River
Slave River
434 km from source to mouth · Canada.
CanadaFlows into Mackenzie River
In numbers
Length
434km
Average flow
3,500m³/s
Basin
616,400km²
Drop
126m
from 207 m to 81 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
434 km of river and 4 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmLake Athabascaat 207 m
- 1 kmLake Athabasca7,529 km²
- 42 kmPeace Rivertributary
- 47 kmRivière des Rocherstributary
- 194 kmSalt Rivertributary
- 434 kmMackenzie Riverat 81 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Alberta and Northwest Territories
At the mouth it carries 3,450 m³/s on average: 1.4 Olympic pools every second. It drops from 207 m to 81 m, 0.3 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 616,400 km², about the size of CF. 418,000 people live in it. Highest water, with the snowmelt: from June to August; lowest: from January to April. It is heavily dammed: reservoirs can hold 70% of a year's flow.
Where to start
- YellowknifeLargest city on its banks · 20,340 people
- Yellowknife International Airport (YZF)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 4 km from the cityCar hire at YZF airport (Yellowknife)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- On the water2 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- Kayak and canoe7 put-ins and rapids mapped (OpenStreetMap)
- From June to AugustThe best months to visit
Slave River, month by month
Highest water: from June to August
Lowest water: from January to April. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from November to March. Melting snow makes up much of its water. Best months to visit: from June to August.
From about 2,000 m³/s in the lowest month to 6,300 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
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
The basin
Slave River: the basin in numbers
606,982 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 418,000people live in the basin
- 1/km²people per km²
- 725maverage altitude of the basin
- 477mmof rain a year (basin average)
- -1.0°Caverage air temperature
- 12%protected areas
- 5.9%covered by lakes
- 11%permafrost
- 76km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 57% Forest
- 4% Cropland
- 3% Pasture
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
Slave River: what you find on the way
- 1Locks
- 7RapidsDemicharge Rapids, Casette Rapids and 5 more
- 2Boat rampsBoat launch
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.9 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Slave 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.
1lake on its wayLakeyas
1mountain at the sourcePeakyas
Lakes and reservoirs (1)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Lake Athabascakm 1 · 243 m deep7,529km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
Mountains at the source (1)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Grouroches Chere8.3 km away
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
Slave River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Mackenzie RiverCanada1,738 km10,700 m³/sTributaries (5)
Also: Fond du Lac River, Rivière des Rochers, Salt River
Where these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q2226) · 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, Peakyas — 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?
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