Skokomish River

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Skokomish River
Skokomish River Delta on Hood Canal
Origin	Mount Skokomish, Olympic Mountains
Mouth	Hood Canal
Basin countries	United States
Length	69 km (43 mi)
Mouth elevation	sea level
Avg. discharge	34.3 m³/s (1,212 ft³/s)
Basin area	588 km² (227 mi²)

The Skokomish River is a river in Washington, United States. It starts by draining the southeast corner of the Olympic Mountains in Mason County. It flows southeasterly entering Hood Canal (a fjord of Puget Sound) at Hoodsport. Lake Cushman and Lake Kokanee are maintained by Cushman Dam No. 1 and Cushman Dam No. 2 respectively on the Skokomish River. Notable for frequent floods, its maximum recorded discharge was 765 m³/s (27,000 ft³/s), Nov. 5, 1934, more than twenty times its mean flow.

Like most Pacific Northwest rivers, it was named after the native tribe who lived on it, whose name derives from the Salishan words skokom + ish = "brave" + "people" or "strong" + "people". It has the same meaning in the Chinook Jargon.

The confluence of the two branches of the Skokomish River — the North and South Forks — occurs very near Hood Canal. The North Fork is almost totally diverted through Cushman Dam. The South Fork drainage was heavily logged, although logging has been discontinued in National Forest land since the late 1980's. The combination of the logging and the damming of the North Fork are the primary reasons for the flooding that occurs almost every year on the South Fork.^{[citation needed]}