[1] Used by the Montagnais of the Saguenay River before the arrival of Europeans, it was at that time the first portage from the main access road to Lac Saint-Jean.

In addition to being the source of drinking water for the Chicoutimi and Jonquière boroughs, this river has six dams (including 2 hydroelectric power plants in operation).

Leaving the rocky base and the steep relief of Portage-de-Roches, it then enters an alluvial and semi-alluvial plain up to dam de la Chute-Garneau[3] where the landscapes on both banks alternate between residences and agricultural land for a little over ten kilometers.

After passing under the Ulric Blackburn bridge (boulevard Barette) it flows into Lac Dubuc; the reservoir of the Chute-Blanchette dam.

This retaining structure dries up the original rock bed of the river to divert it towards an underground water intake which supplies the S.P.C.

The soils of this large depression are composed of Quaternary marine sediments, such as silt and clay, deposited at the end of the Pleistocene and during the beginning of the Holocene by the Laflamme Sea.

[4] The watershed of the Chicoutimi River occupies an area of 3,390 km2 (1,310 sq mi), distributed mainly in the Laurentian Wildlife Reserve and shared between two administrative regions: Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean and Capitale-Nationale.

[6] The first section, delimited by the dams of Portage-des-Roches and Pont-Arnaud, would represent a part in upstream of the river almost 20 km (12 mi) in length.

Located in the plain of Laterrière, south of Chicoutimi, this section would have a drop of barely 17.3 m (57 ft)[5] and would form a meander and a reservoir retained by the dams of Pont-Arnaud and Chute-Garneau.

[7] The watershed of the Chicoutimi River, with an area of 3,390 km2 (1,310 sq mi), holds, with those neighboring it, the Quebec record of precipitation on its territory (approximately 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in) of water per year).

This approach triggered conflicts because the capacity to supply water to Kenogami Lake varied according to the seasons and the levels of the various structures did not allow an equitable sharing of flows.

This situation was brought to court in 1911 resulting in the Letellier judgment which shared the contributions of the two main outlets from Kenogami Lake at 2/3 at the Chicoutimi river and 1/3 at the rivière-aux-Sables.

Built in 1676 on the remains of a prehistoric Amerindian encampment, the Chicoutimi trading post, which included a commercial warehouse and a chapel, reached its peak at the end of the 17th century.

The immense forest wealth upstream of the river greatly facilitates the growth of the company which becomes, in a short time, an internationally renowned pulp exporter.

[12] By its jerky drop, its large current and its immense source of water, the Chicoutimi river became, with the arrival of industries, a place of choice for establishing electrical installations.

The drinking water intake of the city of Chicoutimi is uprooted and the municipality will install a pump nearby to provide service.

The Chute-Blanchette dam manages to resist the flood by opening its valves to the maximum (1,080 m (3,543.307 ft)/s) which let water pass through the spillway near Pulperie de Chicoutimi.