The Bear River is the largest tributary of the Great Salt Lake, draining a mountainous area and farming valleys northeast of the lake and southeast of the Snake River Plain. It flows through northeastern Utah, southwestern Wyoming, southeastern Idaho, and back into northern Utah, in the United States. Approximately long it is the longest river in North America that does not ultimately reach the sea.

History

Late Pleistocene

The Bear River was a tributary of the Snake River until 140,000 years ago when a volcanic eruption north of Soda Springs, Idaho, diverted it into what was then Lake Bonneville.

On January 29, 1863, troops of the United States Army attacked a Shoshone winter village in the Cache Valley, slaughtering most of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone. The incident has come to be known as the Bear River massacre.

The Bear River was surveyed through the Cache Divide for diversion and irrigation in 1868.

Utah Sugar's water rights, dams, hydroelectric plant, and transmission lines were purchased by Utah Power & Light, now known as Rocky Mountain Power, in December 1912 for $1.75 million. a plateau with an elevation of about and surrounded by high peaks of Mount Agassiz, Hayden Peak, and Spread Eagle Peak. One of the Stillwater Fork's tributaries is called Main Fork, which originates in another high–altitude basin called Hell Hole.

From its source, the Bear River flows north, cutting across the southwest corner of Wyoming, passing through Evanston then weaving along the Utah-Wyoming state line as it flows north. It turns northwest into Bear Lake County, Idaho, and flows through the Bear Lake Valley in Idaho. There, the majority of the river flow is diverted into Bear Lake, which straddles the Idaho-Utah border, before rejoining the main river course near Montpelier via the Bear Lake Outlet Canal a short distance downstream from the diversion. At Soda Springs, near the north end of the Wasatch Range, the Bear River turns abruptly south, flowing past Preston in the broad Cache Valley that extends north from Logan, Utah. It re-enters northern Utah, meandering south past Cornish and Newton. It is impounded to form the Cutler Reservoir, where it receives the Little Bear River from the south. From the west end of Cutler Reservoir, it flows south through the Bear River Valley of Utah past Bear River City. It receives the Malad River from the north just before emptying into the mud flats of a broad bay on the east side of the Great Salt Lake; approximately southwest of Brigham City.

Uses and protected areas

The river is used extensively for irrigation in the farming valleys through which it flows in its lower reaches in Idaho and northern Utah.

The lower of the river near its delta on the Great Salt Lake are protected as part of Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.

See also

  • Bear River State Park
  • List of rivers in the Great Basin
  • List of Utah rivers
  • List of longest streams of Idaho
  • Mormon Trail

References

  • Bear River Watershed Historical Collection: Utah State University
  • USFWS: Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge
  • Bear River: A National Wildlife Refuge by V.T. Wilson and Rachel Carson (1950) (online pdf)
  • Bear River Commission
  • Bear River Flow Information
  • Bear River Watershed Information System: Utah State University
  • Bear River Watershed Information System Map Server: Utah State University
  • Bear River Watershed Historical Digital Collection: Utah State University