Knife River (Lake Superior)
Encyclopedia
The Knife River is a river of northern Minnesota
which drains a portion of Lake and St. Louis counties into Lake Superior between Duluth
and Two Harbors
.
The Knife River's watershead is largely undeveloped, being 72% forest, 16% wetland, and 6% grassland. 5% is used for agricultural purposes, and the remaining 1% is the unincorporated community of Knife River, Minnesota
, located at the river's mouth.
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
which drains a portion of Lake and St. Louis counties into Lake Superior between Duluth
Duluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
and Two Harbors
Two Harbors, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 3,613 people, 1,636 households, and 953 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,120.7 people per square mile . There were 1,631 housing units at an average density of 505.9 per square mile...
.
Name
The Knife River's name is an accurate preservation of its native Ojibwe name, Mokomani Zibi. Its name probably derives from the long, sharp stones near the mouth of the river.Geography
The main branch of Knife River flows nineteen miles (30 km) from source to mouth, flowing parallel to the shoreline from the direction of Two Harbors. It has four or five major tributaries. Its watershead is 84.3 square miles (218.3 km²), and contains 181.1 miles (291.5 km) of streams. Since data began being collected in 1974, its mean annual daily discharge of water has been calculated as 90.3 cuft/s. There is concern over the river's water quality due to suspended sediment, and it was placed on the state's impaired waters list in 1998. A 2008 study found that about sixty percent of the sediment was coming from erosion of the streambanks, and about thirty from erosion of the river's bluffs.The Knife River's watershead is largely undeveloped, being 72% forest, 16% wetland, and 6% grassland. 5% is used for agricultural purposes, and the remaining 1% is the unincorporated community of Knife River, Minnesota
Knife River, Minnesota
Knife River is an unincorporated community in Lake County, Minnesota, United States. It was originally established in 1856 as Buchanan located on the west side of the Knife River...
, located at the river's mouth.