River
Back River
974 km from source to mouth · Canada.
CanadaFlows into Chantrey Inlet
In numbers
Length
974km
Average flow
750m³/s
Basin
106,500km²
Drop
414m
from 351 m to -63 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
974 km of river and 12 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 351 m
- 28 kmMuskox Lake57 km²
- 40 kmJim Magrum Lake15 km²
- 61 kmEastring Lake0.5 km²
- 75 kmGold Lake24 km²
- 79 kmFidler Lake23 km²
- 100 kmNauna Lake3.7 km²
- 463 kmPelly Lake206 km²
- 509 kmGarry Lake452 km²
- 558 kmBuliard Lake65 km²
- 612 kmUpper Macdougall Lake104 km²
- 893 kmFranklin Lake411 km²
- 896 kmHayes Rivertributary
- 974 kmChantrey Inletat -63 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in Canada
At the mouth it carries 754 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 3.3 seconds. It drops from 351 m to -63 m, 0.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 106,500 km², about the size of GT. Highest water, with the snowmelt: from July to September; lowest: from January to April. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.
Where to start
- Gjoa HavenLargest city on its banks · 1,349 people
- Kayak and canoe354 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From July to AugustThe best months to visit
Back River, month by month
Highest water: from July to September
Lowest water: from January to April. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from October to May. Melting snow makes up much of its water. Best months to visit: from July to August.
From about 410 m³/s in the lowest month to 1,300 m³/s in the highest. An estimate: the monthly flow is modelled from the lowest and highest months of WaterGAP (RiverATLAS, 1971–2000) and the rain and snow along the river (WorldClim). Dams change the real rhythm. The chip is the average air temperature; below it, the month's rain.
Plan the trip
Plan the trip: boat trips, a bed by the river, a car
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The basin
Back River: the basin in numbers
118,550 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 238maverage altitude of the basin
- 206mmof rain a year (basin average)
- -13.6°Caverage air temperature
- 12%protected areas
- 12.7%covered by lakes
- 100%permafrost
What covers the basin
RiverATLAS (HydroATLAS v1.0, CC BY 4.0): land cover, people, protected areas, glaciers and dams over the whole basin upstream of the mouth.
Along the river
Back River: what you find on the way
- 354RapidsWhirlpool Rapids and 353 more
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.4 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Back River in our other atlases
What our sister atlases know about the waterfalls on this river, the lakes it flows through, the beaches at its mouth, the mountains where it rises and the islands off its mouth.
11lakes on its wayLakeyas
Lakes and reservoirs (11)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Muskox Lakekm 3157km²
- Gold Lakekm 8424km²
- Fidler Lakekm 8923km²
- Pelly Lakekm 520206km²
- Garry Lakekm 572452km²
- Buliard Lakekm 62765km²
- Upper Macdougall Lakekm 689104km²
- Franklin Lakekm 1,004411km²
3 more on LakeyasLakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
From space
The source and the mouth, seen from orbit
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0. The glowing line is the river as drawn by RiverATLAS.
Photos
Back River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
Tributaries (3)
Also: Hayes River, Meadowbank River, Contwoyto River
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q798339) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Course, profile, basin | RiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed from the source to the mouth given by Wikidata |
| Flow | WaterGAP (RiverATLAS), 1971–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate along the river | WorldClim (RiverATLAS), 1970–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Towns, bridges, dams | Wikidata · CC0; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0 |
| Along the river | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Our other atlases | Lakeyas — Wikidata · CC0; © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0; HydroLAKES · CC BY 4.0; NOAA OISST |
Every source and licence is on the data sources page.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.
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