Blackfoot River

About

Norman Maclean, 1976 — 'A River Runs Through It' — Blackfoot River, Montana. The river rises in western Montana and flows west to meet the Clark Fork near Bonner. USGS gauge 12340000 tracks a stream that averages about 2,200 CFS, with an optimal boating window between 1,500 and 5,000 CFS. Rated Class I–II overall, the Blackfoot is read in three sections: the Upper from Landers Fork to Lincoln (Class I–II), the Middle from Lincoln to the Clearwater junction (Class II–III), and the Lower from Clearwater to the Clark Fork — the Maclean water.

Human use of the corridor runs deep. The Blackfoot River was named by early settlers for the Blackfoot (Blackfeet) Nation, who used the corridor as a route to the buffalo plains east of the Rockies — the river of the road to the buffalo. The Salish people (Séliš) also inhabited the valley. By the 1880s the Northern Pacific Railway had arrived, and the valley became a focus of the 1860s–1890s Montana gold rush, including Garnet, Marysville, and Elliston, along with the 1898–1910 gold-mining period in Park City.

That extraction came at a cost. From the 1880s through the 1970s, copper mining at Anaconda and chrome mining throughout the upper watershed severely degraded the Blackfoot's water quality. By the 1980s, the famed wild bull trout and westslope cutthroat populations had collapsed. The fishery that Maclean immortalized was in danger of vanishing.

The turn came through stewardship rather than extraction. In 1993, ranchers, landowners, and agencies founded the Blackfoot Challenge, a voluntary collaborative and one of the first watershed-scale conservation partnerships in the West. It has since protected over 300,000 acres and restored much of the river's historic fishery, working alongside efforts like the 1991 Blackfoot River Drought Response Plan. The river had already been designated a Montana Scenic River in 1974, and today carries recognition as a Montana Blue-Ribbon Trout Stream within the Blackfoot Challenge Conservation Area.

That conservation ethic shapes how the river is used now. Above its banks, the University of Montana's Lubrecht Experimental Forest spreads across thousands of acres laced with trails for hiking, birding, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing. The 2015 Blackfoot River Recreation Corridor, running from Russell Gates downstream to Johnsrud, governs the storied fishing reaches with special management regulations. Montana FWP's 2020 Blackfoot River Fisheries Assessment continues to document the drainage. Anglers and paddlers reach the water with help from local outfitters — Ten Spoon Winery & Vineyard runs Blackfoot float-and-wine packages, while Missoula Paddleheads rents canoes and kayaks.