Historically, the river served as a canoe transportation route for various Native American tribes, and for French Canadian Voyageurs.

But, low gradient, access issues, frequent logjams in the upper reaches, and 22 dams on the mainstream limit its recreational use.

Great Britain and their allied Native American troops under the command of British General Henry Procter and Native American chiefs Roundhead, Walks in Water, and Split Log, fought against a division of ill-trained Kentucky infantry and militia under command of General James Winchester.

Cut off and surrounded, and facing total slaughter, Winchester surrendered with British assurances of safety for the prisoners.

[5] Environmental authorities advise people not to eat some species of fish from the river, if taken below the outlet of the Monroe Dam.

The Port of Monroe was constructed near the mouth of the river in the 1930s, as a needed infrastructure project sponsored by the President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration during the Great Depression.

Flooding along the river has three causes: heavy rains, ice dams developing during spring break-up, and on-shore winds pushing Lake Erie waters upstream.

Very few fish migrate between the river and the Great Lakes because they are blocked by the seven dams in Monroe, as well as the power plant intakes.

[3] Bird species use the area as part of the migratory flyway along eastern Lake Erie; they include bald eagles, sandhill cranes, ducks and seagulls.

The threatened American lotus is present in Eagle Island Marsh, but it must compete with several invasive plant species in the watershed, including flowering rush, Eurasian milfoil, curlyleaf pondweed, Phragmites and purple loosestrife.