The mighty Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest, flowing some 2,000 kilometres from British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains and making its way to sea at Astoria, Oregon.
Castlegar is located within the Selkirk Mountains at the confluence of the Kootenay and Columbia Rivers.
The Kootenay River is 781 kilometres in length.
The Columbia’s drainage basin is roughly the size of France, spanning seven U.S. states and, of course, British Columbia.
The river has been a major transportation and food source for thousands of years. European explorer David Thompson travelled the entire length of the river in the early 1800s, arriving at what is now Castlegar in 1811.
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