Talk:Kootenay River

message: Idea came from Hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River; or should this just be a section here?Skookum1 06:15, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: proposed list/article: Dams and other hydroelectric power on the Kootenay/Kootenai River and tributaries

message: Please see 
RE BC & Pacific Northwest History Forum re: Talk:List of United States military history events#Border Commission troops in the Pacific Northwest.  If you think maybe I should also move some or copy some of my other stuff from NW history and BC history pages let me know; I never mean to blog, but I'm voluble and to me everything's interconnected; never meaning to dominate a page so have made this area to post my historical rambles on.  Thoughts?Skookum1 03:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment on my posting of this: if anyone has any questions or wants to debate any issues relating to Oregon Country/Columbia District/Pacific Northwest history/historical geography, please feel free to drop by the forum and start a thread/topic, or just butt in at yer leisure.Skookum1 05:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User talk:Skookum1/BC&PacificNorthwestHistory|BC & Pacific Northwest History Forum]]

message: Re:
:In the 1970s, it was proposed that the Kootenay River be diverted into the Columbia River (the two rivers are separated by a distance of no more than one mile in the Rocky Mountain Trench in southeastern British Columbia). This would allow for the generation of increased hydroelectric power. The proposal was strongly opposed by both environmentalists as well as local residents.
It wasn't just the 1970s; this was a critical point in the deliberations/negotiations over the Columbia River Treaty, and was hotly fought over by BC Premier WAC Bennett's in a hard-line retrenchment against US plans (and federal Canadian willingness) to create one huge reservoir spanning both the Kootenay and upper Columbia basins; one giant reservoir would have been built spanning what are now Arrow Lake Reservoir, Kinbasket Lake, Lake Koocanusa, Kootenay Lake and whatever the reservoir created by the Mica Dam is called; the Two Rivers Policy (which as denoted by its redlinking needs an article) was one of Bennett's main conditions to agreeing to the Treaty (others were the "downstream benefits", which also need an article), and entrenched the idea that the Kootenay and Columbia should remain separate rivers; implicitly this prevented the flooding of even more agricultural and valley-bottom land (and several towns, including Cranbrook, Golden, Revelstoke, Nelson and Castlegar) that would have been submerged had the "one river policy" wanted by the US Army Corps of Engineers to proceed....Skookum1 21:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm back, and looked at that again, came here to comment, realize I already had.  The diversion proposal was the original pre-Treaty scheme advanced by the USACE; no British Columbia politician in their right mind would have supported it; certainly not the NDP 1972-75, and WAC Bennett had fought hard for the Two Rivers Policy - the meaning being htat hte Columbia and Kootenay would be kept as separate rivers, not merged into one, and while the MiniWac regime from 1975 onwards were very radical in a lot of policy changes, the Two Rivers Policy was Bill Bennett's inheritance from his father; I can't see him proposing dropping it.  Who proposed this, in what year?  I don't remember the media mileage on it, but 'struth I was out of the province in Europe and California in 1975-76 and 1977 respectively, os may have missed it.  But I don't miss much.  Either this information is not dated correctly, and the 1950s are meant, or some fringe engineering proposal that never made it to the govt planning stage.Skookum1 (talk) 15:06, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

text: That surprises me; you're more of a heavy industry;engineering/mining type? i.e. than hydro and/or old era politics (often there wasn't a diference, as with highways....well, anything in BC is political no?  Apparently neither of us are old enough to remember the Two Rivers Policy as current affairs; it had to do with WAC's threat to withdraw from Canada if he didn't get his way on the Columbia River Treaty; I don't fully understand it, in some references it seems to be about tying the Peace proejct into the treatyff - as compensation for not allowing the US to dam the Columbia higher, i.e. for more power; I thought always the reference meant to keeping the Columbia and Kootenay as two rivers, rateh than one; or it means the Columbia and the Peace; was hoping you'd know....Skookum1 (talk) 03:47, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Two Rivers Policy

message: I have been making maps of tributaries of the Columbia River, like Pend Oreille River, Clark Fork (river), and Okanogan River. Focusing on rivers that cross the US-Canada boundary, I just made one for the Kootenay River, not realizing there already was one on this page. So I thought I'd add the one I just made anyway, its quite different in style, not showing the mountains as the one here does. I just wanted to explain why I'm adding a second map. Pfly 20:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Maps

message: I commented this out: [its drop, far greater than the Columbia's, as it's just not true; the only additional drop is that of teh uppermost reaches of the river, which as the article notes are gentle in gradient until their descent to the Trench; but from Canal Flats/Columbia Lake to Castlegar, the drop is virtually the same - and the Columbia actually had more rapids (see List of rapids on the Columbia River......Skookum1 (talk) 22:05, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What I actually meant is the cumulative drop from source to mouth, the Kootenay's about 2000 m from the Beaverfoots to the Columbia, the Columbia's about 600m from Columbia Lake to the Pacific. But apparently I didn't consider that the Kootenay passes so close to Columbia Lake, and yet the elevation difference is only 3m or so. However, at Columbia Lake the Columbia starts north and has nearly 800km to go before it reaches the Kootenay, and at Canal Flats te Kootenay has already flowed about 100km, and has about 680 km left to run, so the riverbed slope is ... Oky, I'll not go on, but I will correct anything else in the article that mentions something like that Shannontalk contribs 02:31, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Same drop from Canal Flats

message: The expansion is very nice but its wording is problematically USian, mostly because the Percells (the range known in Canada as the Purcells) and Selkirks are considered part of the Rockies in US usage, and they are not in the Canadian context; mostly this applies in the Watershed section, though I removed a whole sentence elsewhere. "To the east are the Columbia Mountains" only applies in the Creston region, but the Columbia Mountains also lie to the west there (the Purcells and Selkirks respectively).  The range divides the Purcells/Percells from the Cabinets and Salish, that's about all that can be said; and it traverses the Selkirks between Nelson and Castlegar; can't remember what the range grouping to the south of Nelson is - the Nelson Range maybe - to the north I think it's the Kokanee Range, but both are part of the Selkirks....even the phrase in the lead about "the north-central Rocky Mountains" is entirely USian in context (the Rockies extend another ten degrees of latitude to the north; a more acceptable wording might be simply "central").  Please be more mindful of the two-country context of your expansions.....Skookum1 (talk) 22:07, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: USian expansion issues/wording

message: This caught my eye:
:Although people of the Salish and Shuswap tribes lived nearby in the Clark Fork-Pend Oreille and upper Columbia areas, the Kootenai were the only tribe on the Kootenay itself.
Which is a tribally-generated falsehood.  There were definitely wars over the Lower Kootenay in the last few centuries, with battle sites in the Creston and Goat River area (possibly with teh Pend'Oreille, I'd guess) and in more recent times with the Sinixt for the last stretch of the river between Nelson and Castlegar; these wars were not over by the time the fur traders came into the area, though by the start of the silver-mining area smallpox had effectively wiped out the Sinixt presence in Canada, though only a generation before they had been in pitched contest for the lowermost Kootenay River, and in previous gneerations had also been fighting over the Kootenay Lake area; implicitly with other related allies helping out, e.g. the colville, Pend'Oreille, Sanpoil and Okanagan, though prior to the smallpox plagues of the 1780s through 1860s they were very numerous in their own right.  The passage given is part of the Ktunaxa propaganda machine; if you were to find Salish-peoples' sources in Colville, or even to read up in various "white man's histories", you'd find that they were NOT the only people "on the Kootenay itself".Skookum1 (talk) 22:59, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Ktunaxa POV re the river being only THEIR territory

message: I've never heard that as a way to refer to Brilliant before....the usual term for Doukhobor settlements is "colony", no matter what size.  It strikes me as odd because of teh anti-urban nature of Doukhobour colonization.  Did Verigin use the term?  It certainly wans't incorporated as a city, or a town or any other municipal status.Skookum1 (talk) 03:31, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: "City" of Brilliant?

message: This sentence left me wondering: The Kootenay is one of the only major rivers in North America that begin in one country, cross into another, and return to the first. I can think of a number of rivers that flow from Canada into the US and back to Canada, or vice versa. The Kettle River (Columbia River) springs to mind. But then, it says "major river" and "one of the only". Maybe that last phrase was the confusing bit. Perhaps "one of the few" would be clearer? Just a random comment before going to bed. zzzzzz... Pfly (talk) 08:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Kettle River! And it crosses the boundary THREE TIMES! I wonder how I couldn't think of it … but there are no more rivers that do - right? (I might be wrong; there might be some obscure stream somewhere that meanders right along the US-Canada boundary and crosses the line three hundred times.) Just kidding; apparently the Milk River (Montana-Alberta) also does. And then there is this tributary of the North Fork Flathead River which I didn't have  the patience to boot up ACME mapper to find the name of; that also crosses the border three times. And another tributary of the Red River of the North that starts in Canada, enters the USA, and via the Red, flows back into Canada; the Souris River also crosses the border twice, starting in Saskatchewan, ending in Manitoba… I guess that kind of invalidates the point of saying that the Kootenay is one of the "only major rivers" that crosses the boundary more than once! Anyway, the claim"one of the only major rivers" came from the old version of the article - and it was in the lead, so it somehow stayed… Shannontalk contribs 01:25, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Border crossing rivers 

message: This sentence, The Ktunaxa were the first tribe west of the Rockies to use wild horses, is referenced, but I'm not sure I believe it. According to the book The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hämäläinen, the Utes had horses as early as 1710, and lived in a region spanning the Rockies--to western areas along the Green River, which is west of the Rockies as I understand it. The Shoshone also had horses early on, and their homeland spanned the Rockies, east and west. Anyway, I won't change the text since it is referenced and all, but I'd like to question it at least. Finally, the word "wild" might be better as feral, since the horses acquired by Native Americans were domesticated animals from New Spain, not wildlife. Also, as I understand things, it isn't like Spanish horses ran wild and were caught and domesticated by Native Americans--rather already domesticated horses from New Mexico were acquired by Native Americans, along with the equestrian skills required to make use of them. A native trading network arose, dealing in domesticated horses--even if many were "unbroken", they were hardly "wild". The trade network arose in the aftermath of the Pueblo Revolt. As I understand it, the majority of horses acquired by Native Americans in the 18th century were by trade with other Native Americans--not captured wild/feral horses (that Comanche Empire book is quite good, btw). Pfly (talk) 08:58, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmph, maybe a better iteration of the phrase: "The Ktunaxa were the first tribe west of the Rockies to capture and use feral European-introduced horses for their own use". But the Shoshone and Blackfeet and other Plains tribes, the way they got horses was through contact with Europeans - I'm not sure where … well anyway... Shannontalk contribs 23:45, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horses 

message: A lot of the history and ethnography in here is more extensive now than in other related articles, e.g. Ktunaxa (wherever that redirects to), Kootenays (which really needs a break into East/West), and the silver rush (an article on the Silvery Slocan, adjunct to Slocan Valley, which isnt' quite the same thing, is needed).  The Doukhobor material in particular seems out of place here, other than as a passing mention; there shoudl maybe be a special subarticle ont he Doukhbors in British Columbia, as their history isn't limited to the Kootenay basin or even to the West Kootenay (the Boundary Country isnt part of that though often linked administratively/culturally).  This article's content, except for the US stuff and the mention of materials downstream from Kootenay Lake to Castlegar, which is West Kootenay, pretty much would coincide with what should be in an East Kootenay article if it existed separately from Kootenays......if there was more to the US stretch of the river, this article would benefit from the team-attention that was laid on Columbia River (see the talkpage there Shannon1, it's quite exhaustive...); there's not enough BC editors to go around, though I think User:Moonbug and others have done work on related Kootenay articles... User:Kootenayvolcano as her name implies is a local and while not regular is very thorough and dedicated; I'll apprise her of the expansion going on here, and maybe she might have some comments as to what should/could bein the river article vs the region and ethnic and mining articles etc.Skookum1 (talk) 15:07, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: uh; actually much controversy has ensued from my editing on the Kootenay River article, as seen on this talk page; apparently I have inadverdently put a lot of somewhat irrelevant information while trying to add content Oops, seems like I got caught up by some of the points on the Columbia River talk page, but anyways: Looking at many other GA or FA river articles (ALWAYS MY ROLE MODELS)- especially those concerning the smaller streams and rivers (there has been a lot of testing the 'article minimum length limit' for river GA's lately) - I see that not all the information has to exactly relate to the river, especially in the History and Geology sections. Giving a description of the more general area (i.e. blurring the watershed line) would help readers' understanding, in my opinion. Again, it might not, maybe it adds to the confusion, but who knows. And I agree about creating a separate page concerning Doukhobor settlement in BC; it's a very far reaching and interesting topic; I agree on the Silvery Slocan article as well. (Oh boy, took me a long time to figure the name of the silver rush.) Besides, it says so on the Kootenays article that the region can be defined by the Kootenay river's catchment…urp Shannontalk contribs 01:16, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The Kootenays article is wrong, then; because the Columbia basin is also included re the West Kootenay and the East Kootenay; and of course the term "the Kootenays" doesn't include the US stretch of the river; and the somewhat archaic term "North Kootenay(s)} referred to Revelstoke and the Big Bend. which is Columbia River-only.  The "definite definition" of "the Kootenays" is the Kootenay Land District, which is literally defined by being the basin of the Columbia in Canada exclusive of the Okanagan and Kettle basins.  As per the name "Silvery Slocan", it also refers to the region as well as the period, but can be used as as "period" title IMO.  It tends not to include locations from Winlaw and Lemon Creek southwards; it's really from Slocan City northwards and includes places like Sandon which are not in the Slocan Valley as such....Skookum1 (talk) 16:47, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Kootenay River]] vs [[Kootenays]] article

message: In the first paragraph the last sentence states: "The Kootenay River stretches 781 kilometres (485 mi) through the central Rocky Mountains in a region known as the Kootenays." Locally, however, you will find that Kootenay is the proper name for the whole are and is thus not pluralized.    Proper usage would be East Kootenay and West Kootenay but together it is simpley the Kootenay.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.146.63.188 (talk) 20:32, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: When it's just "Kootenay", as "the" name, it's "the Kootenay", e.g. you don't go to Kootenay, or to Kootenays, you go to the Kootenay, and to the Kootenays; so if you're going to insist on what you think is the only correct term (it's not), you could at least get the usage right ;-  The plural has been around long than you've been alive, let me assure you of that; the context is the East and West Kootenay when referred to collectively; plus the Arrow Lakes and, often in the past, Revelstoke (the "North Kootenay", including Arrowhead and Trout Lake etc.), and the Columbia Valley; it's plural because there's two of them, not one valley (because of the "other" valley in the US linking them).  "To Kootenay" would be like in the context of a town - namely what has since been renamed Fisherville.  It's not generally used in reference to the whole region, if anything that's an archaic usage.  The plural also is because the regions and their subregions are quite distinct; there's not just "one" Kootenay, except in the context of the Kootenay Land District (which encompasses the whole, so long as you don't include the Boundary Country, as some do; it's in teh Yale Land District).  For a while now this should have been sub-split into East Kootenay and West Kootenay articles, as they're really very distinct regions; the issue is confused nowadays by the current government's creation of the Central Kootenay RD, and the coining of that once-unheard usage (Nelson etc have always been "West Kootenay").  "The Kootenays" is the most widespread common usage; look up any newspaper in the area and see what they use.Skookum1 (talk) 06:47, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  use of Kootenay 

message: This is not a demand to change the name of the article or anything like that. But I was wondering why the article is called "Kootenay River" instead of "Kootenai River". Is it because the source of the river is located in Canada, where it's called Kootenay? -Reelcheeper (talk) 20:32, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, and also because the majority of its length, and its outlet, is in Canada.  The reverse situation applies to the Okanogan River, the bulk of which, and its outlet, is in the United States (Canadian spelling is "Okanagan").Skookum1 (talk) 20:48, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Article name