It’s possibly one of the biggest rivers you’ve never heard of. Like all the rivers of the western US it is at risk in some ways, but probably the least at risk of them all.
The Snake is the largest tributary of the Columbia River system. It probably got it’s name from early Europeans who took the Shoshone hand sign as meaning Snake when it was actually ‘river with many fish’. A simple mistake that stuck.
The Snake starts on the same plateau in Wyoming that the Missouri starts in. The Missouri flows east, and the Snake west. It flows into Jackson Lake and then into Jackson Hole, a break in the Grand Teton Mountains. From there it flows south and west over the Snake River Plain, a huge area that is over an enormous aquifer that provides clear drinking and irrigation water to hundreds of thousands of acres. The french fries you eat today have a great chance of being from potatoes grown with water from the Snake River or from the Snake River Aquifer.
Once the Snake has passed all the way through the state of Idaho it turns north and becomes the boundary between Oregon and Idaho and later between Washington and Idaho. The boundary between Oregon and Idaho is home to the legendary ‘Hell’s Canyon’ said by many to be the deepest in North America. Much of the lower Snake is in a monstrous canyon that was carved by a flood something less than fifty thousand years ago. It joins the Columbia in the Tri-Cities Washington. The Snake flows a total of 1,078 miles (1,735 km) and becomes part of the largest river to dump water into the Pacific Ocean from North America.
The Snake flows an average at the Tri Cities of near 55,000 Cubic Feet Per Second and can flow as much as 400,000 CFS in flood season. That makes it roughly three times the size of the Colorado.
The Snake is an incredibly important Salmon and Steelhead trout fishery. More than a million salmon run up the Snake to spawn. It is estimated that the Salmon runs are worth in excess of 50 million dollars per year to Idaho, a landlocked state. The net worth of these salmon runs is hard to calculate because so many are taken in the Pacific Ocean, but the total value is over 500 million per year.
The four dams on the river from Hell’s Canyon to the mouth produce a huge quantity of clean, renewable energy. 65% of the power produced in the Pacific Northwest is hydroelectric and the Snake certainly plays it’s part.
The Snake is also part of a huge tug and barge network with the Columbia. Much of the wheat produced in Idaho, Oregon and Washington is transported to the Pacific ports in barges. Lewiston Idaho is a major shipping point for grain and paper made from trees in northwest forests.
Snake River Barge Terminal Photo courtesy of the author
Recreation is another huge revenue generation machine on the Snake. Fishing and watersports are very popular through the whole drainage. Tourism is also very popular not the least of which is the Hell’s Canyon area. You can take a jet boat up the river and then raft down if you are so inclined. Pretty exciting place.
Right at the start, the Snake trickles out of the west slope of the Rocky Mountains and all the igneous rock that is to be found there. The real geology of the river is all about volcanic flows.
At least three massive volcanic events in the last 150 million years have basically shaped the entire drainage of the Snake River. Massive basalt deposits just waited until the force of water began to carve the canyons. At the end of the last ice age (about 14,000 years ago) the area of the Great Salt Lake was a massive inland sea that escaped rapidly, leaving no choice but to carve out the rock as the water rushed to the ocean. Sometime later an even larger body of water known as ‘Lake Missoula’ drained even faster leading to the basic form of the river we see today.
Local indigenous legend remembers the great flood. It is entirely possible that there were inhabitants in the region between the Rocky and Cascade mountains. The flooding would have been catastrophic and only pockets of people and animals would have survived. Certainly there were people nearer the coast when the floods came.
By 11,000 years ago relatives of today’s indigenous populations were living and thriving in the Snake River drainage. Millions of Salmon and Steelhead spawned as far upriver as Shoshone Falls (near modern day Twin Falls Idaho). A large number of mostly affiliated tribes called the region home.
Millions of fish, deer, bear, and elk gave the natives adequate protein and a good many edible roots and berries made for a balanced diet. A range of mountains to the east and the west plus the rivers themselves gave the population relative peace and calm to settle into a long term history on much of the land in the Snake River drainage.
There are several historic trading sites in the Snake River drainage that date back thousands of years. The purpose and execution of these sites are murky at best, but varied peoples were using some of them at least 10,000 years ago. Horses came into the area (and nobody is quite sure how) during the 1700s. They certainly changed the lives and livelihoods of several of the tribes.
There is no doubt that there were some trappers and explorers in the area earlier, but the written history of the Snake begins with the Lewis and Clark expedition at the very start of the 19th Century. When the US completed the Louisiana Purchase then President Jefferson decided it was time for an official party to journey to the Pacific Ocean. The first tributary of the Snake that the party saw was the Salmon River in present day Idaho, though they found it too violent to use for transport. They originally named the river the Lewis River (or Lewis Fork) but the name didn’t stick.
Lewis and Clark generally treated the local inhabitants well, and were in turn treated well by them. It wasn’t until more and more settlers started to arrive in the basin that hostilities began. Some of the last and most famous of the Indian Wars were fought in this part of the world.
Europeans started large scale farming in the Snake River Basin and the practice goes on to this day. Many of the earliest settlers came to the area on the ‘Oregon Trail’, the most famous of the transcontinental trails. Much of the original trail follows the Snake or one of it’s tributaries. One of the most famous sections runs up the Brule River canyon from a crossing of the Snake at present day Ontario Oregon. It was the last really brutal climb and stretch of the trail and a great many died making it.
The Snake River is generally healthy and robust. It is not under huge threat from pollution or contamination. Agricultural runoff has caused some problems but are being addressed with improved farming practices. Except for the dams.
There are 15 dams on the Snake. The lower four dams on the Snake are controversial at best. All four were installed to generate electricity, improve flood control and facilitate deep water navigation. The four compromise the Lower Snake River Project and were built and maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers.
There is no question that the dams harm the Salmon and Steelhead runs on the Snake. The four dams create a series of impoundments with no free flowing stretches of river between. There are current proposals on the table to remove all four.
Advocates for the removal cite the Salmon Runs as their principal concern. There is no doubt that the dams raise the water temperature of the river and kill millions of fry on their way to the sea. They also indirectly give predators a greater chance to eat the little fish. Conservative estimates figure the runs could at least double just by removing the dams. It is predicted that 2x runs could provide Idaho with an additional 90 million dollars per year just off the fishing. The numbers would go way up for Washington and Oregon as well, and the various tribes would be able to take their treaty granted quantities of fish. Not to mention the improved fishery over the whole North Pacific.
A secondary result would be a return to the natural state of the Hell’s Canyon, one of the most spectacular water courses in the world with it’s improved tourism.
Opponents of removal cite the possibility of catastrophic floods, loss of navigation to Lewiston Idaho, loss of the cheap and clean hydroelectric power and the stunning cost of removal.
Both sides are right, and both sides are wrong. It will be interesting to see where the controversy ends..
While the words and ideas in this post are strictly those of the author two sources were referred to by me to insure numerical and historical accuracy.
Wikipedia: Snake River
American Rivers: Snake River
Unsourced Photos are used courtesy of the author.
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