Arrow Lake
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an expansion of the Columbia river, in British Columbia, Canada; about 95 miles long from N. to S.; often regarded as forming two lakes -Upper and Lower Arrow Lake. ARROWROOT. (1) In botany, the English name of the botanical genus maranta, the type of the endogenous order Marantaceæ. The flowers of maranta are in long, close, spike-like panicles, with irregular corollas. The root is a fleshy corm, which, when washed, grated, strained through a sieve, I through a sieve, and again repeatedly washed, furnishes the substance so much prized as good for invalids, which is described under 2. (2) In commerce, the starch extracted from the rhizomes of a maranta, and exported to England in large quantities from the East and West Indies, and from Africa, each importation taking the name of the place from which it comes. Thus they have East Indian arrowroot, Bermuda arrowroot, St. Vincent arrowroot, Natal arrowroot, etc. Arrowroot is adulterated either by the mixing together of various qualities of arrowroot, or by the admixture of other starches, such as potato or tapioca. ARROYO MOLINOS (ar-oi'o-mō-lē'nos), a town of Spain, in Estremadura, 27 miles S. S. E. of Caceres. Here, on Oct. 28, 1811, a body of the French sent out by Soult on a foraging expedition was surprised by a much larger English force under Lord Hill. An engagement took place, the result of which is differently appreciated by the historians of the two nations. The English took 1,300 prisoners, but the French retreated in good order.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's described in 1921 a natural widening of the Columbia "often regarded as forming two lakes" — Upper and Lower Arrow. Under the Columbia River Treaty of 1964, Canada built the Hugh Keenleyside Dam near Castlegar, completed in 1968, which raised the water and merged the two into a single controlled body now usually called the Arrow Lakes Reservoir; the level is drawn down and refilled by tens of metres each year for downstream flood control and power. The flooding drowned farmland and forced the relocation of settlements such as Burton and Edgewood, while Renata was abandoned. The lakes are also the homeland of the Sinixt, whom Canada declared "extinct" in 1956; the Supreme Court of Canada recognised their descendants' Aboriginal hunting rights in the 2021 Desautel decision.
Written for this edition, 2026.