The 14 hydroelectric dams on the Columbia's main stem and many more on its tributaries produce more than 44 percent of total US hydroelectric generation. Since the early 20th century, dams have been built across the river for power generation, navigation, irrigation, and flood control. To aid ship and barge navigation, locks have been built along the lower Columbia and its tributaries, and dredging has opened, maintained, and enlarged shipping channels. Since the late 19th century, public and private sectors have extensively developed the river. Steamships along the river linked communities and facilitated trade the arrival of railroads in the late 19th century, many running along the river, supplemented these links. Overland explorers entered the Willamette Valley through the scenic but treacherous Columbia River Gorge, and pioneers began to settle the valley in increasing numbers.
In the following decades, fur-trading companies used the Columbia as a key transportation route. In the late 18th century, a private American ship became the first non-indigenous vessel to enter the river in 1792 William Robert Broughton of the British Royal Navy navigated past the Oregon Coast Range into the Willamette Valley. The first documented European discovery of the Columbia River occurred when Bruno de Heceta sighted the river's mouth in 1775. These fish-especially the salmon species-provided the core subsistence for native peoples. The river system hosts many species of anadromous fish, which migrate between freshwater habitats and the saline waters of the Pacific Ocean. They have been used for transportation since ancient times, linking the region's many cultural groups. The Columbia and its tributaries have been central to the region's culture and economy for thousands of years. The Columbia has the 37th greatest discharge of any river in the world. The fourth-largest river in the United States by volume, the Columbia has the greatest flow of any North American river entering the Pacific. Its drainage basin is roughly the size of France and extends into seven US states and a Canadian province. The river is 1,243 miles (2,000 km) long, and its largest tributary is the Snake River. It flows northwest and then south into the US state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state of Oregon before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada.
The Columbia River ( Upper Chinook: Wimahl or Wimal Sahaptin: Nch’i-Wàna or Nchi wana Sinixt dialect swah'netk'qhu) is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Kicking Horse River, Blaeberry River, Canoe River, Kettle River, Sanpoil River, Okanogan River, Entiat River, Wenatchee River, Yakima River, Lewis River, Cowlitz River Spillimacheen River, Beaver River, Illecillewaet River, Incomappleux River, Kootenay River, Pend Oreille River, Spokane River, Crab Creek, Snake River, John Day River, Deschutes River, Willamette River
0 kommentar(er)
