Wind River Reservation Boysen Reservoir
— — a held water at the edge of the canyon's first cut.
Not only on a wall.
“Boysen Reservoir sits at the south entrance to Wind River Canyon, a long held water on the Wind River where the country opens between the Owl Creek and the Bridger ranges. The dam is at the north end; the reservoir runs south across the Wind River Indian Reservation, the home of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho. Sage and red bluffs come down to the shoreline. Walleye, perch, and trout in the cold inflow at the south end. The water is the colour of the sky on its better days, and on the wind-down evenings the surface holds the buttes upside down.
Wind River Reservation Boysen Reservoir, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Boysen Reservoir is an impoundment of the Wind River in Fremont County, Wyoming, lying entirely within the Wind River Indian Reservation, home of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho. The Bureau of Reclamation completed the current Boysen Dam in 1952 as part of the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program; the dam stands 220 feet high and the reservoir holds about 802,000 acre-feet at full pool. Boysen State Park, managed by Wyoming State Parks under a long-standing agreement with the tribes, surrounds the lake. Elevation at the shoreline runs about 4,820 feet.
The reservoir spans about 19,560 surface acres and runs nearly twenty miles south to north. The Wind River enters at the south end out of the Bridger and Wind River ranges; the river leaves at the north through the dam and immediately drops into Wind River Canyon. Fisheries include walleye, sauger, yellow perch, ling, and rainbow and brown trout in the cooler inflow. Tribal fishing permits, separate from the Wyoming state license, are required to fish on Reservation waters; the state park lake is co-managed under that arrangement.
Boysen State Park is open year-round; the campgrounds at Tamarask, Brannon, and Tough Creek run from May through September. The reservoir freezes through winter, and ice fishing for perch is a regional January and February pursuit. The town of Shoshoni sits at the southeast corner on US-20, and Thermopolis lies 25 miles north through the canyon. Visitors should carry both Wyoming and tribal permits as required, respect closed roads on Reservation land, and check Wind River Reservation public-access rules before fishing or camping outside park boundaries.