title: Battle of Towton

text: The Battle of Towton was re-examined by Geoffrey Hill in his poem "Funeral Music" (1968). Hill presents the historical event through the voices of its combatants, looking at the turmoil of the era through their eyes. The common soldiers grouse about their physical discomforts and the sacrifices that they had made for the ideas glorified by their leaders. They share their superiors' determination to seek the destruction of their opponents, even at the cost of their lives. Hill depicts the participants' belief that the event was pre-destined and of utmost importance as a farce; the world went about its business regardless of the Battle of Towton.


title: Battle of Towton

text: An episode in C.J. Sansom's historical novel "Sovereign", set in 1541 - sixty years after the battle - concerns a Towton farmer appealing to King Henry VIII to be compensated for the time and effort he has to spend on turning over to the Church the skeletons discovered nearly every day on his land.


title: Battle of Towton

text: Obtaining an accurate figure for casualties has been complicated: remains were either moved or used by farmers as fertiliser, and corpses were generally stripped of clothing and non-perishable items before burial. However some survived when later buildings were constructed over their graves; the first were uncovered in 1996 and excavations have so far uncovered more than 50 skeletons from the battle. An analysis of their injuries shows the brutality of the contest, including extensive post-mortem mutilations.


title: Battle of Towton

text: 15th-century documents confirm some casualties were reburied in graveyards at Saxton and a chapel constructed for the purpose by Richard III in 1484. His death at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 meant the building was never completed and eventually collapsed. In 1929 stones allegedly from the chapel were used to create the Towton Cross, also known as Lord Dacre's Cross, which commemorates those who died in the battle.


title: Battle of Towton

text: Lord Dacre was buried at the church of All Saints in Saxton and his tomb was reported in the late 19th century to be well maintained, although several of its panels had been weathered away. The tree from which Dacre's killer was supposed to have shot his arrow had been cut down by the late 19th century. In 2010 fragments from what are some of the earliest known handguns found in Britain were discovered on the battlefield.


title: Battle of Towton

text: Views of the Wars of the Roses in general and of the battle as a charnel house were formed by Shakespeare and endured for centuries. However at the start of the 21st century the battle was no longer prominent in the public consciousness. British journalists lamented that people were ignorant of the Battle of Towton and of its significance. According to English Heritage the battle was of the "greatest importance": it was one of the largest, if not "the" largest, fought in England and resulted in the replacement of one royal dynasty by another. Hill expressed a different opinion. Although impressed with the casualty figures touted by the chroniclers, he believed the battle brought no monumental changes to the lives of the English people.


title: Battle of Towton

text: The Battle of Towton was associated with a tradition previously upheld in the village of Tysoe, Warwickshire. For several centuries a local farmer had scoured a hill figure, the Red Horse of Tysoe, each year, as part of the terms of his land tenancy. Although the origins of the tradition have never been conclusively identified, it was locally claimed this was done to commemorate the Earl of Warwick's inspirational deed of slaying his horse to show his resolve to stand and fight with the common soldiers. The tradition died in 1798 when the Inclosure Acts implemented by the English government redesignated the common land on which the equine figure was located as private property. The scouring was revived during the early 20th century but has since stopped.


title: Candace Bushnell

text: Candace Bushnell (born December 1, 1958) is an American author, journalist, and television producer. She wrote a column for "The New York Observer" (1994–96) that was adapted into the bestselling "Sex and the City" anthology. The book was the basis for the HBO hit series "Sex and the City" (1998–2004) and two subsequent movies.


title: Candace Bushnell

text: Bushnell followed this with the international bestselling novels "4 Blondes" (2001), "Trading Up" (2003), "Lipstick Jungle" (2005), "One Fifth Avenue" (2008), "The Carrie Diaries" (2010) and "Summer and the City" (2011). Two of her novels have been adapted for television: "Lipstick Jungle" (2008–09) on NBC, and "The Carrie Diaries" (2013-2014) on The CW. "One Fifth Avenue" has been optioned by the Mark Gordon Company and ABC for another television show.


title: Candace Bushnell

text: Bushnell was born in Glastonbury, Connecticut. She is the daughter of Calvin L. Bushnell and Camille Salonia. Her father was one of the inventors of the air cooled hydrogen fuel cell that was used in the Apollo space missions in the 1960s. Her Bushnell ancestors in the United States can be traced back to Francis Bushnell, one of the signatories of the Guilford Covenant, who emigrated from Thatcham, Berkshire, England in 1639. Her mother was of Italian descent.


title: Candace Bushnell

text: While attending high school in Glastonbury, Candace was accompanied to her senior prom by Mike O'Meara, later a nationally syndicated radio host, who also dated Candace's sister, "Lolly." She attended Rice University and New York University. She moved to New York in the late 1970s and often frequented Studio 54. In 1995, she met publishing executive Ron Galotti, who became the inspiration for "Sex and The City"'s Mr. Big.


title: Candace Bushnell

text: At the age of 19, Bushnell moved to New York City and sold a children's story (which was never published) to Simon & Schuster. She continued writing and worked as a freelance journalist for various publications, struggling to make ends meet for many years. Bushnell began writing for "The New York Observer" in 1993. She created a humorous column for the paper (1994–1996) called "Sex and the City". The column was based on her own personal dating experiences and those of her friends. In 1997, Bushnell's columns were published in an anthology, also called "Sex and the City," and soon after became the basis for the popular HBO television series sharing the same name. The series aired from 1998 through 2004, and starred Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, a socially active New York City sex and lifestyles columnist, a character whom Bushnell has stated was her alter ego. The series entered syndication and was also made into two films: "Sex and the City" (2008) and "Sex and the City 2" (2010). A third film was announced in December 2016, but was ultimately cancelled and replaced by the sequel miniseries, "And Just Like That…", on HBO Max. Bushnell went on to publish several international and "The New York Times" Bestselling novels, including "Four Blondes", "Trading Up", "Lipstick Jungle" and "One Fifth Avenue".


title: Candace Bushnell

text: In 2005, Bushnell served as one of three judges for the reality television show "Wickedly Perfect" on CBS. Bushnell began hosting a live weekly talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio in 2007. The show, called "Sex, Success and Sensibility," was canceled in late 2008 after the merger of Sirius and XM Satellite Radio, when Bushnell was asked to continue the show with a 50% pay cut and refused. She is the winner of the 2006 Matrix Award for books, and a recipient of the Albert Einstein Spirit of Achievement Award. In 2009 she wrote a web series, The Broadroom, a comedic series about women over 40 dealing with workplace issues, starring Jennie Garth which was created in partnership with the magazine publisher Meredith Corporation's "Meredith 360" division.


title: Candace Bushnell

text: Bushnell's 2005 novel, "Lipstick Jungle," was adapted for television and aired on NBC in 2008. The series "Lipstick Jungle" starred Brooke Shields in the leading role, and ran for 20 episodes. In 2009, she wrote articles for Meredith's "More" magazine.


title: Candace Bushnell

text: Bushnell was contracted by HarperCollins in 2008 to write a series of two books for young adults, about the high school years of "Sex and the City" character Carrie Bradshaw. The first of these, "The Carrie Diaries," was published in April 2010. The other, "Summer and the City (Carrie Diaries Series #2)," was published in April 2011. "The Carrie Diaries" was a number one "New York Times" Bestseller.


title: Candace Bushnell

text: In 2012 Bushnell was sued in federal court by her former friend and manager Clifford Streit who claimed that Bushnell reneged on a prior settlement in which she agreed to pay him 7.5 percent of anything she earned from the "Sex and the City" TV series and the two "Sex and the City" movies, an amount Streit estimated at least $150,000.


title: Candace Bushnell

text: From 2002 to 2012, Bushnell was married to Charles Askegard, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet who was ten years her junior, and whom she had met eight weeks before. They decided to divorce in 2011. She found the experience disorienting, telling "The Guardian", "When I got divorced, I couldn’t get a mortgage; I didn’t fit into a computer model. All of a sudden, I was invited to no more couple things. Being single is hard and there’s something a bit heroic about it."


title: Candace Bushnell

text: She owned a co-op in Greenwich Village until 2015. From 2005 to 2016 she owned an historic Victorian farmhouse in Roxbury, CT. In 2016, she bought a co-op on East 74th Street in Manhattan.


title: Soggy biscuit

text: Soggy biscuit (also known as ookie cookie, limp biscuit, wet biscuit, shoot the cookie, jizzcuit, or cum on a cookie) is a male group masturbation activity in which the participants stand around a biscuit (UK) or cookie (US) masturbating and ejaculating onto it; the last person to do so must eat the biscuit. Additionally, a participant who fails to hit the biscuit when he ejaculates must then eat it. The game is reportedly played by adolescents, notably in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. In Australia, it is also known as soggy SAO after the SAO brand of biscuits that are popular there.


title: Soggy biscuit

text: Soggy biscuit is not necessarily associated with homosexuality, since the game does not require sexual contact; the idea and practice of the game is in keeping with the spirit of adolescent sexual exploration associated by many in the UK with public schools first played in Linwood Renfrewshire


title: Soggy biscuit

text: The game has been featured in popular culture, including Stephen Fry's "The Liar", the German film "Crazy", the 2006 film "Sleeping Dogs Lie", the "Chains" episode of "Blackadder II", the "Freaks & Greeks" episode of "Drawn Together", the "Sleepover" episode of "Big Mouth", "The Patent Troll" episode of "Silicon Valley", the rock band Limp Bizkit, and Skinless's song "Scum Cookie".


title: Soggy biscuit

text: According to the book "Law of the Playground", 1,866 men were asked: "How close have you got to the game of soggy biscuit, in which you race to wank onto a cracker?" Of the respondents, 6.2% reportedly admitted to having played the game.


title: Soggy biscuit

text: In November 2011, "The Eagle-Tribune" reported that police were investigating claims that two Andover High School (Massachusetts) basketball players were hazed by older team members into playing the game. In January 2012, it was reported that two students had been expelled over the incident and a further five were suspended. A grand jury was convened to determine if any of the students should be charged criminally.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: Youri Raffi Djorkaeff (born 9 March 1968) is a French former professional footballer who played as an attacking midfielder or forward.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: Throughout his club career, he played for teams in France, Italy, Germany, England, and the United States.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: At international level, Djorkaeff scored 28 goals in 82 appearances with the French national team between 1993 and 2002. He won the 1998 FIFA World Cup, Euro 2000, and the 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup, also taking part at Euro 1996 and the 2002 FIFA World Cup. He is the son of former player Jean Djorkaeff. On hanging up his boots in 2006 and after having played in France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom and the US, Youri devoted himself to social projects, which eventually led him to establish the Youri Djorkaeff Foundation in 2014. He currently holds the position of CEO of the FIFA Foundation, following his appointment in September 2019.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: Djorkaeff was born in Lyon, to a French father of Polish and Kalmyk origin, Jean Djorkaeff, and an Armenian mother, Mary Ohanian, in Lyon.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: Djorkaeff started his career in 1984 with French club Grenoble, before moving to RC Strasbourg in 1989, AS Monaco in 1990, and then Paris Saint-Germain in 1995. In 1994, Djorkaeff led Division 1 in goals with 20. He won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup with PSG in 1996.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: In 1996, he signed with Italian club Inter Milan. In his first season, he scored 17 goals in 49 appearances across all competitions, scoring 14 goals in 33 Serie A appearances; with his excellent performances, he helped the club to a third–place finish in Serie A, and also reached the UEFA Cup Final, in which Inter were defeated by Schalke on penalties following a 1–1 draw on aggregate, although Djorkaeff was able to net his spot kick. During the course of the season, he also scored a memorable goal from a bicycle kick in a 3–1 home win against Roma in the league, on 5 January 1997, which is considered to be one of the greatest goals scored in the club's history. His following season was less successful individually, as he struggled to play well alongside the club's new signing Ronaldo, although collectively Inter finished the season in second place in Serie A and won the UEFA Cup, defeating Lazio 3–0 in the final at the Parc des Princes. In his third and final season with the team, following the signing of Roberto Baggio, he also struggled to find space in the team, and suffered a further loss of form; moreover, the club eventually finished the season in eighth place, outside of all possible European qualifying spots.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: In 1999, he transferred to Germany and Kaiserslautern, helping them to the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup in 2001.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: Djorkaeff turned many heads when signing with English club Bolton Wanderers in 2002, but added a lot of class to the team during his three seasons there, resulting in the creation of an international "dream-team" alongside the tricky Nigerian Jay-Jay Okocha, and former Real Madrid midfielder Iván Campo. He was a member of the squad that reached the final of the 2003–04 League Cup. He then transferred to Blackburn Rovers but left the club after playing in only three games.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: Djorkaeff then signed with the MetroStars of Major League Soccer in February 2005, turning down higher paid offers from other countries. He became the first French player to play in MLS and ended the season as the team's MVP with ten goals and seven assists in league play.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: Djorkaeff announced from the beginning that he would hang-up his boots at the end of 2006 season, and played for the re-branded New York Red Bulls. On 1 July 2006, he was spotted in the crowd with French fans at the FIFA World Cup quarter-final match between France and Brazil after telling Red Bulls officials he left the club to attend to "an unexpected, serious family matter in France." Upon his return, he revealed that the purpose of his departure was to be with his sick mother and downplayed watching the World Cup match.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: Djorkaeff accumulated 82 caps and scored 28 goals for France at senior level between 1993 and 2002. Other than the two major tournaments he won with the national side – the 1998 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2000 – Djorkaeff also played for his country in UEFA Euro 1996 and the 2002 FIFA World Cup. In the 1998 FIFA World Cup Final in Paris, he set-up Zinedine Zidane's second goal from a corner in an eventual 3–0 victory over defending champions Brazil.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: Nicknamed "The Snake", due to his ability to get past defenders and bend the ball, Djorkaeff was a talented playmaker, who usually played as an attacking midfielder, although he was also capable of playing in deeper positions in midfield on occasion – namely as a central midfielder –, or in more attacking roles, as a creative second striker, or even as an outright striker, while he often featured in a wide role on the left flank at international level. An elegant and technically gifted player, he was mainly known for his flair, dribbling skills, and excellent touch on the ball; he was also known for his vision, passing, composure, and class, and possessed a good shot, which enabled him both to score and create goals. He was known for his positional sense and intelligent movement off the ball, as well as his ability to lose his markers with his attacking runs and create space for himself, or provide depth to the team; he was also highly regarded for his accuracy from free kicks and penalties with his right foot. A hard-working player, who was known for his defensive contribution off the ball, he had the ability to link the defence with the attack or drift out wide in a free role in midfield; as such, his playing style and role has been described as that of a "nine and a half," half-way between that of a midfielder and that of a forward, which from a tactical standpoint, however, occasionally made it difficult for managers to find the right position for him on the pitch that best suited his capabilities. Moreover, despite his talent and success, he was also accused of being inconsistent at times in the media.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: Djorkaeff has a wife, Sophie, and three children: Sacha, Oan and Angelica. Djorkaeff released a singing single called "Vivre dans Ta Lumière", translated to "Living in Your Light" from French. His father, Jean, and younger brother, Micha Djorkaeff, were also professional football players.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: On 15 November 2012 Djorkaeff hosted Phone-a-thon for Armenian charity held in Europe. The Phoneathon benefits the construction of community centres in villages throughout Nagorno Karabakh and comprehensive agricultural development in Armenia's Tavush Region. In addition, a part of the proceeds will be dedicated to providing urgent aid to the Syrian-Armenian community.


title: Youri Djorkaeff

text: During his time in England, Djorkaeff opened a football school in Armenia. After retiring, he became the president of his childhood club in Lyon, Union Generale Armenienne de Decines, in April 2007. Djorkaeff currently also runs the Youri Djorkaeff Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to providing football programs in New York City.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Llywelyn the Great (, ; full name Llywelyn mab Iorwerth; c. 117311 April 1240) was a King of Gwynedd in north Wales and eventually "Prince of the Welsh" (in 1228) and "Prince of Wales" (in 1240). By a combination of war and diplomacy he dominated Wales for 45 years.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: During Llywelyn's childhood, Gwynedd was ruled by two of his uncles, who split the kingdom between them, following the death of Llywelyn's grandfather, Owain Gwynedd, in 1170. Llywelyn had a strong claim to be the legitimate ruler and began a campaign to win power at an early age. He was sole ruler of Gwynedd by 1200 and made a treaty with King John of England that year. Llywelyn's relations with John remained good for the next ten years. He married John's natural daughter Joan in 1205, and when John arrested Gwenwynwyn of Powys in 1208, Llywelyn took the opportunity to annex southern Powys. In 1210, relations deteriorated, and John invaded Gwynedd in 1211. Llywelyn was forced to seek terms and to give up all lands east of the River Conwy, but was able to recover them the following year in alliance with the other Welsh princes. He allied himself with the barons who forced John to sign Magna Carta in 1215. By 1216, he was the dominant power in Wales, holding a council at Aberdyfi that year to apportion lands to the other princes.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Following King John's death, Llywelyn concluded the Treaty of Worcester with his successor, Henry III, in 1218. During the next fifteen years, Llywelyn was frequently involved in fights with Marcher lords and sometimes with the king, but also made alliances with several major powers in the Marches. The Peace of Middle in 1234 marked the end of Llywelyn's military career, as the agreed truce of two years was extended year by year for the remainder of his reign. He maintained his position in Wales until his death in 1240 and was succeeded by his son Dafydd ap Llywelyn.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Llywelyn was born about 1173, the son of Iorwerth ab Owain and the grandson of Owain Gwynedd, who had been ruler of Gwynedd until his death in 1170. Llywelyn was a descendant of the senior line of Rhodri Mawr and therefore a member of the princely house of Gwynedd. He was probably born at Dolwyddelan the royal manor of Nanyconwy, though not in the present Dolwyddelan Castle, which was built by Llywelyn himself. He may have been born in the old castle which occupied a rocky knoll on the valley floor.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Little is known about his father, Iorwerth Drwyndwn, who died when Llywelyn was an infant. There is no record of Iorwerth having taken part in the power struggle between some of Owain Gwynedd's other sons following Owain's death, although he was the eldest surviving son. There is a tradition that he was disabled or disfigured in some way that excluded him from power.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: J. E. Lloyd states that Iorwerth was killed in battle at Pennant Melangell, in Powys, in 1174 during the wars deciding the succession following the death of his father.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: By 1175, Gwynedd had been divided between two of Llywelyn's uncles. Dafydd ab Owain held the area east of the River Conwy and Rhodri ab Owain held the west. Dafydd and Rhodri were the sons of Owain by his second marriage to Cristin verch Goronwy. This marriage was not considered valid by the church as Cristin was Owain's first cousin, a degree of relationship which according to Canon law prohibited marriage. The chronicler Gerald of Wales refers to Iorwerth Drwyndwn as the only legitimate son of Owain Gwynedd. Following Iorwerth's death, Llywelyn was, at least in the eyes of the church, the legitimate claimant to the throne of Gwynedd.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Llywelyn's mother was Marared, occasionally anglicised to Margaret, daughter of Madog ap Maredudd, prince of Powys. There is evidence that after Iorwerth's death Marared married into the Corbet family of Caux in Shropshire, and Llywelyn may have spent part of his childhood there. There is in existence a grant of land from Llywelyn ab Iorworth to the monastery of Wigmore, in which Llywelyn indicates his mother was a member of the house of Corbet.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: In his account of his journey around Wales in 1188, Gerald mentions that the young Llywelyn was already in arms against his uncles Dafydd and Rhodri;


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: In 1194, with the aid of his cousins Gruffudd ap Cynan and Maredudd ap Cynan, he defeated Dafydd at the Battle of Aberconwy at the mouth of the River Conwy.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Rhodri died in 1195, and his lands west of the Conwy were taken over by Gruffudd and Maredudd while Llywelyn ruled the territories taken from Dafydd east of the Conwy. In 1197, Llywelyn captured Dafydd and imprisoned him. A year later Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, persuaded Llywelyn to release him, and Dafydd retired to England where he died in May 1203.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Wales was divided into "Pura Wallia", the areas ruled by the Welsh princes, and "Marchia Wallia", ruled by the Anglo-Norman barons. Since the death of Owain Gwynedd in 1170, Rhys ap Gruffydd had made the southern kingdom of Deheubarth the strongest of the Welsh kingdoms, and had established himself as the leader of "Pura Wallia". After Rhys died in 1197, fighting between his sons led to the splitting of Deheubarth between warring factions. Gwenwynwyn, prince of Powys Wenwynwyn, tried to take over as leader of the Welsh princes, and in 1198, raised a great army to besiege Painscastle, which was held by the troops of William de Braose, Lord of Bramber. Llywelyn sent troops to help Gwenwynwyn, but in August Gwenwynwyn's force was attacked by an army led by the Justiciar, Geoffrey Fitz Peter, and heavily defeated. Gwenwynwyn's defeat gave Llywelyn the opportunity to establish himself as the leader of the Welsh. In 1199, he captured the important castle of Mold and was apparently using the title "prince of the whole of North Wales" (). Llywelyn was probably not in fact master of all Gwynedd at this time since it was his cousin Gruffudd ap Cynan who promised homage to King John for Gwynedd in 1199.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Gruffudd ap Cynan died in 1200 and left Llywelyn the undisputed ruler of Gwynedd. In 1201, he took Eifionydd and Llŷn from Maredudd ap Cynan on a charge of treachery. In July, the same year Llywelyn concluded a treaty with King John of England. This is the earliest surviving written agreement between an English king and a Welsh ruler, and under its terms Llywelyn was to swear fealty and do homage to the king. In return, it confirmed Llywelyn's possession of his conquests and allowed cases relating to lands claimed by Llywelyn to be heard under Welsh law.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Llywelyn made his first move beyond the borders of Gwynedd in August 1202 when he raised a force to attack Gwenwynwyn ab Owain of Powys, who was now his main rival in Wales. The clergy intervened to make peace between Llywelyn and Gwenwynwyn and the invasion was called off. Elise ap Madog, lord of Penllyn, had refused to respond to Llywelyn's summons to arms and was stripped of almost all his lands by Llywelyn as punishment.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Llywelyn consolidated his position in 1205 by marrying Joan, the natural daughter of King John. He had previously been negotiating with Pope Innocent III for leave to marry his uncle Rhodri's widow, daughter of Rǫgnvaldr Guðrøðarson, King of the Isles. However this proposal was dropped.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: In 1208, Gwenwynwyn of Powys fell out with King John who summoned him to Shrewsbury in October and then arrested him and stripped him of his lands. Llywelyn took the opportunity to annex southern Powys and northern Ceredigion and rebuild Aberystwyth Castle. In the summer of 1209 he accompanied John on a campaign against King William I of Scotland.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: In 1210, relations between Llywelyn and King John deteriorated. J. E. Lloyd suggests that the rupture may have been due to Llywelyn forming an alliance with William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber, who had fallen out with the king and had been deprived of his lands. While John led a campaign against de Braose and his allies in Ireland, an army led by Earl Ranulph of Chester, and Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, invaded Gwynedd. Llywelyn destroyed his own castle at Deganwy and retreated west of the River Conwy. The Earl of Chester rebuilt Deganwy, and Llywelyn retaliated by ravaging the earl's lands. John sent troops to help restore Gwenwynwyn to the rule of southern Powys. In 1211, John invaded Gwynedd with the aid of almost all the other Welsh princes, planning according to "Brut y Tywysogion" "to dispossess Llywelyn and destroy him utterly". The first invasion was forced to retreat, but in August that year John invaded again with a larger army, crossed the River Conwy and penetrated Snowdonia. Bangor was burnt by a detachment of the royal army and the Bishop of Bangor captured. Llywelyn was forced to come to terms, and by the advice of his council sent his wife Joan to negotiate with the king, her father. Joan was able to persuade her father not to dispossess her husband completely, but Llywelyn lost all his lands east of the River Conwy. He also had to pay a large tribute in cattle and horses and to hand over hostages, including his illegitimate son Gruffydd, and was forced to agree that if he died without a legitimate heir by Joan, all his lands would revert to the king.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: This was the low point of Llywelyn's reign, but he quickly recovered his position. The other Welsh princes, who had supported King John against Llywelyn, soon became disillusioned with John's rule and changed sides. Llywelyn formed an alliance with Gwenwynwyn of Powys and the two main rulers of Deheubarth, Maelgwn ap Rhys and Rhys Gryg, and rose against John. They had the support of Pope Innocent III, who had been engaged in a dispute with John for several years and had placed his kingdom under an interdict. Innocent released Llywelyn, Gwenwynwyn and Maelgwn from all oaths of loyalty to John and lifted the interdict in the territories which they controlled. Llywelyn was able to recover all Gwynedd apart from the castles of Deganwy and Rhuddlan within two months in 1212.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: John planned another invasion of Gwynedd in August 1212. According to one account, he had just commenced by hanging some of the Welsh hostages given the previous year when he received two letters. One was from his daughter Joan, Llywelyn's wife, the other from William I of Scotland, and both warned him in similar terms that if he invaded Wales his magnates would seize the opportunity to kill him or hand him over to his enemies. The invasion was abandoned, and in 1213, Llywelyn took the castles of Deganwy and Rhuddlan. Llywelyn made an alliance with Philip II Augustus of France, then allied himself with the barons who were in rebellion against John, marching on Shrewsbury and capturing it without resistance in 1215. When John was forced to sign Magna Carta, Llywelyn was rewarded with several favourable provisions relating to Wales, including the release of his son, Gruffydd, who had been a hostage since 1211. The same year, Ednyfed Fychan was appointed seneschal of Gwynedd and was to work closely with Llywelyn for the remainder of his reign.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Llywelyn had now established himself as the leader of the independent princes of Wales, and in December 1215, led an army which included all the lesser princes to capture the castles of Carmarthen, Kidwelly, Llanstephan, Cardigan and Cilgerran. Another indication of his growing power was that he was able to insist on the consecration of Welshmen to two vacant sees that year, Iorwerth, as Bishop of St. David's, and Cadwgan, as Bishop of Bangor.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: In 1216, Llywelyn held a council at Aberdyfi to adjudicate on the territorial claims of the lesser princes, who affirmed their homage and allegiance to Llywelyn. Beverley Smith comments: "The leader in military alliance assumed the role of lord, his erstwhile allies were now his vassals." Gwenwynwyn of Powys changed sides again that year and allied himself with King John. Llywelyn called up the other princes for a campaign against him and drove him out of southern Powys once more. Gwenwynwyn died in England later that year, leaving an underage heir. King John also died that year, and he also left an underage heir in King Henry III with a minority government set up in England.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: In 1217, Reginald de Braose of Brecon and Abergavenny, who had been allied to Llywelyn and married his daughter, Gwladus Ddu, was induced by the English crown to change sides. Llywelyn responded by invading his lands, first threatening Brecon, where the burgesses offered hostages for the payment of 100 marks, then heading for Swansea where Reginald de Braose met him to offer submission and to surrender the town. He then continued westwards to threaten Haverfordwest where the burgesses offered hostages for their submission to his rule or the payment of a fine of 1,000 marks.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Following King John's death Llywelyn concluded the Treaty of Worcester with his successor Henry III in 1218. This treaty confirmed him in possession of all his recent conquests. From then until his death Llywelyn was the dominant force in Wales, though there were further outbreaks of hostilities with marcher lords, particularly the Marshall family and Hubert de Burgh, and sometimes with the king. Llywelyn built up marriage alliances with several of the Marcher families. One daughter, Gwladus Ddu, ("Gwladus the Dark") was already married to Reginald de Braose of Brecon and Abergavenny, but with Reginald an unreliable ally Llywelyn married another daughter, Marared, to John de Braose of Gower, Reginald's nephew. He found a loyal ally in Ranulph, Earl of Chester, whose nephew and heir, John the Scot, married Llywelyn's daughter Elen in about 1222. Following Reginald de Braose's death in 1228, Llywelyn also made an alliance with the powerful Mortimer family of Wigmore when Gwladus Ddu married as her second husband Ralph de Mortimer.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Llywelyn was careful not to provoke unnecessary hostilities with the crown or the Marcher lords; for example in 1220, he compelled Rhys Gryg to return four commotes in South Wales to their previous Anglo-Norman owners. He built a number of castles to defend his borders, most thought to have been built between 1220 and 1230. These were the first sophisticated stone castles in Wales; his castles at Criccieth, Deganwy, Dolbadarn, Dolwyddelan and Castell y Bere are among the best examples. Llywelyn also appears to have fostered the development of quasi-urban settlements in Gwynedd to act as centres of trade.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Hostilities broke out with William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, in 1220. Llywelyn destroyed the castles of Narberth and Wiston, burnt the town of Haverfordwest and threatened Pembroke Castle, but agreed to abandon the attack on payment of £100. In early 1223, Llywelyn crossed the border into Shropshire and captured Kinnerley and Whittington castles. The Marshalls took advantage of Llywelyn's involvement here to land near St David's in April with an army raised in Ireland and recaptured Cardigan and Carmarthen without opposition. The Marshalls' campaign was supported by a royal army which took possession of Montgomery. Llywelyn came to an agreement with the king at Montgomery in October that year. Llywelyn's allies in south Wales were given back lands taken from them by the Marshalls and Llywelyn himself gave up his conquests in Shropshire.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: In 1228, Llywelyn was engaged in a campaign against Hubert de Burgh, who was Justiciar of England and Ireland and one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. Hubert had been given the lordship and castle of Montgomery by the king and was encroaching on Llywelyn's lands nearby. The king raised an army to help Hubert, who began to build another castle in the commote of Ceri. However, in October the royal army was obliged to retreat and Henry agreed to destroy the half-built castle in exchange for the payment of £2,000 by Llywelyn. Llywelyn raised the money by demanding the same sum as the ransom of William de Braose, Lord of Abergavenny, whom he had captured in the fighting.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Following his capture, William de Braose decided to ally himself to Llywelyn, and a marriage was arranged between his daughter Isabella and Llywelyn's heir, Dafydd ap Llywelyn. At Easter 1230, William visited Llywelyn's court. During this visit he was found in Llywelyn's chamber together with Llywelyn's wife Joan. On 2 May, de Braose was hanged; Joan was placed under house arrest for a year. The "Brut y Tywysogion" chronicler commented: "that year William de Breos the Younger, lord of Brycheiniog, was hanged by the lord Llywelyn in Gwynedd, after he had been caught in Llywelyn's chamber with the king of England's daughter, Llywelyn's wife."


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: A letter from Llywelyn to William's wife, Eva de Braose, written shortly after the execution enquires whether she still wishes the marriage between Dafydd and Isabella to take place. The marriage did go ahead, and the following year Joan was forgiven and restored to her position as princess.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Until 1230, Llywelyn had used the title "princeps Norwalliæ" 'Prince of North Wales', but from that year he changed his title to 'Prince of North Wales and Lord of Snowdonia', possibly to underline his supremacy over the other Welsh princes. He did not formally style himself 'Prince of Wales' although as J. E. Lloyd comments "he had much of the power which such a title might imply."


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: In 1231, there was further fighting. Llywelyn was becoming concerned about the growing power of Hubert de Burgh. Some of his men had been taken prisoner by the garrison of Montgomery and beheaded, and Llywelyn responded by burning Montgomery, Powys, New Radnor, Hay, and Brecon before turning west to capture the castles of Neath and Kidwelly. He completed the campaign by recapturing Cardigan castle. King Henry retaliated by launching an invasion and built a new castle at Painscastle, but was unable to penetrate far into Wales.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Negotiations continued into 1232, when Hubert was removed from office and later imprisoned. Much of his power passed to Peter de Rivaux, including control of several castles in south Wales. William Marshal had died in 1231, and his brother Richard had succeeded him as Earl of Pembroke. In 1233, hostilities broke out between Richard Marshal and Peter de Rivaux, who was supported by the king. Llywelyn made an alliance with Richard, and in January 1234 the earl and Llywelyn seized Shrewsbury. Richard was killed in Ireland in April, but the king agreed to make peace with the insurgents. The Peace of Middle, agreed on 21 June, established a truce of two years with Llywelyn, who was allowed to retain Cardigan and Builth. This truce was renewed year by year for the remainder of Llywelyn's reign.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: In his later years, Llywelyn devoted much effort to ensuring that his only legitimate son, Dafydd, would follow him as ruler of Gwynedd and amended Welsh law as followed in Gwynedd. Llywelyn's amendment to Welsh law favouring legitimate children in a Church-sanctioned marriage mirrored the earlier efforts of the Lord Rhys, Prince of Deheubarth, in designating Gruffydd ap Rhys II as his heir over those of his illegitimate eldest son, Maelgwn ap Rhys. In both cases, favouring legitimate children born in a Church sanctioned marriage would facilitate better relations between their sons and the wider Anglo-Norman polity and Catholic Church by removing any "stigma" of illegitimacy. Dafydd's older but illegitimate brother, Gruffydd, was therefore excluded as the primary heir of Llywelyn, though would be given lands to rule. This was a departure from Welsh custom, which held that the eldest son was his father's heir regardless of his parents' marital status.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: In 1220, Llywelyn induced the minority government of King Henry to acknowledge Dafydd as his heir. In 1222, he petitioned Pope Honorius III to have Dafydd's succession confirmed. The original petition has not been preserved but the Pope's reply refers to the "detestable custom... in his land whereby the son of the handmaiden was equally heir with the son of the free woman and illegitimate sons obtained an inheritance as if they were legitimate". The Pope welcomed the fact that Llywelyn was abolishing this custom. In 1226, Llywelyn persuaded the Pope to declare his wife Joan, Dafydd's mother, to be a legitimate daughter of King John, again in order to strengthen Dafydd's position, and in 1229, the English crown accepted Dafydd's homage for the lands he would inherit from his father. In 1238, Llywelyn held a council at Strata Florida Abbey where the other Welsh princes swore fealty to Dafydd. Llywelyn's original intention had been that they should do homage to Dafydd, but the king wrote to the other rulers forbidding them to do homage. Additionally, Prince Llywelyn arranged for his son Dafydd to marry Isabella de Braose, eldest daughter of William de Braose. As William de Braose had no male heir, Llywelyn strategized that the vast de Braose holdings in south Wales would pass to the heir of Dafydd with Isabella.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Gruffydd was given an appanage in Meirionnydd and Ardudwy but his rule was said to be oppressive, and in 1221 Llywelyn stripped him of these territories. In 1228, Llywelyn imprisoned him, and he was not released until 1234. On his release, he was given part of Llŷn to rule. His performance this time was apparently more satisfactory and by 1238 he had been given the remainder of Llŷn and a substantial part of Powys.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Joan died in 1237 and Llywelyn appears to have suffered a paralytic stroke the same year. From this time on, his heir Dafydd took an increasing part in the rule of the principality. Dafydd deprived his half-brother Gruffydd of the lands given him by Llywelyn, and later seized him and his eldest son Owain and held them in Criccieth Castle. The chronicler of "Brut y Tywysogion" records that in 1240, "the lord Llywelyn ap Iorwerth son of Owain Gwynedd, Prince of Wales, a second Achilles, died having taken on the habit of religion at Aberconwy, and was buried honourably."


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Llywelyn died at the Cistercian abbey of Aberconwy, which he had founded, and was buried there. This abbey was later moved to Maenan, becoming the Maenan Abbey, near Llanrwst, and Llywelyn's stone coffin can now be seen in St Grwst's Church, Llanrwst. Among the poets who lamented his passing was Einion Wan:


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Dafydd succeeded Llywelyn as prince of Gwynedd, but King Henry was not prepared to allow him to inherit his father's position in the remainder of Wales. Dafydd was forced to agree to a treaty greatly restricting his power and was also obliged to hand his half-brother Gruffydd over to the king, who now had the option of using him against Dafydd. Gruffydd was killed attempting to escape from the Tower of London in 1244. This left the field clear for Dafydd, but Dafydd himself died with illegitimate and underage issue in 1246 and was eventually succeeded by his nephew, Gruffydd's son, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Llywelyn dominated Wales for more than 40 years, and was one of only two Welsh rulers to be called "the Great", the other being his ancestor Rhodri the Great. The first person to give Llywelyn the title "the Great" seems to have been his near-contemporary, the English chronicler Matthew Paris.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: J. E. Lloyd gave the following assessment of Llywelyn: Among the chieftains who battled against the Anglo-Norman power his place will always be high, if not indeed the highest of all, for no man ever made better or more judicious use of the native force of the Welsh people for adequate national ends; his patriotic statesmanship will always entitle him to wear the proud style of Llywelyn the Great.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: David Moore gives a different view: When Llywelyn died in 1240 his "principatus" of Wales rested on shaky foundations. Although he had dominated Wales, exacted unprecedented submissions and raised the status of the prince of Gwynedd to new heights, his three major ambitionsa permanent hegemony, its recognition by the king, and its inheritance in its entirety by his heirremained unfulfilled. His supremacy, like that of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, had been merely personal in nature, and there was no institutional framework to maintain it either during his lifetime or after his death.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Llywelyn married Joan, natural daughter of King John of England, in 1205. Llywelyn and Joan had three identified children in the records but in all probability had more, as Llywelyn's children were fully recognized during his marriage to Joan whilst his father-in-law, King John, was alive. Little is known of Llywelyn's mistress, Tangwystl Goch, except that she was the daughter of Llywarch "Goch" of Rhos. The identity of the mother of some of Llywelyn's children before this union is uncertain, but the following are recorded in contemporary or near-contemporary records.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: A number of Welsh poems addressed to Llywelyn by contemporary poets such as Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr, Dafydd Benfras and Llywarch ap Llywelyn (better known under the nickname "Prydydd y Moch") have survived. Very little of this poetry has been published in English translation.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: Llywelyn has continued to figure in modern Welsh literature. The play Siwan (1956, English translation 1960) by Saunders Lewis deals with the finding of William de Braose in Joan's chamber and his execution by Llywelyn. Another well-known Welsh play about Llywelyn is "Llywelyn Fawr" by Thomas Parry.


title: Llywelyn the Great

text: The story of the faithful hound Gelert, owned by Llywelyn and mistakenly killed by him, is also considered to be fiction. "Gelert's grave" is a popular tourist attraction in Beddgelert but is thought to have been created by an 18th-century innkeeper to boost the tourist trade. The tale itself is a variation on a common folktale motif.


title: Snake River

text: The Snake River is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest region in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, in turn, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Snake River rises in western Wyoming, then flows through the Snake River Plain of southern Idaho, the rugged Hells Canyon on the Oregon–Idaho border and the rolling Palouse Hills of Washington, emptying into the Columbia River at the Tri-Cities in the Columbia Basin of Eastern Washington.


title: Snake River

text: The Snake River drainage basin encompasses parts of six U.S. states (Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming) and is known for its varied geologic history. The Snake River Plain was created by a volcanic hotspot which now lies underneath the Snake River headwaters in Yellowstone National Park. Gigantic glacial-retreat flooding episodes during the previous Ice Age carved out canyons, cliffs, and waterfalls along the middle and lower Snake River. Two of these catastrophic flooding events, the Missoula Floods and Bonneville Flood, significantly affected the river and its surroundings.


title: Snake River

text: Native Americans have lived along the Snake for more than 11,000 years. Salmon from the Pacific Ocean spawned by the millions in the river and were a vital resource for people living on the Snake downstream of Shoshone Falls. By the time Lewis and Clark explored the area, the Nez Perce and Shoshone were the dominant Native American groups in the region. Later explorers and fur trappers further changed and used the resources of the Snake River basin. At one point, the sign language used by the Shoshones representing weaving baskets was misinterpreted to represent a snake, giving the Snake River its name.


title: Snake River

text: By the middle 19th century, the Oregon Trail had become well established, bringing numerous settlers to the Snake River region. Steamboats and railroads moved agricultural products and minerals along the river throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Starting in the 1890s, fifteen major dams were built on the Snake River to generate hydroelectricity, enhance navigation, and provide irrigation water. However, these dams blocked salmon migration above Hells Canyon and have led to water quality and environmental issues in certain parts of the river. The removal of several dams on the lower Snake River has been proposed in order to restore some of the river's once-tremendous salmon runs.


title: Snake River

text: Formed by the confluence of three tiny streams on the southwest flank of Two Oceans Plateau in Yellowstone National Park, western Wyoming, the Snake starts out flowing west and south into Jackson Lake. Its first run through Jackson Hole, a wide valley between the Teton Range and the Gros Ventre Range. Below the tourist town of Jackson, the river turns west and flows through Snake River Canyon, cutting through the Snake River Range and into eastern Idaho. It receives the Hoback and Greys Rivers before entering Palisades Reservoir, where the Salt River joins at the mouth of Star Valley. Below Palisades Dam, the Snake River flows through the Snake River Plain, a vast arid physiographic province extending through southern Idaho southwest of the Rocky Mountains and underlain by the Snake River Aquifer, one of the most productive aquifers in the United States.


title: Snake River

text: Southwest of Rexburg, Idaho, the Snake is joined from the north by Henrys Fork. The Henrys Fork is sometimes called the North Fork of the Snake River, with the main Snake above their confluence known as the "South Fork". From there, it turns south, flowing through downtown Idaho Falls, then past the Fort Hall Indian Reservation and into American Falls Reservoir, where it is joined by the Portneuf River. The Portneuf River Valley is an overflow channel that in the last glacial period carried floodwaters from pluvial Lake Bonneville into the Snake River, significantly altering the landscape of the Snake River Plain through massive erosion. From there, the Snake resumes its journey west, entering the Snake River Canyon of Idaho. It is interrupted by several major cataracts, the largest being Shoshone Falls, which historically marked the upriver limit of migrating salmon. A short distance downstream it passes under the Perrine Bridge. Near Twin Falls, the Snake approaches the southernmost point in its entire course, after which it starts to flow west-northwest.


title: Snake River

text: The Snake continues through its canyon, receiving the Malad River from the east near Bliss and then the Bruneau River from the south in C.J. Strike Reservoir. It passes through an agricultural valley about southwest of Boise and flows briefly west into Oregon, before turning north to define the Idaho–Oregon border. Here the Snake River almost doubles in size as it receives several major tributaries – the Owyhee from the southwest, then the Boise and Payette rivers from the east, and farther downstream the Malheur River from the west and Weiser River from the east. North of Boise, the Snake enters Hells Canyon, a steep, spectacular, rapid-strewn gorge that cuts through the Salmon River Mountains and Blue Mountains of Idaho and Oregon. Hells Canyon is one of the most rugged and treacherous portions of the course of the Snake River, posing a major obstacle for 19th-century American explorers. Here the Snake is also impounded by Hells Canyon, Oxbow, and Brownlee Dams, which together make up the Hells Canyon Hydroelectric Project.


title: Snake River

text: At the halfway point in Hells Canyon, in one of the most remote and inaccessible sections of its course, the Snake River is joined from the east by its largest tributary, the Salmon River. From there, the Snake begins to form the Washington–Idaho border, receiving the Grande Ronde River from the west before receiving the Clearwater River from the east at Lewiston, which marks the head of navigation on the Snake. The river leaves Hells Canyon and turns west, winding through the Palouse Hills of eastern Washington. The Lower Snake River Project's four dams and navigation locks have transformed this part of the Snake River into a series of reservoirs. The confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers at Burbank, Washington is part of Lake Wallula, the reservoir of McNary Dam. The Columbia River flows about farther west to the Pacific Ocean near Astoria, Oregon.


title: Snake River

text: Most of western North America was drowned by shallow seas off and on from around 800–200 million years ago. This was the accumulation phase of the mountain building cycle, where mostly sedimentary rocks accumulate as the seafloor subsides. The western edge of North America was a passive continental margin and therefore was not near a plate boundary. 180 million years ago, the tectonic setting of western North America changed to an active continental margin, and a convergent plate boundary formed, which crumpled the deposits from the accumulation phase into fold-thrust mountain ranges. Plate convergence gave rise to the Coastal Ranges and then to the Rocky Mountains due to friction between the Farallon Plate sinking beneath the North American Plate. Another tectonic player is the Yellowstone hotspot, which is a large plume of partially molten material lodged in the mantle. As the North American Plate moved west–southwest over the hot spot, massive amounts of basaltic lava were extruded onto the crust. A load of these dense lava flows bent down the crust immediately below it, and the mountains formed earlier to make the WSW-ENE oriented trough known as the Snake River Plain. The river did not carve the Snake River Plain, but rather the Snake River took the course of least resistance and followed the path formed by the hot spot through the Rocky Mountains. The first lava flows started pouring out in what is now the western part of the Snake River Plain and is still extruding in the eastern part of the plain. Even larger lava flows of Columbia River basalts issued over eastern Washington, forming the Columbia Plateau southeast of the Columbia River and the Palouse Hills in the lower Snake. Separate volcanic activity formed the northwestern portion of the plain, an area far from the path of the hotspot The hot spot now resides beneath Yellowstone National Park. The heat from the molten rock beneath the park domes the crust up to form the Yellowstone Plateau


title: Snake River

text: The Snake River Plain and the gap between the Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Range together formed a "moisture channel," opening the way for Pacific storms to travel more than inland to the headwaters of the Snake River. When the Teton Range uplifted about 9 million years ago along a detachment fault running north–south through the central Rockies, the river maintained its original course and cut through the southern end of the mountains, forming the Snake River Canyon of Wyoming. About 6 million years ago, the Salmon River Mountains and Blue Mountains at the far end of the plain began to rise; the river cut through these mountains as well, forming Hells Canyon. Lake Idaho, formed during the Miocene, covered a large portion of the Snake River Plain between Twin Falls and Hells Canyon, and its lava dam was finally breached about 2 million years ago.


title: Snake River

text: Lava flowing from Cedar Butte in present southeast Idaho blocked the Snake River at Eagle Rock about 42,000 years ago, near the present-day site of American Falls Dam. A lake, known as American Falls Lake, formed behind the barrier. The lake was stable and survived for nearly 30,000 years. About 14,500 years ago, pluvial Lake Bonneville in the Great Salt Lake area, formed in the last glacial period, spilled catastrophically down the Portneuf River into the Snake in an event known as the Bonneville flood. This was one of the first in a series of catastrophic flooding events in the Northwest known as the Ice Age Floods.


title: Snake River

text: The deluge caused American Falls Lake to breach its natural lava dam, which was rapidly eroded with only the American Falls left in the end. The flood waters of Lake Bonneville, approximately twenty times the flow of the Columbia River or 5 million ft/s (140,000 m/s), swept down the Snake River and across the entirety of southern Idaho. For miles on either side of the river, flood waters stripped away soils and scoured the underlying basalt bedrock, transforming the region into channeled scablands forming the Snake River Canyon and creating Shoshone Falls, Twin Falls, Crane Falls, Swan Falls and other waterfalls along the Idaho section of the river. The Bonneville flood waters continued through Hells Canyon and eventually reached the Columbia River. The flood widened Hells Canyon but did not deepen it.


title: Snake River

text: As the Bonneville Floods rushed down the Snake River, the Missoula Floods occurred in the same period, but originating farther north. The Missoula Floods, which occurred more than 40 times between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago, were caused by Glacial Lake Missoula on the Clark Fork repeatedly being impounded by ice dams then breaking through, with the lake's water rushing over much of eastern Washington in massive surges far larger than the Lake Bonneville Flood. These floods pooled behind the Cascade Range into enormous lakes and spilled over the northern drainage divide of the Snake River watershed, carving deep canyons through the Palouse Hills including the Palouse River canyon and Palouse Falls. The Lake Bonneville Floods and the Missoula Floods helped widen and deepen the Columbia River Gorge, a giant water gap which allows water from the Columbia and Snake rivers to take a direct route through the Cascade Range to the Pacific.


title: Snake River

text: The massive amounts of sediment deposited by the Lake Bonneville Floods in the Snake River Plain also had a lasting effect on most of the middle Snake River. The high hydraulic conductivity of the mostly-basalt rocks in the plain led to the formation of the Snake River Aquifer, one of the most productive aquifers in North America. Many rivers and streams flowing from the north side of the plain sink into the aquifer instead of flowing into the Snake River, a group of watersheds called the lost streams of Idaho. The aquifer filled to hold nearly of water, underlying about in a plume thick. In places, water exits from rivers at rates of nearly . Much of the water lost by the Snake River as it transects the plain issues back into the river at its western end, by way of many artesian springs.


title: Snake River

text: The Snake River is the thirteenth longest river in the United States. Its watershed is the 10th largest among North American rivers, and covers almost in portions of six U.S. states: Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, and Washington, with the largest portion in Idaho. Most of the Snake River watershed lies between the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Columbia Plateau on the northwest. The largest tributary of the Columbia River, the Snake River watershed makes up about 41% of the entire Columbia River Basin. Its average discharge at the mouth constitutes 31% of the Columbia's flow at that point. Above the confluence, the Snake is slightly longer than the Columbia— compared to —and its drainage basin is slightly larger—4% bigger than the upstream Columbia River watershed.


title: Snake River

text: The mostly semi-arid, even desert climate of the Snake River watershed on average, receives less than of precipitation per year. However, precipitation in the Snake River watershed varies widely. At Twin Falls, in the center of the Snake River Plain, the climate is nearly desert, with an annual rainfall of just , although the average snowfall is . This desert climate occupies the majority of the basin of the Snake River, so although it is longer than the Columbia River above the Tri-Cities, its average discharge is significantly less. However, in the high Rockies of Wyoming, in the upper Jackson Hole area, the average precipitation is over , and snowfall averages . Most of the Snake River basin consists of wide, arid plains and rolling hills, bordered by high mountains. In the upper parts of the watershed, however, the river flows through an area with a distinct alpine climate. There are also stretches where the river and its tributaries have incised themselves into tight gorges. The Snake River watershed includes parts of Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, and many other national and state parks.


title: Snake River

text: Much of the area along the river, within a few miles of its banks, is irrigated farmland, especially in its middle and lower course. Irrigation dams include American Falls Dam, Minidoka Dam, and C.J. Strike Dam. Aside from water from the river, water is also pulled from the Snake River Aquifer for irrigation. Major cities along the river include Jackson in Wyoming, Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, Boise, and Lewiston in Idaho, and the Tri-Cities in Washington (Kennewick, Pasco and Richland). There are fifteen dams in total along the Snake River, which aside from irrigation, also produce electricity, maintain a navigation channel along part of the river's route, and provide flood control. However, fish passage is limited to the stretch below Hells Canyon.


title: Snake River

text: The Snake River watershed is bounded by several other major North American watersheds, which drain both to the Atlantic or the Pacific, or into endorheic basins. On the southwest side, a divide separates the Snake watershed from Oregon's Harney Basin, which is endorheic. On the south, the Snake watershed borders that of the Humboldt River in Nevada, and the watershed of the Great Salt Lake (the Bear, Jordan and Weber rivers) on the south.


title: Snake River

text: The Snake River also shares a boundary with the Green River to the southeast; the Green River drains parts of Wyoming and Utah and is the largest tributary of the Colorado River. On the western extremity, for a short stretch, the Continental Divide separates the Snake watershed from the Bighorn River, a tributary of the Yellowstone River, which the Snake begins near. On the north the Snake River watershed is bounded by the Red Rock River, a tributary of the Beaverhead River, which flows into the Jefferson River and into the Missouri River, part of the Gulf of Mexico drainage basin.


title: Snake River

text: The rest of the Snake River watershed borders on several other major Columbia River tributaries - mostly the Spokane River to the north, but also Clark Fork in Montana to the northeast and the John Day River to the west. Of these, the Clark Fork (via the Pend Oreille River) and the Spokane join the Columbia above the Snake, while the John Day joins downstream of the Snake, in the Columbia River Gorge. It is of note that the northeastern divide of the Snake River watershed forms the Idaho-Montana boundary, so the Snake River watershed does not extend into Montana.


title: Snake River

text: Mountain ranges in the Snake watershed include the Teton Range, Bitterroot Range, Clearwater Mountains, Seven Devils Mountains, and the extreme northwestern end of the Wind River Range. Grand Teton is the highest point in the Snake River watershed, reaching in elevation. The elevation of the Snake River is when it joins the Columbia River.


title: Snake River

text: Agricultural runoff from farms and ranches in the Snake River Plain and many other areas has severely damaged the ecology of the river throughout the 20th century. After the first irrigation dams on the river began operation in the first decade of the 20th century, much of the arable land in a strip a few miles wide along the Snake River was cultivated or turned to pasture, and agricultural return flows began to pollute the Snake. Runoff from several feedlots was dumped into the river until laws made the practice illegal. Fertilizer, manure and other chemicals and pollutants washed into the river greatly increase the nutrient load, especially of phosphorus, fecal coliforms and nitrogen. During low water, algae blooms occur throughout the calm stretches of the river, depleting its oxygen supply.


title: Snake River

text: Much of the return flows do not issue directly back into the Snake River, but rather feed the Snake River Aquifer underneath the Snake River Plain. Water diverted from the river for irrigation, after absorbing any surface pollutants, re-enters the ground and feeds the aquifer. Although the aquifer has maintained its level, it has become increasingly laced with contaminants. Water in the aquifer eventually travels to the west side of the Snake River Plain and re-enters the river as springs. Throughout much of the Snake River Plain and Hells Canyon, excessive sediment is also a recurring problem. In December 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a permit requiring owners of fish farms along the Snake River to reduce their phosphorus discharge by 40%. Pollutant levels in Hells Canyon upstream of the Salmon River confluence, including that of water temperature, dissolved nutrients, and sediment, are required to meet certain levels.


title: Snake River

text: The Snake River's average flow is . The United States Geological Survey recorded the river's discharge from a period of 1963–2000 at a stream gauge below Ice Harbor Dam. In that period, the largest average annual flow recorded was in 1997, and the lowest was in 1992. The lowest recorded daily mean flow was on February 4, 1979. On August 27, 1965, there was temporarily no flow as a result of testing at Ice Harbor Dam. The highest recorded flow was on June 19, 1974. The highest flow ever recorded on the Snake River was at a different USGS stream gauge near Clarkston, which operated from 1915 to 1972. This gauge recorded a maximum flow of —more than the Columbia's average discharge—on May 29, 1948. An even larger peak discharge, estimated at , occurred during the flood of June 1894.


title: Snake River

text: The river's flow is also measured at several other points in its course. Above Jackson Lake, Wyoming, the discharge is about from a drainage area of . At Minidoka, Idaho, about halfway through the Snake River Plain, the river's discharge rises to . However, at Buhl, Idaho, only about downstream, the river's flow decreases to because of agricultural diversions and seepage. But at the border of Idaho and Oregon, near Weiser at the beginning of Hells Canyon, the Snake's flow rises to after receiving several major tributaries such as the Payette, Owyhee and Malheur. The discharge further increases to at Hells Canyon Dam on the border of Idaho and Oregon. At Anatone, Washington, downstream of the confluence with the Salmon, one of the Snake's largest tributaries, the mean discharge is .


title: Snake River

text: The name Snake River comes from the so-called "Snake Indians" who lived along the river, actually Shoshone, Bannock, and Northern Paiute. The "Snake Indian" name for those groups came from Plains Indians—possibly in reference to the use of snake heads in war or because the Plains Indians referred to these groups with a snake-like hand gesture, possibly originally intended to indicate a salmon.


title: Snake River

text: Canadian explorer David Thompson first recorded the Native American name of the Snake River as "Shawpatin" when he arrived at its mouth by boat in 1800. When the Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed westwards into the Snake River watershed in 1805, they first gave it the name "Lewis River", "Lewis Fork" or "Lewis's Fork", as Meriwether Lewis was the first of their group to sight the river.


title: Snake River

text: The group also learned that the Native Americans called the river ' or ' (for an herb that grew prolifically along its banks).


title: Snake River

text: Later American explorers, some of whom were originally part of the Lewis and Clark expedition, journeyed into the Snake River watershed and records show a variety of names have been associated with the river. The explorer Wilson Price Hunt of the Astor Expedition named the river as "Mad River". Others gave the river names including "Shoshone River" (after the tribe) and "Saptin River".


title: Snake River

text: People have been living along the Snake River for at least 11,000 years. Historian Daniel S. Meatte divides the prehistory of the western Snake River Basin into three main phases or "adaptive systems". The first he calls "Broad Spectrum Foraging", dating from 11,500 to 4,200 years before present. During this period people drew upon a wide variety of food resources. The second period, "Semisedentary Foraging", dates from 4,200–250 years before present and is distinctive for an increased reliance upon fish, especially salmon, as well as food preservation and storage. The third phase, from 250 to 100 years before present, he calls "Equestrian Foragers". It is characterized by large horse-mounted tribes that spent long amounts of time away from their local foraging range hunting bison. In the eastern Snake River Plain there is some evidence of Clovis, Folsom, and Plano cultures dating back over 10,000 years ago.


title: Snake River

text: Early fur traders and explorers noted regional trading centers, and archaeological evidence has shown some to be of considerable antiquity. One such trading center in the Weiser area existed as early as 4,500 years ago. The Fremont culture may have contributed to the historic Shoshones, but it is not well understood. Another poorly understood early cultural component is called the Midvale Complex. The introduction of the horse to the Snake River Plain around 1700 helped in establishing the Shoshone and Northern Paiute cultures.


title: Snake River

text: On the Snake River in southeastern Washington there are several ancient sites. One of the oldest and most well-known is called the Marmes Rockshelter, which was used from over 11,000 years ago to relatively recent times. The Marmes Rockshelter was flooded in 1968 by Lake Herbert G. West, the Lower Monumental Dam's reservoir.


title: Snake River

text: Eventually, two large Native American groups controlled most of the Snake River: the Nez Perce, whose territory stretched from the southeastern Columbia Plateau into northern Oregon and western Idaho, and the Shoshone, who occupied the Snake River Plain both above and below Shoshone Falls. Lifestyles along the Snake River varied widely. Below Shoshone Falls, the economy centered on salmon, who often came up the river in enormous numbers. Salmon were the mainstay of the Nez Perce and most of the other tribes below Shoshone Falls. Above the falls, life was significantly different. The Snake River Plain forms one of the only relatively easy paths across the main Rocky Mountains for many hundreds of miles, allowing Native Americans both east and west of the mountains to interact. As a result, the Shoshone centered on a trading economy.


title: Snake River

text: According to legend, the Nez Perce tribe was first founded in the valley of the Clearwater River, one of the Snake River's lowermost major tributaries. At its height, there were at least 27 Nez Perce settlements along the Clearwater River and 11 more on the Snake between the mouth of the Clearwater and Imnaha Rivers. There were also villages on the Salmon River, Grande Ronde River, Tucannon River, and the lower Hells Canyon area. The Snake River's annual salmon run, which was estimated at that time to exceed four million in good years, supported the Nez Perce, who lived in permanent, well-defined villages, unlike the nomadic southeastern tribes along the Snake River. The Nez Perce also were involved in trade with the Flathead tribe to the north and other middle Columbia River tribes. However, they were enemies to the Shoshone and the other upstream Snake River tribes.


title: Snake River

text: The Shoshone (or Shoshoni) were characterized by nomadic groups that took their culture from the earlier Bitterroot culture and Great Basin tribes that migrated north via the Owyhee River. They were the most powerful tribe in the Rocky Mountains area, and were known to many Great Plains tribes as the "Snakes". In the 18th century, Shoshone territory extended beyond the Snake River Plain, extending over the Continental Divide into the upper Missouri River watershed and even further north into Canada. A smallpox epidemic brought by European explorers and fur trappers was responsible for wiping out much of the Shoshone east of the Rocky Mountains, but the Shoshone continued to occupy the Snake River Plain. Eventually, the Shoshone culture merged with that of the Paiute and Bannock tribes, which came from the Great Basin and the Hells Canyon area, respectively. The Bannock brought with them the skill of buffalo hunting and horses they had acquired from Europeans, changing the Shoshone way of life significantly.


title: Snake River

text: The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–06) was the first American group to cross the Rocky Mountains and sail down the Snake and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean. Meriwether Lewis supposedly became the first American to sight the drainage basin of the Snake River after he crossed the mountains a few days ahead of his party on August 12, 1805, and sighted the Salmon River valley (a major Snake tributary) from Lemhi Pass, a few miles from the present-day site of Salmon, Idaho. The party later traveled north, descended the Lemhi River to the Salmon and attempted to descend it to the Snake, but found it impassable because of its violent rapids. The expedition named the Snake River the "Lewis River", "Lewis's River", or "Lewis Fork", in his honor, and they traveled northwards to the Lochsa River, which they traveled via the Clearwater River into the lower Snake, and into the Columbia. They also referred to the Shoshone Indians as the "Snake Indians", which became the present-day name of the river. The name "Lewis Fork", however, did not last.


title: Snake River

text: Later American explorers traveled throughout the Snake River area and up its major tributaries beginning in 1806, just after Lewis and Clark had returned. The first was John Ordway in 1806, who also explored the lower Salmon River. John Colter in 1808 was the first to sight the upper headwaters of the Snake River, including the Jackson Hole area.


title: Snake River

text: In 1810, Andrew Henry, along with a party of fur trappers, discovered the Henrys Fork of the Snake River, which is now named after him. Donald Mackenzie sailed the lower Snake River in 1811, and later explorers included Wilson Price Hunt of the Astor Expedition (who gave the river the name "Mad River"), Ramsay Crooks, Francisco Payelle, John Grey, Thyery Goddin, and many others after the 1830s. Many of these later explorers were original members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition who had returned to map and explore the area in greater detail. Even later, American fur trappers scouted the area for beaver streams, but Canadian trappers from the British Hudson's Bay Company were by now a major competitor.


title: Snake River

text: The Hudson's Bay Company first sent fur trappers into the Snake River watershed in 1819. The party of three traveled into the headwaters of the Owyhee River, a major southern tributary of the Snake, but disappeared. Meanwhile, as American fur trappers kept coming to the region, the Hudson's Bay Company ordered the Canadian trappers to kill as many beavers as they could, eventually nearly eradicating the species from the Snake River watershed, under the "rationale [that] if there are no beavers, there will be no reason for the Yanks ([Americans]) to come." Their goal was to eventually gain rights over the Oregon Territory, a region covering Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming (most of the present-day region called the Pacific Northwest). However, the area was eventually annexed into the United States.


title: Snake River

text: By the middle 19th century, the Oregon Trail had been established, generally following much of the Snake River. One crossing the trail made over the Snake River was near the present-day site of Glenns Ferry. Several years later, a ferry was established at the site, replacing the old system where pioneers had to ford the wide, powerful and deep Snake. Another place where pioneers crossed the Snake was further upstream, at a place called "Three Island Crossing", near the mouth of the Boise River. This area has a group of three islands (hence the name) that splits the Snake into four channels each about wide. Some emigrants chose to ford the Snake and proceed down the west side and recross the river near Fort Boise into Hells Canyon, continue down the drier east side into the gorge, or float the Snake and Columbia to the Willamette River, the destination of the Oregon Trail. The reason for the Three Island Crossing was the better availability of grass and water access. Numerous ferries have provided crossings of the upper Snake from the Brownlee Ferry at the head of Hell's Canyon to Menor's Ferry, which operates today at Moose, Wyoming. Sophistication varied from reed boats pulled by Indians on horse back at Snake Fort, Fort Boise, as described by Narcissa Whitman in 1836 to an electric operated ferry, the Swan Falls Ferry, at Swan Falls Dam of the early 20th century.


title: Snake River

text: One contemporary diarist crossing near Salmon Falls complains of "exorbitant" fees at the crossings that were a "constant drain" on the traveler's purse. She writes that this particular route was controlled by Mormons who had "built bridges where they were not needed-most unmercifully fleecing the poor emigrants". The diarist expresses regret at having made the crossing describing the landscape as "desolate country". Another writer similarly notes several days travel through "a desert so desolate and rocky that we almost regretted that we had not continued on the south side of that stream".


title: Snake River

text: Unlike the Columbia River, it was far more difficult for steamboats to navigate on the Snake. The Columbia River drops from source to mouth, while the Snake drops over in elevation over a length more than shorter. Still, from the 1860s to the 1940s, steamboats traveled on the Snake River from its mouth at the Columbia River to near the mouth of the Imnaha River in lower Hells Canyon. However, most of the steamboats only sailed from the river's mouth to Lewiston, located at the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers. This stretch of the river is the easiest to navigate for watercraft since it has the least elevation change, although it still contained over 60 sets of rapids.


title: Snake River

text: Passenger and freight service downstream of Lewiston lasted throughout the late 19th century and persisted until the introduction of railroads in the Palouse Hills grain-growing region and ultimately, the construction of dams on the lower Snake to facilitate barge traffic, which caused the demise of both the steamboats and the railroad. Lewiston, from the confluence of the Snake and Columbia and from the mouth of the Columbia on the Pacific Ocean, became connected with Portland and other Pacific ports via steamboat service from the mouth of the Snake through the Columbia River Gorge. A commonly traveled route was from Wallula, Washington, downstream of the Snake River's mouth, upstream to Lewiston. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company launched the Shoshone at Fort Boise in 1866 which provided passenger and freight service on the upper Snake for the Boise and Owyhee mines.


title: Snake River

text: By the 1870s, the OSN Company, owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad, was operating seven steamboats for transporting wheat and grain from the productive Palouse region along the Snake and Columbia to lower Columbia River ports. These boats were the "Harvest Queen", "John Gates", "Spokane", "Annie Faxon", "Mountain Queen", "R.R. Thompson", and "Wide West", all of which were built on the Columbia River. However, there were more resources along the Snake River than wheat and grain. In the 1890s, a huge copper deposit was discovered at Eureka Bar in Hells Canyon. Several ships were built specifically to transport ore from there to Lewiston: these included "Imnaha", "Mountain Gem", and "Norma". In 1893 the "Annie Faxon" suffered a boiler explosion and sank on the Snake below Lewiston.


title: Snake River

text: A total of fifteen dams have been constructed along the Snake River for a multitude of different purposes, from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to its mouth on Lake Wallula, the reservoir formed behind McNary Dam on the Columbia River. Dams on the Snake can be grouped into three major categories.


title: Snake River

text: The Minidoka Irrigation Project of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, created with the passage of the Reclamation Act of 1902, involved the diversion of Snake River water into the Snake River Plain upstream of Shoshone Falls in order to irrigate approximately in the Snake River Plain and store of water in Snake River reservoirs.


title: Snake River

text: The first studies for irrigation in the Snake River Plain were conducted by the United States Geological Survey in the late 19th century, and the project was authorized on April 23, 1904. The first dam constructed for the project was Minidoka Dam in 1904; its power plant began operating in 1909, producing 7 MW of electricity. This capacity was revised to 20 MW in 1993.


title: Snake River

text: Jackson Lake Dam, far upstream in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park, was built in 1907 to raise Jackson Lake for providing additional water storage in dry years. American Falls Dam, upstream of Minidoka, was completed in 1927 and replaced in 1978. As the dams were constructed above Shoshone Falls, the historical upriver limit of salmon and also a total barrier to boats and ships, no provisions were made for fish passage or navigation. Several other irrigation dams were also built - including Twin Falls Dam and Palisades Dam.


title: Snake River

text: The Hells Canyon Project was built and maintained by Idaho Power starting in the 1940s and was the second of the three major water projects on the river. The three dams of the project, Brownlee Dam, Oxbow Dam and Hells Canyon Dam, are located in upper Hells Canyon. All three dams are primarily for power generation and flood control and do not have fish passage or navigation locks.


title: Snake River

text: Brownlee Dam, the most upriver dam, was constructed in 1959 and generates 728 megawatts (MW). Oxbow Dam, the second dam in the project, was built in 1961 and generates 220 MW. The dam was named for a bend in the Snake River, shaped like an oxbow. Hells Canyon Dam was the last and most downriver of the three. It was constructed in 1967 and generates 450 MW.


title: Snake River

text: Downriver of Hells Canyon is the Lower Snake River Project, authorized by the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1945 for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to create a navigable channel on the Snake River from its mouth to the beginning of Hells Canyon. These dams are, from upstream to downstream: Lower Granite Lock and Dam, Little Goose Lock and Dam, Lower Monumental Lock and Dam, and Ice Harbor Lock and Dam. Dredging work was also done throughout the length of the navigation channel to facilitate ship passage. These dams form a cascade of reservoirs with no stretches of free-flowing river in between. Immediately below Ice Harbor Dam is Lake Wallula, formed by the construction of the McNary Dam on the Columbia River. (McNary Dam is not part of the Lower Snake River Project.) Above Lower Granite Dam, the river channel from Lewiston to Johnson Bar, just below Hells Canyon, is also maintained for jet-boats as this section is too rugged for ships.


title: Snake River

text: These dams have been proposed for removal, and if they were to be removed, it would be the largest dam removal project ever undertaken in the United States. The removal has been proposed on the grounds that it would restore salmon runs to the lower Snake River and the Clearwater River and other smaller tributaries. Idaho's Snake river once teemed with sockeye salmon. However, there are almost no wild sockeye salmon left in the river due to a number of factors.


title: Snake River

text: Sockeye Salmon are reduced in number on this river that runs through three different states and is over long. Salmon swimming upstream in this river are faced with predators and dams. The Snake River has fifteen dams and is extremely difficult for salmon to access because of hydroelectric dams. Hell's Canyon Dam blocks passage to the entire upper Snake River. The Grand Coulee Dam also blocks spawning grounds to the famous "June Hogs" (legendary Chinook salmon that weighed over ).


title: Snake River

text: Between 1985 and 2007, only an average of 18 sockeye salmon returned to Idaho each year. Serious conservation efforts by wildlife biologists and fish hatcheries have captured the few remaining wild sockeye salmon, collected their sperm and eggs, and in a laboratory, have them spawn. Instead of spawning naturally, these sockeye begin their lives in an incubator in a fishery biologist's laboratory. These baby salmon then are transported by ship, bypassing the dams. (The dams can hurt juvenile baby sockeye salmon with their powerful tides and currents, which suck the baby salmon down.) Another conservation effort that has helped the salmon recover, is the destruction of old, outdated dams, such as the Lewiston Dam on the Clearwater River, a tributary of the Snake. After destroying the dam, salmon populations noticeably recovered.


title: Snake River

text: Another recovery method conservationists and biologists are using is called Fish Transportation. Since many juvenile salmon perish at each dam while swimming out to the ocean, ships filter and collect these baby salmon by size and take them out to the ocean, where they can be guaranteed to make it alive to saltwater. This method raises controversy to the effectiveness and costs, since this method is extremely expensive, almost costing $15 million. Another possible upstream passage solution is the Whooshh Fish Transport System. Engineers at Whooshh Innovations have developed a fish passage system that allows for the safe and timely transportation of fish over barriers through a flexible tube system via volitional entry into the system.


title: Snake River

text: Overall, these combined efforts have had good success. In the summer of 2006, the Snake River reportedly only had 3 sockeye salmon that returned to their spawning grounds. In the summer of 2013, more than 13,000 sockeye salmon returned to the spawning grounds.


title: Snake River

text: In the 1960s and 1970s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built four dams and locks on the lower Snake River to facilitate shipping. The lower Columbia River has likewise been dammed for navigation. Thus a deep shipping channel through locks and slackwater reservoirs for heavy barges exists from the Pacific Ocean to Lewiston, Idaho. Most barge traffic originating on the Snake River goes to deep-water ports on the lower Columbia River, such as Portland. Grain, mostly wheat, is the main product shipped from the Snake, and nearly all of it is exported internationally from the lower Columbia River ports.


title: Snake River

text: The shipping channel is authorized to be at least deep and wide. Where river depths were less than , the shipping channel has been dredged in most places. Dredging and redredging work is ongoing and actual depths vary over time. With a channel about deeper than the Mississippi River system, the Columbia and Snake rivers can float barges twice as heavy. Agricultural products from Idaho and eastern Washington are among the main goods transported by barge on the Snake and Columbia rivers. Grain, mainly wheat, accounts for more than 85% of the cargo barged on the lower Snake River. In 1998, over of grain were barged on the Snake. Before the completion of the lower Snake dams, grain from the region was transported by truck or rail to Columbia River ports around the Tri-Cities. Other products barged on the lower Snake River include peas, lentils, forest products, and petroleum.


title: Snake River

text: The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) divides the Snake River's watershed into two freshwater ecoregions: the "Columbia Unglaciated" ecoregion and the "Upper Snake" ecoregion. Shoshone Falls marks the boundary between the two. The WWF placed the ecoregion boundary about downriver from Shoshone Falls in order to include the Big Wood River (the main tributary of the Malad River) in the Upper Snake ecoregion, because the Wood River is biologically distinct from the rest of the downriver Snake. Shoshone Falls has presented a total barrier to the upstream movement of fish for 30,000 to 60,000 years. As a result, only 35% of the fish fauna above the falls, and 40% of the Wood River's fish fauna, are shared with the lower Snake River.


title: Snake River

text: The Upper Snake freshwater ecoregion includes most of southeastern Idaho and extends into small portions of Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada, including major freshwater habitats such as Jackson Lake. Compared to the lower Snake River and the rest of the Columbia River's watershed, the Upper Snake ecoregion has a high level of endemism, especially among freshwater molluscs such as snails and clams. There are at least 21 snail and clam species of special concern, including 15 that appear to exist only in single clusters. There are 14 fish species found in the Upper Snake region that do not occur elsewhere in the Columbia's watershed, but which do occur in Bonneville freshwater ecoregion of western Utah, part of the Great Basin and related to the prehistoric Lake Bonneville. The Wood River sculpin ("Cottus leiopomus") is endemic to the Wood River. The Shoshone sculpin ("Cottus greenei") is endemic to the small portion of the Snake River between Shoshone Falls and the Wood River.


title: Snake River

text: The Snake River below Shoshone Falls is home to thirty-five native fish species, of which twelve are also found in the Columbia River and four of which are endemic to the Snake: the relict sand roller ("Percopsis transmontana") of the family Percopsidae, the shorthead sculpin ("Cottus confusus"), the margined sculpin ("Cottus marginatus"), and the Oregon chub ("Oregonichthys crameri"). The Oregon chub is also found in the Umpqua River and nearby basins. The lower Snake River also supports seven species of Pacific salmon and trout ("Oncorhynchus"). There are also high, often localized levels of mollusc endemism, especially in Hells Canyon and the basins of the Clearwater River, Salmon River, and middle Snake River. The mollusc richness extends into the lower Columbia River and tributaries such as the Deschutes River.


title: Snake River

text: Aside from aquatic species, much of the Snake River watershed supports larger animals including numerous species of mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles. Especially in the headwaters and the other mountainous areas strewn throughout the watershed, the gray wolf, grizzly bear, wolverine, mountain lion and Canada lynx are common. It has been determined that there are 97 species of mammals in the upper part of the Snake River, upstream from the Henrys Fork confluence. Pronghorn and bighorn sheep are common in the area drained by the "lost streams of Idaho", several rivers and large creeks that flow south from the Rocky Mountains and disappear into the Snake River Aquifer. About 274 bird species, some endangered or threatened, use the Snake River watershed, including bald eagle, peregrine falcon, whooping crane, greater sage-grouse, and yellow-billed cuckoo. Barrow's goldeneye are a species of bird that occurs commonly along the lower section of the Snake River.


title: Snake River

text: Ten amphibian and twenty species of reptiles inhabit the upper Snake River's wetland and riparian zones. Several species of amphibians are common in the "lost streams" basin and the northeasternmost part of the Snake River watershed, including the inland tailed frog, northern leopard frog, western toad, Columbia spotted frog, long-toed salamander, spadefoot toad. However, in the lower and middle portions of the Snake River watershed, several native species have been severely impacted by agriculture practices and the resulting non-native species supported by them. Introduced birds include the gray partridge, ring-necked pheasant, and chukar. Other non-native species include the bullfrog, brown-headed cowbird, and European starling, attracted by the construction of cities and towns.


title: Snake River

text: The Snake River watershed includes a diversity of vegetation zones both past and present. A majority of the watershed was once covered with shrub-steppe grassland, most common in the Snake River Plain and also the Columbia Plateau in southeastern Washington. Riparian zones, wetlands and marshes once occurred along the length of the Snake River and its tributaries. In higher elevations, conifer forests, of which ponderosa pine is most common, dominate the landscape. The basin ranges from semi-desert to alpine climates, providing habitat for hundreds of species of plants. In the lowermost part of the watershed, in southeastern Washington, the Snake River is surrounded by an area called the Columbia Plateau Ecoprovince, which is now mostly occupied by irrigated farms. The rest of the Plateau area is characterized by low hills, dry lakes, and an arid, nearly desert climate.


title: Snake River

text: The headwaters of the Snake River and the high mountains elsewhere in the watershed were historically heavily forested. These include aspen, Douglas fir, and spruce fir, comprising about 20% of the historic watershed. At the base of mountains and in the Lost River basin, sagebrush was and is the predominant vegetation cover. Because of deforestation, up to one quarter of the forests have been taken over by sagebrush, leaving the remaining forests to cover about 15% of the watershed. However, the lodgepole pine has increased in number, taking over historic stands of other conifers. There are also up to 118 species of rare or endemic plants that occur in the Snake River watershed.


title: Snake River

text: The Snake River was once one of the most important rivers for the spawning of anadromous fish—which are hatched in the headwaters of rivers, live in the ocean for most of their lives, and return to the river to spawn—in the United States.


title: Snake River

text: The river supported species including chinook salmon, coho salmon, and sockeye salmon, as well as steelhead, white sturgeon, and Pacific lamprey. It is known that before the construction of dams on the river, there were three major chinook salmon runs in the Snake River; in the spring, summer and fall, totaling about 120,000 fish, and the sockeye salmon run was about 150,000. The historical barrier to fish migration on the Snake River was Shoshone Falls, a waterfall that occurs as the Snake River passes through the Snake River Plain.


title: Snake River

text: Since the early 20th century, when Swan Falls Dam was constructed on the middle Snake River upstream of Hells Canyon, the fifteen dams and reservoirs on the river have posed an increasing problem for migrating salmon. Agricultural lands and their resulting runoff have also had a significant impact on the success rate of migrating fish. Salmon can travel up the Snake River as far as Hells Canyon Dam, using the fish passage facilities of the four lower Snake River dams, leaving the Clearwater, Grande Ronde and Salmon river to sustain spawning salmon. Rising in several forks in the Clearwater Mountains of central Idaho, the Clearwater and Salmon River watersheds are nearly undeveloped with the enormous exception of Dworshak Dam on the North Fork Clearwater River. The watershed of the Grande Ronde in northeastern Oregon is also largely undeveloped. The four reservoirs formed by the lower Snake River dams—Lake Sacagawea, Lake Herbert G. West, Lake Bryan, and Lower Granite Lake—have also formed problems, as the downstream current in the pools is often not enough for the fish to sense, confusing their migration routes.


title: Snake River

text: At the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers, young salmon that swim down from spawning gravels in the headwaters of the Clearwater River often delay their migrations because of a significant temperature difference. (Prior to the removal of Lewiston Dam on the main Clearwater and Grangeville Dam on the South Fork Clearwater, the Clearwater was completely unusable by migrating salmon.) Agricultural runoff and water held in reservoirs higher upstream on the Snake warm its waters as it flows through the Snake River Plain, so as the Snake meets the Clearwater, its average temperature is much higher. Directly below the confluence, the river flows into Lower Granite Lake, formed by Lower Granite Dam, the uppermost dam of the Lower Snake River Project. Paradoxically, the combination of these factors gives the young salmon further time to grow and to feed in Lower Granite Lake, so when they begin the migration to the Pacific Ocean, they often have a higher chance at survival, compared to those salmon who migrate to the ocean earlier.


title: Snake River

text: A controversy has erupted since the late 20th century over the four lower Snake River dams, with the primary argument being that removing the dams would allow anadromous fish to reach the lower Snake River tributaries—the Clearwater River, the Tucannon River and the Grande Ronde River—and spawn in much higher numbers. However, removal of the dams has been fiercely opposed by some groups in the Pacific Northwest. Because much of the electricity in the Northwest comes from dams, removing the four dams would create a hole in the energy grid that would not be immediately replaceable. Navigation on the lower Snake would also suffer, as submerged riffles, rapids and islands would be exposed by the removal of the dams. Irrigation pumps for fields in southeastern Washington would also have to reach further to access the water of the Snake River. However, proponents for restoring salmon runs by dam removal argue that the power is replaceable, that the grain transportation system could be replaced by railroads, and that only one of the four reservoirs supplies irrigation water. Irrigators in the Snake River Plain would likely need to allow less water into the Snake River during low flow in order to create a current in the four lower reservoirs, and recreation and tourism would likely benefit.


title: Snake River

text: The Salmon River is the second largest tributary. Although the Salmon has larger drainage than the Clearwater, the Salmon drains much drier country and therefore has a smaller discharger than the Clearwater, about annually compared to about annually for the Clearwater River.