The Branch Of The River That Bears The Name Of Columbia All The Way To
Its Head Takes Its Rise In Two Lakes About Ten Miles In Length That
Lie Between The Selkirk And Main Ranges Of The Rocky Mountains In
British Columbia, About Eighty Miles Beyond The Boundary Line.
They
are called the Upper and Lower Columbia Lakes.
Issuing from these,
the young river holds a nearly straight course for a hundred and
seventy miles in a northwesterly direction to a plain called "Boat
Encampment," receiving many beautiful affluents by the way from the
Selkirk and main ranges, among which are the Beaver-Foot, Blackberry,
Spill-e-Mee-Chene, and Gold Rivers. At Boat Encampment it receives
two large tributaries, the Canoe River from the northwest, a stream
about a hundred and twenty miles long; and the Whirlpool River from
the north, about a hundred and forty miles in length.
The Whirlpool River takes its rise near the summit of the main axis of
the range on the fifty-fourth parallel, and is the northmost of all
the Columbia waters. About thirty miles above its confluence with the
Columbia it flows through a lake called the Punch-Bowl, and thence it
passes between Mounts Hooker and Brown, said to be fifteen thousand
and sixteen thousand feet high, making magnificent scenery; though the
height of the mountains thereabouts has been considerably
overestimated. From Boat Encampment the river, now a large, clear
stream, said to be nearly a third of a mile in width, doubles back on
its original course and flows southward as far as its confluence with
the Spokane in Washington, a distance of nearly three hundred miles in
a direct line, most of the way through a wild, rocky, picturesque mass
of mountains, charmingly forested with pine and spruce - though the
trees seem strangely small, like second growth saplings, to one
familiar with the western forests of Washington, Oregon, and
California.
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