It was once navigable for approximately 50 miles (80 km) of its length, from the Mississippi River, by Durand, northeast to Eau Claire.

Sediment build-up at the river's mouth forms a delta that protrudes into the Mississippi, creating Lake Pepin in the process.

The river's confluence with the Red Cedar is just north of the Driftless Zone, at which point its floodplain widens out considerably, and includes numerous riverine islands.

The river has a deep, wide canyon, likely due to larger water discharges during Laurentide Ice Sheet retreat.

The 1742, Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi as "Rivière de bon Secours ou Hahatonouadeba", and then in the 1757 edition of the Mitchell Map as "Hahatonadeba River", the maps show the transliteration of the Dakota language name for the river Ḣaḣatuŋ[waŋ W]atpa.

[3] Frederick Weyerhaeuser described it as "a logger's paradise, a very large part of its area being heavily forested with the finest quality of white pine timber, while rivers, streams, and lakes offered an excellent network of transportation facilities.

In 1878 a large splash dam was built at Little Falls (modern Holcombe), with so much capacity that when fully opened, it could raise the Chippewa three feet 100 miles downstream.