The area's ecology includes large animals such as bighorn sheep and American black bears, while the geology includes compressed, folded sandstone and shale dating back millions of years, with visible remnants of algae mats and water marks from when Montana was covered by water.

[2][3] In the early 1800s, David Thompson, a Canadian explorer and employee of the Northwest Company, travelled into the canyon and used the Kootenai River as a navigational guide through the area following Native Americans and game trails.

[5] The Kootenai River Gorge is composed of "sandstone and thin layers of shale from the Mount Shields Formation of the Belt Supergroup, with folds from compression that dates back to the Sevier Orogeny 50 to 100 million years ago.

[3] The nearby Wildlife Management Area is home to bighorn sheep, American black bears, moose, and many other animal species,[7] while the plant life is described as "very diverse [...] most coniferous trees common to the Northwest can be found.

[3] There are trails suitable for hiking, biking, and horseback nearby, and hunting and wildlife viewing are possible depending on species.