Yellowstone River Natur SelMcKenzie Selzer-McKenzie

The Yellowstone River
Author Selzer-McKenzie
The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 692 miles (1,114 km), in the western United States. Considered the principal tributary of the upper Missouri, the river and its tributaries drain a wide area stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of the Yellowstone National Park across the mountains and high plains of southern Montana and northern Wyoming. It is the longest undammed river in the lower 48 states.
The river rises in northwestern Wyoming in the Absaroka Range at the Continental Divide in southwestern Park County. The river starts where the North Fork and the South Fork Yellowstone River converge. The North Fork, the larger of the two forks, flows from Younts Peak. The South Fork flows from the southern slopes of Thorofare Mountain. The Yellowstone River flows northward through Yellowstone National Park, feeding and draining Yellowstone Lake, then dropping over the Upper and Lower Yellowstone Falls at the head of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone within the confines of the park. After passing through the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone downstream of the Grand Canyon, the river flows northward into Montana between the northern Absaroka Range and the Gallatin Range in Paradise Valley. The river emerges from the mountains near the town of Livingston, where it turns eastward and northeastward, flowing across the northern Great Plains past the city of Billings.

East of Billings, it is joined by the Bighorn River. Further downriver, it is joined by the Tongue near Miles City, and then by the Powder in eastern Montana. It flows into the Missouri River near Buford, North Dakota just upstream from Lake Sakakawea. At the confluence with the Missouri, the Yellowstone is actually the larger river.

In Montana the river has been used extensively for irrigation since the 1860s. In its upper reaches, within Yellowstone Park and the mountains of Montana, it is a popular destination for fly fishing. The Yellowstone is a Class I river from the Yellowstone National Park boundary to the North Dakota border for the purposes of stream access for recreational purposes
The name is widely believe to have been derived from the Minnetaree Indian name Mi tse a-da-zi (Yellow Rock River). Common lore states that the name came from the yellow colored rocks along the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, but the Minnetaree never lived in along the upper stretches of the Yellowstone, and some scholars think that the river name came from yellow colored standstone bluffs on the lower Yellowstone instead[4]. The Crow Indians who lived along the upper Yellowstone in Southern Montana called it E-chee-dick-karsh-ah-shay (Elk River). Translating the Minnetaree name, French trappers called it Roche Jaune, which was used by mountain men until the mid 19th century. Independently, Lewis and Clark recorded the English translation of Yellow Stone after encountering the Minnetaree in 1805 and that name eventually won out[4]. The river was explored in 1806 by William Clark during the return voyage of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and the Clark's Fork of the river was named for him.

The Yellowstone River was an important artery of transportation for Native Americans as well as for white settlers by riverboat in the 19th century. The region around the Big Horn, Powder and Tongue rivers is the traditional summer hunting grounds for a number of Native American tribes. Gold was discovered near Virginia City, Montana in the 1860s, and two of the primary routes for accessing the gold fields were the Bozeman Trail and the Bridger Trail both of which followed the Yellowstone for a short length. Anger at settler intrusion into the hunting grounds lead to Red Cloud's War and the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 which granted the Black Hills and the Powder River Country to the Lakota. This region included the drainages of the Big Horn, Powder and Tongue rivers. Gold was discovered in 1874 in the Black Hills and subsequent fighting spilled over into the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. In 1876, a column of men under Colonel Gibbon departed Fort Ellis near Bozeman, Montana and traveled down the Yellowstone to meet up with the Dakota Column under General Alfred Terry who was traveling upstream from North Dakota. Terry formed a base of operations at the mouth of Rosebud Creek on the Yellowstone, and from there General George Armstrong Custer departed with the 7th Calvary on the expedition that ended in the defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Survivors of the battle were later ferried down the Yellowstone to Fort Abraham Lincoln on the Missouri River. In the decades after the war the Crow Indian Reservation and Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation were created south of the Yellowstone in Montana.

Many of the early expeditions to the area that would later become Yellowstone National Park arrived by following the Yellowstone River, including the Cook-Folsom-Peterson Expedition and the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition. In the early 1870s the Northern Pacific Railroad made an attempt to extend rail service along the Yellowstone to Livingston from Bismark, North Dakota which was finally completed in 1883. By the early 20th century, Northern Pacific was providing train service along the river to the north entrance of the park near Gardiner.
The Yellowstone River is considered to be one of the great trout streams of the world[6] and is officially classed as a blue ribbon stream in Montana from the park to the confluence with the Boulder river east of Livingston and from the mouth of Rosebud creek near Rosebud, Montana to the North Dakota border[7]. The lack of dams along the river provides for excellent trout habitat from high inside Yellowstone Park, downstream through Gardiner, the Paradise Valley, Livingston, and to Big Timber, a stretch of nearly 200 miles (320 km). The Yellowstone varies in width from 74 feet (23 m) to 300 feet (91 m), so fishing is normally done by boat. The most productive stretch of water is through Paradise Valley in Montana, especially near Livingston which produces brown trout, rainbow trout and native cutthroat trout as well as Rocky Mountain whitefish. From Billings downstream to the North Dakota border, anglers seek Burbot, Channel catfish, Paddlefish, Sauger, Smallmouth bass, and Walley