Puskwaskau River is a short river in Northern Alberta

Northern Alberta

Northern Alberta is a region located in the Canadian province of Alberta.Its primary industry is oil and gas, with large heavy oil reserves being exploited at the Athabasca Oil Sands and Wabasca Area in the east of the region...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It is a tributary of the Smoky River

Smoky River

Smoky River is a river in western Alberta, Canada. It is a major tributary of the Peace River. The descriptive name refers to the presence of "smouldering beds of coal in the riverbank" noted by the Cree Indians....

 flowing westwards in the Peace River Country

Peace River Country

The Peace River Country is an aspen parkland region around the Peace River in Canada. It spans from northwestern Alberta to the Rocky Mountains in northeastern British Columbia, where the region is also referred to as the Peace River Block.- Geography :The Peace River Country includes the...

. Its waters flow through the Smoky River, Peace River

Peace River (Canada)

The Peace River is a river in Canada that originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows to the northeast through northern Alberta. The Peace River flows into the Slave River, a tributary of the Mackenzie River. The Mackenzie is the 12th longest river in the world,...

, Slave River

Slave River

The Slave River is a Canadian river that flows from Lake Athabasca in northeastern Alberta and empties into Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories....

, Great Slave Lake

Great Slave Lake

Great Slave Lake is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada , the deepest lake in North America at , and the ninth-largest lake in the world. It is long and wide. It covers an area of in the southern part of the territory. Its given volume ranges from to and up to ...

 and Mackenzie River

Mackenzie River

The Mackenzie River is the largest river system in Canada. It flows through a vast, isolated region of forest and tundra entirely within the country's Northwest Territories, although its many tributaries reach into four other Canadian provinces and territories...

 into the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

.

The name of the river originates from the Cree

Cree language

Cree is an Algonquian language spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories and Alberta to Labrador, making it the aboriginal language with the highest number of speakers in Canada. It is also spoken in the U.S. state of Montana...

 word for short grass. The Puskwaskau Formation, a stratigraphical unit of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin

Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin

The Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin is a vast sedimentary basin underlying of Western Canada including southwestern Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan, Alberta, northeastern British Columbia and the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories. It consists of a massive wedge of sedimentary rock...

, was named for the river.

Course

The river originates from the Puskwaskau Lake in the Sturgeon Heights, at an elevation of 715 metres (2,345.8 ft), north-west from Valleyview

Valleyview, Alberta

-History:*Late 1800s: The first visitors to the area arrived, seeking natives to exchange goods for furs. The trading was good and a Hudson’s Bay post was established on Sturgeon Lake...

. It flows north-west and receives the waters of Little Puskwaskau River before being crossed by Highway 676. It continues flowing in a western direction through a 150 metres (492.1 ft) deep canyon before it empties in the Smoky River

Smoky River

Smoky River is a river in western Alberta, Canada. It is a major tributary of the Peace River. The descriptive name refers to the presence of "smouldering beds of coal in the riverbank" noted by the Cree Indians....

, west of Teepee Creek

Teepee Creek, Alberta

Teepee Creek is a hamlet in northwest Alberta, Canada within the County of Grande Prairie No. 1. It is located north of Bezanson and east of Sexsmith, at the intersection of Highway 674 and Highway 733.The hamlet is located in census division No...

, at an elevation of 440 metres (1,443.6 ft), 40 kilometres (24.9 mi) west of its origin.