The Red River of the North flows northward 550 miles from Breckenridge, Minnesota, to Lake Winnipeg in Canada, with 394 miles forming most of the Minnesota–North Dakota border, and the Red River Valley occupies the former floor of glacial Lake Agassiz, one of the world's flattest landscapes rather than a geologic valley. Geologists believe Lake Agassiz formed when massive glaciers began to melt nearly 12,000 years ago, and as the lake slowly drained northward through Canada and southeasterly toward Minnesota, the Red River of the North was created; early French Canadian explorers called it the "Rivieré Rouge de Nord," probably because of its clay soils, muddy banks, and reddish-brown silt-filled waters. Nomadic cultures arrived soon after the glaciers retreated, following bison and caribou, and about 2,000 years ago Indians from the forests of Minnesota and Wisconsin moved into the grassy Red River Basin; in the early 1800s the first permanent European settlements appeared along the river in present-day Manitoba, and throughout the century immigrants continued settling along its banks in the United States. For almost two centuries the Hudson's Bay Company controlled commerce in the area, trading bison and beaver hides by large canoes and boats through Hudson Bay, and the Red River oxcart trail later linked that route to the Mississippi River and other parts of the United States. In 1859 Anson Northup and his steamboat of the same name began service on the Red, connecting with the Hudson's Bay Company's steamboat landing near Georgetown, but railroads reached Moorhead in 1871 and by the turn of the century steamboats were nearly extinct on the river. After the steamboat era, the river became quieter; although it once hosted swimming areas, a 140-foot ski jump tower, and a floating stage for outdoor concerts, today its tree-lined banks support growing recreation alongside parks, a tour boat service, and dam safety efforts. The river corridor stands out in the surrounding prairie for its wildlife, fish, and riparian forest, with channel catfish, northern pike, goldeye, carp, trophy walleye, birds such as bald eagles, wood ducks, great blue herons, Canada geese, hawks, owls, yellow warblers, redstarts, Baltimore orioles, and indigo buntings, as well as beavers, raccoons, mink, squirrels, skunks, woodchucks, and occasionally bear and moose; plant life varies across the flood plain from willow, cottonwood, and box elder near the water to oak, ash, and elm farther up the bank, while surrounding cropland includes corn, wheat, soybeans, and sugar beets. The river's gentle average slope of one-half foot per mile makes it slow-moving and generally navigable, though winds, snags, fluctuating flow, and floods from storms or spring thaw can create hazards, and its banks and waters are tied to broader efforts to support sustainable recreation, protect water quality, and maintain healthy native shoreline habitat.