Mississippi River (Ontario)

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This article is about the river in Canada. For the distinct river in the United States, see Mississippi River.

Mississippi River
View from Highway 417 near Antrim
Origin	Upper Mazinaw Lake
Mouth	Ottawa River at 45°26′29″N 76°17′07″W / 45.44139, -76.28528
Basin countries	Canada
Length	169 km (105 mi)
Mouth elevation	74 m (240 ft)
Avg. discharge	40 m³/s (1,400 cu ft/s)
Basin area	3,750 km² (1,450 sq mi)

The Mississippi River is a tributary of the Ottawa River in eastern Ontario in Canada. It is 169 kilometres (105 mi) in length from its source in Upper Mazinaw Lake, has a drainage area of 3,750 square kilometres (1,450 sq mi), and has a mean discharge of 40 cubic metres per second (1,400 cu ft/s). It rises east of the Kawartha lakes and flows northeast through Crotch, Dalhousie, and Mississippi Lakes, past Carleton Place, through the municipality of Mississippi Mills and the town of Almonte, then north to join the Ottawa River just east of Arnprior.

Tributaries include the:

The river originally powered textile mills. Today, it provides hydroelectric power.

The Purdon Conservation Area, a wetland in this river's watershed, contains Canada's largest native colony of showy lady slipper orchids, some 16,000 plants.

The origin of the river's name is something of a mystery; although its current spelling may be derived from that of its much larger American cousin, it is most certainly a corruption of a different native name, as the translation 'great water' would not apply to a relatively minor tributary of the Ottawa, definitely the largest river in the area. Instead, the name may originate from "Mazinaa[bikinigan]-ziibi", Algonquian for '[painted] image river', referring to the pictographs found on Mazinaw Lake, though this is by no means proven.