The Incomappleux River is in the

West Kootenay The Kootenays or Kootenay ( ) is a region of southeastern British Columbia. It takes its name from the Kootenay River, which in turn was named for the Kutenai First Nations people. Boundaries The Kootenays are more or less defined by the Kootena ...

region of southeastern

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, Canada. Entering the Beaton Arm of

Upper Arrow Lake The Arrow Lakes in British Columbia, Canada, divided into Upper Arrow Lake and Lower Arrow Lake, are widenings of the Columbia River. The lakes are situated between the Selkirk Mountains to the east and the Monashee Mountains to the west. Beac ...

, the river is a major tributary of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...

. The upper reaches of the Incomappleux valley are home to some of the only inland temperate rainforest in the world. The area has been studied since 2000 by Valhalla Wilderness Society as a part of their Inland Temperate Rainforest campaign, and the upper Incomappleux was included in the Selkirk Mountain Caribou Park proposal after groundbreaking biodiversity research by biologists

Toby Spribille Toby Spribille is a lichenologist, specialising in evolution and taxonomy. He identified the presence of yeast cells as an additional fungal component of some lichens. He works at University of Alberta and is the Canada Research Chair in Symbiosi ...

and Curtis Björk, sponsored by Valhalla Wilderness Society, found over 300 species of lichens in the Incomappleux, most of them in the ancient forest. This included seven species new to science. The Incomappleux Valley has been the subject of two films, one by Riel Marquardt, and more recently the VWS film ''Primeval: Enter the Incomappleux'', by award winning documentary filmmaker, Damien Gillis. VWS Director Craig Pettitt and biologist Amber Peters toured the province with the film. The Incomappleux Valley was declared a conservancy in 2023 but the remainder of the Selkirk Mountain Caribou Park proposal, containing critical old growth inland rainforest corridors still remains unprotected. The valley is in the traditional territory of the Sinixt First Nation and its protection was supported by the autonomous Sinixt.

First Nations

The name "Incomappleux" is derived from the Sinixt word ''nk'mapeleqs'', meaning "point at end (of lake)". This refers to the northeastern tip of

into which the river empties. The names of the creek and adjacent mountain are also derived from this word. A

Sinixt The Sinixt"Sinixt Nation…" (; also known as the Sin-Aikst or Sin Aikst,Reyes 2002, ''passim.'' "Senijextee", "Arrow Lakes Band", or—less commonly in recent decades—simply as "The Lakes") are a First Nations People. The Sinixt are d ...

village by this name formerly existed somewhere in the confluence area.

European presence

Europeans referred to the valley and river by various English spellings of the word, but Fish Creek/River was also common. However, local lore has it that the word is a corruption of the Sinix't word for Fish. In 1865, James Turnbull, surveyor and mapmaker, explored the Incomappleux Valley. After the mid-1880s, visitors could enter the valley from the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...

(CP) main line, moving southward through the Glacier National Park area into the valley and following the river to its mouth, but this involved a long climb up and over a high mountain and a long trek down to the river. In 1889, the report of the Gold Commissioner at Farwell reported, "By 1889, ten locations taked mine siteshad been made on the Northeast area of Upper Arrow Lake. Several claims, including the Fish Creek mines, had been worked on the upper reaches of Incomappleux river..." The area around Roger's Pass was surveyed by Arthur O. Wheeler in 1902, using a photographic triangulation method that involved setting up a heavy camera on a tripod on a mountain peak and photographing all the other peaks within sight; and doing this again for all the peaks in the survey area. This survey provided the first topographic maps of Glacier National Park, the Battle Range that borders the park on the south, and the area of the upper Incomappleux River valley.Wheeler, A. O. 1905. The Selkirk Range, British Columbia. Government Printing Bureau, Ottawa. Volume 1 (text) and Volume 2 (map folio). Access was from the south end through a deep, narrow, steep-sided gorge where the miners built a roadway about 0.5 km long out of timbers perched on the side of the cliff and anchored into rock crevices. In winter, horses pulling wagons were fitted with snowshoes for the deep snow. The timber/plank road was still in place and drivable in 1970, although some of the timber supports had fallen away, planks were broken and a sign warned, "ROAD CLOSED". In 1974, Celgar, the logging company based in Nakusp, blasted a solid road through the gorge, destroying the old timber/plank road.

Mines

From the 1890s, mining claims staked upstream (removed from the mouth) were along Pool Creek at , Sable Creek at , and Boyd Creek at . Although most claims were accessed from the south, the Dunvegan group, at the headwaters of the river, was reached by a trail from the CP station at Albert Canyon. The town of

Camborne Camborne (from Cornish language, Cornish ''Cambron'', "crooked hill") is a town in Cornwall, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 20,845. The northern edge of the parish includes a section of the South West Coast Path, Hell's Mouth, C ...

was built in 1902 in the lower valley, just upstream from the gorge, to service the mines. The principal mine was the Beatrice Mine, about 9.7 km up a steep trail from the town. Its owners built an ore concentrator at the upper end of the town site; horse-drawn ore carts would dump their loads into a sort of chute at the last switchback above the concentrator. The town was occupied until about 1954. Nearby towns were Beaton on the Northeast Arm, just below the mouth of the Incomapplex;

Galena Bay :''Not the Galena Bay on Kootenay Lake at Riondel '' Galena Bay is an unincorporated locality, on the bay of the same name, at the head of Upper Arrow Lake in the West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia. The Sinix't Nation, or Lak ...

on the main lake to the south; and Trout Lake, over Galena Pass to the northeast, in the Lardeau River valley.

Source

Formed in the

Selkirk Mountains The Selkirk Mountains are a mountain range spanning the northern portion of the Idaho Panhandle, eastern Washington, and southeastern British Columbia which are part of a larger grouping of mountains, the Columbia Mountains. They begin at Mic ...

southeast of

Glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

, the Illecillewaet Glacier near Rogers Pass is the source of the

Illecillewaet River The Illecillewaet River is a tributary of the Columbia River located in British Columbia, Canada. Fed by the Illecillewaet Glacier in Glacier National Park, the river flows approximately to the southwest,Neve, which feeds the glacier, primarily flows south into the Incomappleux River.

Course

The Incomappleux is about long, with four large tributaries flowing . Following a due south course, the swift, unnavigable river is wide. Around high, the narrow canyon, which is about from the mouth, funnels the glacial waters. Above the canyon, the valley widens to as much as .

2003 river incident

In 2003, two experienced

alpinist Alpine climbing () is a type of mountaineering that uses any of a broad range of advanced climbing skills, including rock climbing, ice climbing, and/or mixed climbing, to summit typically large routes (e.g. multi-pitch or big wall) in an alpi ...

s (Michel Bastien and Yves Laforest), a videographer (Aurélie Chabaud) and a multimedia student (Martin Champagneur) set out to climb Mount Hope for a childhood cancer charity then descend the Incomappleux River by kayak to

Beaton, British Columbia Beaton is at the head of the Beaton Arm of Upper Arrow Lake in the West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia. The locality is sometimes confused with nearby Evansport. In 1896, the steamboat landing became the eastern terminal for the ...

. Just hours into the river journey, their kayaks were swept away by the

rapids Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep stream gradient, gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Flow, gradient, constriction, and obstacles are four factors that are needed for a rapid t ...

. Of the four adventurers, only Champagneur survived and was found by rescuers six days after the incident occurred. Searches continued for two weeks until being called off by national park wardens and

RCMP The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; , GRC) is the Law enforcement in Canada, national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also provides police services under contract to 11 Provinces and terri ...

Forestry

The valley is heavily timbered and unsuited to agriculture. This inland temperate rainforest comprises a wide range of cottonwood and spruce. The accessible conifer-dominated forest has been largely harvested over the decades. Active logging returned in 1974, but environmental protests have restricted harvesting since the early 2000s. In 2022, a moratorium was placed upon logging for at least two years.

Ferries and bridges across the river

In 1892, a bridge existed at the river mouth, and a one upstream near McDougal Creek. After the one at the mouth connecting to Lardeau City was washed out, a temporary cable ferry commenced in June 1893. A replacement bridge destroyed by the 1894 flood was in turn replaced. A ferry was built in summer 1896, but its placement is unclear. The lower bridge provided a connection in 1898, when the wagon road up the west side of the river was completed as far as the Camborne ferry. That year, a ferry was installed across the river at Boyd Creek, which could carry six loaded

packhorse A packhorse, pack horse, or sumpter refers to a horse, mule, donkey, or pony used to carry goods on its back, usually in sidebags or panniers. Typically packhorses are used to cross difficult terrain, where the absence of roads prevents the use of ...

s. In 1904, the wagon road was extended up the west side of the river from Camborne, and a bridge replaced the ferry at Boyd Creek. At the 12-mile point, a wagon road bridge existed in the 1910s. The only remaining bridge, north of Camborne, was a wooden timber bridge that had washed out by 1971. Celgar, the logging company based in Nakusp, built a steel bridge in the same place in 1974.

Conservation

The 58,000 hectare Incomappleux Valley conservancy was established by the provincial government in January of 2023. Conservancies are a class of protected areas in the province that allow some low-impact commercial and industrial uses, but prohibit activities such as large scale logging and road construction. 1976-maybe-004 025

Maps

* * *A. O. Wheeler's 1905 report is accompanied by a series of large, fold-out topographical maps, as well as historical maps for the region that he reproduced.

Discharge

Daily discharge tables 1914–1996 for the basin.
to

References

External links

Valhalla Wilderness Society

Selkirk Mountain Caribou Park proposal
{{authority control Tributaries of the Columbia River Arrow Lakes Columbia Country Rivers of British Columbia Kootenay Land District