Assiniboine River

Assiniboine River
A view of the Assiniboine River looking southeast from the Maryland Bridge in Winnipeg
Country	Canada
Provinces	Saskatchewan, Manitoba
Part of	Red River drainage basin
Source	Windy Lake east of Kelvington
- location	Saskatchewan
- elevation	640 m (2,100 ft)
- coordinates	CA 52°18′15″N 103°06′01″W / 52.30417°N 103.10028°W / 52.30417; -103.10028
Mouth	Red River of the North
- location	The Forks in Winnipeg, Manitoba
- elevation	230 m (755 ft)
- coordinates	CA 49°53′09″N 97°07′44″W / 49.88583°N 97.12889°W / 49.88583; -97.12889Coordinates: CA 49°53′09″N 97°07′44″W / 49.88583°N 97.12889°W / 49.88583; -97.12889
Length	1,070 km (665 mi)
Basin	182,000 km2 (70,271 sq mi)
Discharge
- average	45 m3/s (1,589 cu ft/s)
Red River drainage basin, with the Assiniboine River highlighted
[1][2]

The Assiniboine River (/əˈsɪnᵻbɔɪn/) is a 1,070-kilometre (660 mi) river that runs through the prairies of Western Canada in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It is a tributary of the Red River. The Assiniboine is a typical meandering river with a single main channel embanked within a flat, shallow valley in some places and a steep valley in others. Its main tributaries are the Qu'Appelle, Souris and Whitesand Rivers. For early history and exploration see Assiniboine River fur trade.

The river takes its name from the Assiniboine First Nation. Robert Douglas of the Geographical Board of Canada (1933) made several comments as to its origin: "The name commemorates the Assiniboine natives called by La Vérendrye in 1730 'Assiniboils' and by Governor Knight in 1715 of the Hudson's Bay Company 'stone Indians.' Assiniboine is the name of a First Nation and is derived from the Ojibwe words 'asin' a stone and 'bwaan' the Sioux, hence Stony Sioux name was possibly given because they used heated stones in cooking their food."^[3]

Course

Junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in Downtown Winnipeg

The Assiniboine River rises in eastern Saskatchewan east of the community of Kelvington on the upper prairie level above the Manitoba Escarpment. The Assiniboine River flows through three basic zones with different channel characteristics. Upstream of Brandon, the main stem of the river and its most important tributaries flow within a very large valley. The valley was cut by huge glacial melt water flows at the end of the last glaciation. The floor of this spillway valley provides a natural floodplain for the river and the valley provides a significant storage volume making the construction of the Shellmouth Dam near Russell both technically and economically viable. The major tributaries in this reach are the Qu’Appelle, Shell and Little Saskatchewan Rivers.

The glacial flows created a large delta east of Brandon extending almost to Portage la Prairie. The river has eroded down through sediments of the delta cutting a narrow valley through these sediments as it drops through a vertical distance of about 150 metres (490 ft) to the Lake Agassiz – Red River Plain . In this valley, the river is confined with a narrow valley floor. The Souris River is the primary tributary contributing flow to the Assiniboine in this reach. Near Portage la Prairie the river emerges from the delta reach onto the relatively flat Red River plain (the floor of former Glacial Lake Agassiz) and at this point it can flow in any direction from roughly northwest to roughly southeast. The gradient of the river channel within the delta reach to the west is relatively high, so the river water velocities are fairly high and the waters of the river carry significant amounts of sediment. The gradient in the flat Red River plain is much less and the velocity of the river water flowing over this plain is much lower. Therefore, the sediments carried by the river waters as they flow through the delta reach are deposited onto the plain. The Assiniboine winds its way east eventually joining the Red River at "The Forks" in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Today, Assiniboine Herald at the Canadian Heraldic Authority is named after the river. Asessippi Provincial Park, an RV park was built on the east shore of the Shellmouth Reservoir.

Tributaries include the Whitesand River which joins it near Kamsack, Saskatchewan, the Souris River, which joins it near Wawanesa, Manitoba, the Birdtail River which joins at the Birdtail Sioux First Nation, the Little Saskatchewan, which joins west of Brandon, and the Qu'Appelle River, which joins near the site of the Hudson's Bay Company historic Fort Ellice site.

Flow rates and flood potential

The Assiniboine River flooding the Forks Marina in Winnipeg

There are three hydrometric stations on the river that have been taking measurements since 1913. The Assiniboine River near Headingley has an average discharge of 45 cubic metres per second (1,600 cu ft/s).^[4] One millimeter of runoff from half the watershed would take 70 hours to drain at flow rates of 360 cubic metres per second (13,000 cu ft/s). The following discharge rates were recorded during the 1995 flood:^[5]

It is prone to spring flooding. Some flood flows can be diverted into Lake Manitoba at Portage la Prairie. In 1967, the Shellmouth Dam was built in Shellmouth to help reduce flood peaks and to supplement flows during dry periods. The Portage Diversion was completed in 1970. Despite these efforts, in May 2011 it was necessary to breech one of the dikes beside the river to relieve flood stresses east of Portage la Prairie. A Manitoba-wide state of emergency was declared in the wake of one in three hundred-year floods on the Assiniboine River at Brandon.^[6][7][8]

• Note: Flows in 1882 occurred before any flood protection measures such as the Shellmouth Reservoir and Portage Diversion were built.

Fauna

Fish species include walleye, yellow perch, northern pike, mooneye, burbot, channel catfish brown bullhead, rock bass, white sucker, shorthead redhorse and common carp.

See also

• List of longest rivers of Canada
• List of Manitoba rivers
• List of Saskatchewan rivers

References

External links

• Fish Species of Saskatchewan
• Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan