Owyhee River
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The Owyhee River is a tributary of the Snake River, approximately 200 miles (320 km) long, flowing through northern Nevada, southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon in the western United States. It drains a remote area of the arid plateau region on the north edge of the Great Basin, rising in northeastern Nevada and flowing generally northward along the Oregon-Idaho border region to the Snake River. Its watershed is among the most sparsely populated areas of the contiguous United States, flowing through remote spectacular canyons in its lower course.
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[edit] Description
The Owyhee River has its source in northeastern Nevada, in northern Elko County, approximately 50 miles (80 km) north of the city of Elko. It flows north along the east side of the Bull Run Mountains, passing through Wild Horse Reservoir and then cutting northeast past the north end of the range. It runs across the Humboldt National Forest, and then past the communities of Mountain City and Owyhee in the Duck Valley Indian Reservation. It enters southwestern Idaho, flowing northwest for approximately 50 miles (80 km) across the southwest corner of the state through Owyhee County. It is then joined by the South Fork Owyhee River from the south, approximately 10 miles (16 km) east of the Oregon border.
It enters extreme southeast Oregon in southern Malheur County, generally flowing north in a zigzag course east of the Idaho border. It merges with the West Little Owyhee from the south, then receives the North Fork Owyhee and Middle Fork Owyhee from the east at a location known as "Three Forks". It then passes through the Owyhee Canyon between Big Grassy Mountain and Whitehouse Butte, then turns north, flowing east of Burns Junction and then west of the Mahogany Mountains. It enters the Snake River from the east on the Oregon-Idaho border approximately 5 miles (8 km) south of Nyssa, Oregon and 2 miles (3 km) south of the mouth of the Boise River.
In northern Malheur County, approximately 20 miles (32 km) upstream from its mouth on the Snake, it is impounded by the Owyhee Dam to form the serpentine Lake Owyhee, approximately 52 miles (84 km) long. The dam was constructed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation primarily to provide irrigation for the agricultural potato-growing region around the Snake River. Lake Owyhee State Park is along the eastern shore of the reservoir.
[edit] History
The watershed of the river was part of region inhabited by the Shoshone and Bannock Indians.
The name of the river is from the older spelling of "Hawaii," and dates to 1820. It was named for three Hawaiian trappers, in the employ of the North West Company, who were killed by Indians. About one-third of the men with Donald MacKenzie's Snake Country Expeditions of 1819-20 were Hawaiians -- commonly called "Owyhees" or "Sandwich Islanders" in those days. The three Owyhees were detached to trap on the river in 1819 and were probably killed that year. It was not until the spring or early summer of 1820 that MacKenzie learned the news of their deaths (probably at the hands of men belonging to a band of Bannocks led by a chief named The Horse). Indians led other trappers to the site, but only one skeleton was located. The earliest surviving record of the name is found on a map dating to 1825, drawn by William Kittson (who was previously with Donald MacKenzie in 1819-1820, and then with Peter Skene Ogden in 1825), on which he notes "Owhyhee River" [sic]. Journal entries in 1826 by Peter Skene Ogden, a fur trapper who led subsequent Snake Country Expeditions for the Hudson's Bay Company refer to the river primarily as the "Sandwich Island River," but also as "S.I. River," "River Owyhee" and "Owyhee River." (See Alexander Ross's Fur Hunters of the Far West, the Journals of Peter Skene Ogden and the Kittson map published with Ogden's journals by the Hudson's Bay Records Society.)
The discovery of gold and silver in the region in 1863 resulted in a temporary influx of miners and the establishment of mining camps, most of whom have long since disappeared.
In 1984, the United States Congress designated 120 miles (193 km) of the river as Owyhee Wild and Scenic River. Part of the designation includes the section of the river downstream from the Owyhee Dam, where the river flows through a remote section of deeply incised canyons surrounded by high canyon rims that are habitat for mountain lion, bobcat, Mule Deer, California Bighorn Sheep, and a large variety of raptors.
For more information about rafting or kayaking the Lower Owyhee River, please visit http://www.oregonrafting.org/lower_owyhee.html.
