Nooksack River
The Nooksack River is a river, approximately 25 mi (40 km) long, in northwestern Washington in the United States. It drains an area of the Cascade Range along the Canadian border, flowing through a fertile agricultural coastal area before emptying into the Pacific Ocean at the south end of the Strait of Georgia. The river is approximately 75 mi (120 km) long to its farther headwaters on the North Fork.
It rises in two separate forks in northwest Washington. The South Fork (50 mi/80 km) rises in southern Whatcom County, south of South Twin in the southern Mount Baker Wilderness Area. It flows briefly south, then northwest, past Acme. The North Fork rises in central Whatcom County north of Mount Shuksan in the western North Cascades National Park. It flows generally west, passing north of Mount Baker.
At Nooksack Falls near the junction of the north and south forks, the water flows through a narrow valley and drops freely nearly 100 ft into a deep rocky river canyon. The falls are viewable from the forested cover near the cliff edge. A small parking lot nearby contains a kiosk with information about the falls and a hydroelectric project. The falls are a short 2/3 of a mile drive off of the Mount Baker Highway, Washington State Highway 542.
Below the Falls it receives the 20 mi (32 km) Middle Fork from the south. It turns southwest to join the South Fork east of Deming. The combined river flows northwest, emerging from to flowing past Everson and Lynden, where it turns southwest to enter the north side of Bellingham Bay at the Lummi Indian Reservation, approximately 3 mi (5 km) west of Bellingham.
The river supplies hydroelectricity near its source and at Nooksack Falls.
In the late 19th century, most of the stream flow of the Nooksack River near its mouth flowed through the present channel of the short Lummi River to Lummi Bay, northwest of Bellingham Bay. Near the turn of the century, a log jam plugged the channel to Lummi Bay, forcing the river to change its channel to the present one. The accumulation of the new river delta has been an ongoing field of research regarding the new wetlands it has created while no longer resupplying the previous delta on Lummi Bay, except during high flow conditions. via Wikipedia |