The Redstone River is a large river in the Northwest Territories

Northwest Territories

The Northwest Territories is a federal territory of Canada.Located in northern Canada, the territory borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, and Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south...

 of 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 about 289 kilometres (179.6 mi) long. It is a tributary of the 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...

, joining it on the left bank some 100 kilometres (62.1 mi) north of Wrigley. Draining a rugged and high area of the Mackenzie Mountains

Mackenzie Mountains

The Mackenzie Mountains are a mountain range forming part of the Yukon-Northwest Territories boundary between the Liard and Peel rivers. The range is named in honour of Canada's second Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie. Nahanni National Park Reserve is in the Mackenzie Mountains.The Mackenzie...

, the Redstone watershed

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

 is sparsely populated; in fact, there are no significant settlements within the basin.

Course

It begins in several ponds on Rockslide Pass south of the Redstone Plateau deep within the Mackenzie Mountains, at an elevation of 1068 metres (3,503.9 ft). The river initially flows northwest, turning west where the Moose Horn River enters from the left. It makes a bend to the north, turning south near Wrigley Lake, and receives one of its larger tributaries, the Ravens Throat River, as it cuts through the Redstone Range. The Redstone turns north, bending west around the Silvan Plateau, leaving its canyon and spreading onto the plains surrounding the Mackenzie River, which it joins about 40 kilometres (24.9 mi) after that point, at just 133 metres (436.4 ft) above sea level, 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) upstream from the Keele River

Keele River

The Keele River is a tributary of the Mackenzie River, about long, in the western part of the Canadian Northwest Territories. Flowing in a generally northeast direction, it drains a sparsely populated, rugged area of the Mackenzie Mountains.-Course:...

.

Watershed

The Redstone's watershed

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

 encompasses an area of roughly 16400 square kilometre. Its average annual discharge

Discharge (hydrology)

In hydrology, discharge is the volume rate of water flow, including any suspended solids , dissolved chemical species and/or biologic material , which is transported through a given cross-sectional area...

, measured at a gauge near the mouth from 1963 to 1974, was roughly 417 m3/s. The highest monthly flows occurred in August at 454 m3/s, and the lowest was 15.7 m3/s in March, because of its dependence on glacier and snow melt in the brief Arctic summer. The highest recorded flow was 545 m3/s in July 1968, and the lowest was 11.3 m3/s in February 1972.