rapids. Tugs and barges of the Northern Transportation Company's "Radium Line" were constructed in the south and disassembled. The parts were then shipped by rail to Waterways, Alberta, shipped by barge to the portage, and portaged to the lower river for reassembly, where they could navigate most of the rest of the extensive Mackenzie River basin. | access-date = 2012-05-31

Tributaries

Peace-Athabasca Delta
- Athabasca River
- Lake Athabasca
- Chilloneys Creek
- Revillon Coupe
- Dempsey Creek
- Peace River
- Scow Channel
- Murdock Creek
- Darough Creek
Powder Creek
La Butte Creek
Hornaday River
Salt River
Little Buffalo River

References

[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9068168 Slave River]. (2006). In ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved September 12, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service
(1989). "The English River Book: A North West Company Journal and Account Book of 1786". McGill-Queen's University Press.
Atlas of Canada. "Rivers in Canada".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

rivers-of-alberta rivers-of-the-northwest-territories

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