The little known Lake Roosevelt

Lake Roosevelt, the water that is backed up by The Grand Coulee Dam, is pretty well known if you live in Northeastern Washington, Canada or Oregon but by and far not so much outside the area. Grand Coulee Dam is famous, or infamous if you happen to be a native American (that's for another blog) but the water it holds back runs 150 miles all the way to the Canadian border is relatively unknown.

As I said, Lake Roosevelt is huge and unknown but if you consider it the "slow moving" Columbia River then everyone knows that body of water, even Woody Guthrie wrote a song about the "mighty Columbia" named Roll on Columbia. Here we are taking the Gifford-Inchelium ferry across the lake which at some point is 1/2 mile wide and others 1 mile.

In the fall there was a slow but steady current coming down from Canada. 89% of Columbia's flow is from glacier and winter snow from Canada. Our son and grandson enjoyed throwing rocks into the water.

In the spring the river is drawing down at the dam by as much as 80 feet. The Columbia's depth is 400 feet near the dam and tapers to 14 feet at the Canadian border with 630 miles of shoreline when full.

Donna and I were quite surprised to see the lake (now more of much a river) so low, this being our first springtime in the Northwest.

This shot, from approximately the same location as two photos up, shows you just how much water gets drawn down for flood control. The river still has to rise 30 more feet. I have read that the river in June will rise 1 to 1 1/2 feet per day. Lake Roosevelt is unusual in the fact that the Columbia River can refill the 9,000,000 acre feet of water nearly 7 times within a year. This gives the powerhouse at Grand Coulee an incredibly amount of water to generate electricity. 

Just across the border, about 200 yards into Canada we find where the Pend Oreille River dumps into the Columbia.

One month ago my grandson, Riley, and I took a sightseeing trip

along the river to Northport, Washington. As you can see the water in the lake was drawn down to it's near limit at this time.

This is the same boat ramp one month later, today in fact. The ramp is now usable and the lake still has to grow another 30 feet in depth by July 4th. Even 30 miles south of where the lake actually starts we could still see a strong turbulent current in the center of the lake.

Closer to home, the Kettle River comes through a rugged canyon into the Columbia during the drawn down. 

Same spot a month later as the Columbia starts to back up into the Kettle River. We have been told the Kettle River is a great waterway to float with inner tubes, wish I was younger but still might give it a try.

The Columbia River and Lake Roosevelt are an awesome accomplishment by the "Greatest Generation" and although Grand Coulee was a major factor in America winning the war, it still has it's dark side of cultural destruction and catastrophic environmental damage.