The Ancient Columbia River
North America's fourth largest river basin, the Columbia Basin, was formed over 40 million years ago. The Basin holds the 2,000 kilometre long Columbia River as it flows along the Rocky Mountain Trench (Montana to British Columbia) from its Columbia Lake headwaters in the East Kootenay Region. With the Rocky Mountains to the east, the Purcell Range of the Columbia Mountains to the west, on its northerly route, the Columbia makes an abrupt turn at Kinbasket Lake near the northern edge of the Selkirk Mountains. Only 15 percent of the Columbia River Basin lies in Canada, including, notably, the least developed, most wild section, at its headwaters, the Columbia River Wetlands (160 kilometres long). Historically logged, mined, fished and trapped, the headwater area remains relatively undeveloped compared to the section from Kinbasket Lake, where the Columbia turns to flow south along the Purcell Trench, taking on the Kootenay River flow near Castlegar, not far from the U.S. border, then into the state of Washington and to the Pacific Ocean at Portland, Oregon.

The Columbia travels through lands where time seems to have stood still. During the last ice age, 17000 - 9000 BC, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered the Canadian Columbia River Valley - glacier remnants continue to feed the Columbia River. The mountains of British Columbia were formed in part during the Mesozoic era, when tectonic plates collided and new land masses formed; the far west is not yet stable, with the American continent in conflict with the Pacific Ocean crust. The Precambrian Rockies form a steep, rarely broken wall rising sharply along the eastern side of the Columbia River's northerly flowing section. Across the Rocky Mountain Trench, at an altitude of 600 - 900 metres above sea level, the Columbia meanders along the valley that ranges in width from 3 to more than 15 kilometres. To its west, the granite-peaked Paleozoic Purcell Mountains rise behind low foothills. At its northern end, the Columbia River turns south, with the Paleozoic Selkirk Range, steep mountains, on its eastern banks and equally imposing Monashee Mountains to the west, through the Arrow Lakes Region. Here the southern Selkirks and Monashees have few peaks and forested, sloping hillsides. This lower section has been developed through agriculture, cattle ranching, mining, forestry and power generation, and many locally-supported, regionally funded projects are on-going in the Columbia River Basin to enhance and rehabilitate the natural life of the Columbia River.

In an agreement with the Province of British Columbia, BC Hydro provides funding to the Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) and the Columbia Basin Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program (CBFWCP) to invest in local partnership initiatives to enhance the riverine habitats. CBFWCP has invested over $25 million in over 400 projects, working with more than 600 partners to conserve and enhance fish and wildlife populations, including assistance to purchase lands for ecological protection. (Information courtesy of Columbia Basin Trust and Columbia Basin Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program.)

West Kootenay wildlife biologist, John Gwilliam and senior wildlife biologist, John Krebs, with the CBFWCP, suggest that five outstanding ecological features of the Columbia River Valley include:

• Wetlands -the Columbia River marshland, north from Columbia Lake, 160 kilometre long wetlands provide crucial migratory bird habitat along the Pacific Flyway for species including the blue-listed Great Blue Heron; Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area, at the south end of Kootenay Lake, overlapping into the U.S., 6,800 hectares, designated by RAMSAR as a wetland of international significance, home to over 60 endangered species - including the only population of northern leopard frog in British Columbia.

• Grasslands - located in East Kootenay, the Columbia's headwaters, home to 60 of the remaining estimated 200 badgers in British Columbia, an endangered species.

• Old growth ecosystem - in a wet belt near Revelstoke, home to endangered mountain caribou and blue-listed wolverine.

• East Kootenay Trench Ecosection - includes three biogeoclimatic subzones: two Interior Douglas Fir and one Montane Spruce, supporting one of the largest and most diverse assemblages of wildlife found anywhere in the province.

• Southwest Kootenay Interior Cedar-Hemlock bioclimated zone - in the Pend d'Oreille Valley / Fort Shepherd area, a very dry and warm ecosystem, an important winter habitat for ungulates, with the second greatest diversity of bat species in Canada (9 of 20), second only to the Okanagan Valley (16).

Partnerships to Protect Columbia River Habitat
Across Canada, many groups partner to preserve ecologically valuable habitats, to preserve Canada's natural heritage, flora and fauna. In 2003, in the southeastern British Columbia region between Fairmont Springs and Invermere, partners including The Nature Trust of British Columbia, Columbia Basin Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program, Habitat Conservation Fund, Ducks Unlimited Canada, BC Conservation Foundation and Kootenay Wildlife Heritage Fund purchased 4,037 hectares that include the unusual "Hoodoos" land formations, grasslands, wetlands, clay gullies, aspen forest and young, dense conifer stands, protecting and providing a migration corridor for deer, elk, badger, Great Blue Herons and Lewis's Woodpecker. The partners plan to recover the area to encourage the presence of Sharp-tailed Grouse, a blue-listed species recently extirpated from the East Kootenay region.

The Columbia River Wetlands
The internationally significant wetlands run for 160 kilometres from Canal Flats south of Columbia Lake northwest to Donald, a land of cottonwood, aspen, willow and white spruce in a continuous wetland system of bulrush swamps, shallow lakes and sedge meadows. A necessary winter habitat for ungulates and other species including reptiles, amphibians, bats, weasels and mink, the wetlands serve trumpeter swans, gulls, bitterns, herons, hawks, bald eagles, loon, terns, over 100 song bird species, the wetlands also provide critical habitat and a travel corridor for elk, moose, caribou and grizzly bear.