The Kettle River is a 175-mile (282 km) tributary of the Columbia River in northeastern Washington in the United States and southeastern British Columbia in Canada. Its drainage basin is 4,200 square miles (11,000 km2) large, of which 3,177 square miles (8,230 km2) are in Canada and 1,023 square miles (2,650 km2) in the United States.[4] The indigenous name of the river in the Okanagan language is nx?ya?lpítk? (Ne-hoi-al-pit-kwu.
The Kettle River once supported salmon and other anadromous fish. The construction of Grand Coulee Dam, along with Chief Joseph Dam, blocked fish migration up the Columbia and its upper tributaries, including the Kettle River. In addition, Grand Coulee Dam's reservoir, Lake Roosevelt, flooded traditional fishery sites, including Kettle Falls near the mouth of the Kettle River.
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The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. 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 is 1,243 miles (2,000 km) long, and its largest tributary is the Snake River. Its drainage basin is roughly the size of France and extends into seven US states and a Canadian province.
By volume, the Columbia is the fourth-largest river in the United States; it has the greatest flow of any North American river draining into the Pacific. The river's heavy flow and its relatively steep gradient gives it tremendous potential for the generation of electricity. The 14 hydroelectric dams on the Columbia's main stem and many more on its tributaries produce more than 44% of total U.S. hydroelectric generation - much more hydroelectric power than those of any other North American river.
The Columbia and its tributaries have been central to the region's culture and economy for thousands of years. They have been used for transportation since ancient times, linking the many cultural groups of the region. The river system hosts many species of anadromous fish, which migrate between freshwater habitats and the saline Pacific Ocean. These fish—especially the salmon species—provided the core subsistence for native peoples; in past centuries, Indigenous peoples traveled across western North America to the Columbia to trade for fish.
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