Knife River

About

From the Hidatsa villages at the confluence with the Missouri, the Knife River stretches 120 miles upstream through Dunn and Mercer counties, averaging 180 CFS in mostly Class I water. The Beulah to Stanton section covers 30 miles through the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, where Sacagawea lived before joining Lewis and Clark in 1804. Above that, the upper Knife runs 50 miles of remote prairie from Dunn County to Golden Valley — a long, slow drift through grassland with optimal flows between 50–500 CFS. The river takes its name from the Knife River flint that Hidatsa people quarried here for centuries, trading the high-quality stone across the northern plains. USGS gauge 06340500 tracks flows that can swing wide on this prairie drainage, making timing critical for longer trips through the upper sections.