Milk River (Alberta–Montana)

Location of the Milk River in the river system of the Missouri River

Milk River in Writing -on- Stone Provincial Park

The Milk River is a 1005 km long tributary of the Missouri River in the U.S. state of Montana and the Canadian province of Alberta. Its catchment area covers 61,200 km ², of which 21.6 thousand km ² in Canada.

River

It originates in the northwestern Montana 34 km northwest of Browning by the confluence of the South Fork ( almost 50 km long) and Middle Fork ( 32 km long). Both rivers have their source in the Rocky Mountains in the Lewis Range in the Indian reservation of the Blackfeet, just east of Glacier National Park.

From there, the waters of the Milk River flows east through southern Alberta. After this " short visit" to Canada it passes mainly to the southeast again to Montana and flows there through the Fresno Reservoir. Continue in this direction it opens about 20 km downstream of the dam of the Fort Peck Lake in the Missouri River.

Catchment area

The Milk River is the northernmost major tributary of the Missouri. The only small area in southern Alberta, including the area in southwestern Saskatchewan, which is drained by it and its tributaries, is the only Canadian area that drains into the Gulf of Mexico.

History

The Milk River got its name from Captain Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition, who described the river in his journal: "The water of this river possesses a peculiar whiteness, it is about the color of a cup of tea with the addition of a spoon milk. because of the color of its water we called him ' milk river'. "

This appearance is due to rock flour, which is in its water. The extremely fine-grained sediments are the result of glacial erosion at the headwaters of the milk flow.