The Elk River
by David Y. Wei and Suzanne L. Clouthier
Elk River Guiding Company Photos
JUST WEST OF THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE, IN SOUTHWESTERN BRITISH COLUMBIA, THE 200-KILOMETRE ELK RIVER IS THE FOCUS OF AN OUTDOORS LOVER’S PARADISE. THE ELK FLOWS FROM ITS NORTHERN HEADWATERS AT THE UPPER AND LOWER ELK LAKES, HIGH IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, ALMOST DIRECTLY SOUTH TO LAKE KOOCANUSA. HIGH MOUNTAIN RANGES BORDER THE RIVER, YET ITS VALLEY, FOR THE MOST PART, IS WIDE AND FLAT.
In the summer, after the major
run-offs have subsided, the Elk River’s mild gradient makes for a fairly easy river to run in a canoe, drift boat, raft, or pontoon boat. The mild free-flow also makes the Elk one of the top dry fly fishing rivers in the world. Long before Europeans arrived, natives of the Tobacco Plains band of the Ktunaxa (Kootenay) First Nations came to the Elk River Valley seasonally to fish and hunt. The region’s big game animals, most notably the elk for which the river is named, are still abundant today. The natives also used the valley as a corridor over the Rocky Mountains to the Great Plains to hunt bison. Thomas Blackiston, a member of the Palliser Expedition (1857-
1859) that sought passes through the Rocky Mountains, is credited with naming Crowsnest Pass, the narrow gap through which the Ktunaxa crossed the Rockies. Although Blackiston did not go through the pass himself, British Columbia’s southern Highway #3, from Hope through the Elk River Valley to Alberta, is known as the Crowsnest Route.
In 1873, Michael Phillips is believed to have been the first white man to have crossed into Alberta using the Crowsnest Route via the Elk Valley. More important to the modern development of the area were his reports of rich coal deposits. Dr. George Dawson, a leading
geologist and prominent member of the Geological Survey of Canada, studied the Elk Valley in 1884 and confirmed that the coal deposits were extensive. William Fernie, Gold Commissioner in the Kootenays at the time, recognizing the valuable potential of this black gold, formed the Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Company with his brother Peter, James Baker and others.
The city of Fernie sprang up
around the coal mining operations at the confluence of the Elk River and its tributary, Coal Creek, in 1898. The Coal Creek Mine supplied coal to fuel the steam engines of the Canadian Pacific and Great Northern Railways, as well as to provide metallurgical coal to refineries in
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