Clearwater River

About

Clearwater River, Idaho — Lewis and Clark's Canoe Camp, 1805. The mainstem Clearwater runs 74.8 miles from the confluence of the Middle and South forks in the Idaho Panhandle to its meeting with the Snake River at Lewiston, draining 9,645 square miles across Idaho and Washington. USGS gauge 13341050 records an average flow of 14,069 CFS, and paddlers find the run optimal between roughly 7,000 and 21,100 CFS. The river spans Idaho County, Clearwater County, and Nez Perce County, and the Bureau of Land Management manages public access along its corridor.

The Clearwater was the homeland of the Nez Perce people, who lived along its banks for at least 11,000 years. The river served as a primary travel corridor, hunting ground, and gathering place through the ancestral territory of the region's tribal nations. That long tenure was reshaped by the cession framework of the 1800s-era treaties, the 1830 Indian Removal Act, and the 1840s–1890s allotment era.

The river was first documented by outsiders in October 1805, when the Lewis and Clark expedition canoed down the Clearwater and camped at "Canoe Camp" near present-day Kamiah, Idaho. There the Corps of Discovery built five canoes for the journey down the Snake and Columbia to the Pacific. Within decades, the watershed's timber drew industry: it was logged from the 1830s through the 1920s to feed the 1850–1910s regional timber trade and the 1860–1910s railroad expansion. Local sawmills, logging drives, and downstream lumber operations were the major operators until the 1910 exhaustion of old-growth stands, the 1915 start of state forestry conservation, and the 1930s establishment of state forests ended large-scale cutting.

Hydrological study followed the same arc. The 1870s–1890s USGS survey, the 1880s–1910s establishment of gauging stations, and the 1910s–1930s state streamflow assessments produced the first comprehensive picture of the Clearwater's flow. Later came the 1950s–1970s state water pollution control studies and the 1972–2000 Clean Water Act assessments, all reckoning with more than a century of logging, agricultural, and industrial impacts. Meanwhile, the 1963 construction of Dworshak Dam on the North Fork Clearwater—at 717 feet, the tallest dam in Idaho—flooded the lower 31 miles of the North Fork.

In 1968, the Middle Fork and South Fork earned their Wild and Scenic designation, and the river remains one of the most productive steelhead rivers in the lower 48. The Middle Fork and its tributaries are especially vital, playing a central role in managing sensitive, threatened, and endangered fish, including steelhead and bull trout. Since 2010, Idaho DNR and local watershed partnerships have worked to undo a century of damage, with streambank stabilization from 2015–2024, native fish restocking from 2017–2024, a nutrient reduction strategy from 2018–2024, and water-quality improvements from 2020–2024. Yet in 2025, the Clearwater River Basin was named one of America's Most Endangered Rivers, its future clouded by commercial logging, mining, and proposed new dams—a reminder that even celebrated waters require continued vigilance.