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48-838: The Nahatlatch River is a tributary of the Fraser River in the Canadian province of British Columbia . It originates in the Lillooet Ranges of the Coast Mountains and empties into the Fraser River in the Fraser Canyon , north of Boston Bar . The Nahatlatch's River originates in the Lillooet Ranges. It flows southeast, the northeast, collecting tributaries such as Mehatl Creek , Tachewana Creek, and Squakum Creek. It flows through Nahatlatch Lake , Hannah Lake, and Frances Lake. After

96-678: A 220,000-square-kilometre (85,000 sq mi) area. Its source is a dripping spring at Fraser Pass in the Canadian Rocky Mountains near the border with Alberta . The river then flows north to the Yellowhead Highway and west past Mount Robson to the Rocky Mountain Trench and the Robson Valley near Valemount . After running northwest past 54° north, it makes a sharp turn to the south at Giscome Portage , meeting

144-507: A mountainside to the separate drainage basin of Seton Lake , utilizing a system of three dams, four powerhouses and a canal. The powerhouses have a maximum generating capacity of 480 MW and an average annual production of 2670 GWh. Development of the system began in 1927 and was completed in 1960. The waters initially pass through the Lajoie Dam and powerhouse and are then diverted through tunnels and penstocks from Carpenter Reservoir to

192-664: A navigable stream". His trip down the river convinced him that Fort Langley could not replace Fort Vancouver as the company's main depot on the Pacific coast. Much of British Columbia's history has been bound to the Fraser, partly because it was the essential route between the Interior and the Lower Coast after the loss of the lands south of the 49th Parallel with the Oregon Treaty of 1846. It

240-650: A regional position within the Canadian Heraldic Authority is named after the river. The Fraser River is known for the fishing of white sturgeon , all five species of Pacific salmon ( chinook , coho , chum , pink , sockeye ), as well as steelhead trout . The Fraser River is also the largest producer of salmon in Canada. A typical white sturgeon catch can average about 500 pounds (230 kg). A white sturgeon weighing an estimated 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) and measuring 3.76 metres (12 ft 4 in)

288-689: A short dam lifespan, but mostly because of strong opposition from fisheries and other environmental concerns. In 1858, the Fraser River and surrounding areas were occupied when the gold rush came to the Fraser Canyon and the Fraser River. It is also a popular fishing location for residents of the Lower Mainland. The delta of the river, especially in the Boundary Bay area, is an important stopover location for migrating shorebirds . The Fraser Herald ,

336-442: A significant spring freshet , primarily impacting regions around Prince George , Kamloops , Hope and Surrey . Due to record snowpacks on the mountains in the Fraser River catch basin which began melting, combined with heavy rainfall, water levels on the Fraser River rose in 2007 to a level not reached since 1972. Low-lying land in areas upriver such as Prince George suffered minor flooding. Evacuation alerts were given for

384-526: Is Sto:lo , often seen archaically as Staulo , and has been adopted by the Halkomelem-speaking peoples of the Lower Mainland as their collective name, Sto:lo . The river's name in the Dakelh language is Lhtakoh . The Tsilhqot'in name for the river, not dissimilar to the Dakelh name, is ʔElhdaqox , meaning Sturgeon ( ʔElhda-chugh ) River ( Yeqox ) . The Fraser drains

432-532: Is Lajoie Dam , which forms Downton Lake . Its confluence with the Fraser occurs at a double gorge formed by the two rivers, which are forced through narrow banks at this point and so reminiscent of a fountain (in another version of the name, the surname of one of Fraser's men was supposedly du Font , giving the location its name of the Lower Fountains (the Upper Fountains being another few miles upstream on

480-556: Is 112 cubic kilometres (27 cu mi) or 3,550 cubic metres per second (125,000 cu ft/s), and each year it discharges about 20 million tons of sediment into the ocean. The river is named after Simon Fraser , who led an expedition in 1808 on behalf of the North West Company from the site of present-day Prince George almost to the mouth of the river. The river's name in the Halqemeylem (Upriver Halkomelem) language

528-628: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Fraser River The Fraser River ( / ˈ f r eɪ z ər / ) is the longest river within British Columbia , Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for 1,375 kilometres (854 mi), into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver . The river's annual discharge at its mouth

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576-524: Is approximately 64 kilometres (40 mi) north of the 49th parallel , which is Canada's border with the United States . From Lytton southwards it runs through a progressively deeper canyon between the Lillooet Ranges of the Coast Mountains on its west and the Cascade Range on its east. Hell's Gate , located immediately downstream of the town of Boston Bar , is a famous portion of the canyon where

624-681: Is in that area the south flank of the Bridge, what Bridge River water enters the Fraser now is largely the flow of one of the Bridge's tributaries, the Yalakom River . The Yalakom, whose name means 'the ewe of the mountain sheep ' in the Chilcotin language , was in old times known as the North Fork of the Bridge. The South Fork of the Bridge River is many miles upstream, at the community of Gold Bridge , and

672-459: Is named Queensborough and is part of the City of New Westminster. Also in the lowermost Fraser, among other smaller islands, is Annacis Island , an important industrial and port area, which lies to the southeast of the eastern end of Lulu Island. Other notable islands in the lower Fraser are Barnston Island , Matsqui Island , Nicomen Island and Sea Bird Island . Other islands lie on the outer side of

720-595: Is part of the Fraser Lowland and was formed also by sediment deposited from the Fraser, though most of the county is not in the Fraser drainage basin. Similar to the Columbia River Gorge east of Portland, Oregon , the Fraser exploits a topographic cleft between two mountain ranges separating a more continental climate (in this case, that of the British Columbia Interior ) from a milder climate near

768-541: Is today known as the Hurley River (originally Hamilton's River). Several other large feeder streams contribute to the diverted flow of the Bridge, including Gun Creek , Tyaughton Creek , Marshall Creek, and Cadwallader Creek; the last-named is a tributary of the Hurley, about 15 kilometres upstream from its confluence with the Bridge. Bridge River Power Project harnesses the power of the Bridge River, by diverting it through

816-502: The Hudson's Bay Company 's main Pacific depot. Simpson had believed the Fraser River might be navigable throughout its length, even though Simon Fraser had described it as non-navigable. Simpson journeyed down the river and through the Fraser Canyon and afterwards wrote "I should consider the passage down, to be certain Death, in nine attempts out of Ten. I shall therefore no longer talk about it as

864-579: The Lower Mainland ( Fraser Valley and Metro Vancouver ) occurred in 1894. With no protection against the rising waters of the Fraser River, Fraser Valley and Metro Vancouver communities from Chilliwack downstream were inundated with water. In the 1894 floods, the water mark at Mission reached 7.85 metres (25.75 ft). After the 1894 flood, a dyking system was constructed throughout the Fraser Valley. The dyking and drainage projects greatly improved

912-526: The Mount Robson Provincial Park , to Steveston in Vancouver at the river mouth. With an average flow at the mouth of about 3,475 cubic metres per second (122,700 cu ft/s), the Fraser is the largest river by discharge flowing into the Pacific seaboard of Canada and the fifth largest in the country. The average flow is highly seasonal; summer discharge rates can be ten times larger than

960-678: The Nechako River at the city of Prince George , then continues south, progressively cutting deeper into the Fraser Plateau to form the Fraser Canyon from roughly the confluence of the Chilcotin River , near the city of Williams Lake , southwards. It is joined by the Bridge and Seton Rivers at the town of Lillooet , then by the Thompson River at Lytton , where it proceeds south until it

1008-564: The San Juan Islands , gaining strength over the open water of the Strait of Juan de Fuca . The estuary at the river's mouth is a site of hemispheric importance in the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network . The Water Survey of Canada currently operates 17 gauge stations that measure discharge and water level along the majority of the mainstem from Red Pass just downstream of Moose Lake in

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1056-560: The Bridge River. Upstream from Moha the now-dry riverbed runs through the immense gorge of the Bridge River Canyon, which lies immediately downstream from Terzaghi Dam , the principal dam of the Bridge River Power Project . Terzaghi Dam forms Carpenter Lake , the longest and largest of the power project's reservoirs at about 40 kilometres. Just upstream from Gold Bridge , which is at the upper end of Carpenter Lake,

1104-600: The Fraser River just south of Lillooet as a result. The salmon fishery of the Bridge River was near-entirely destroyed by this diversion. It is along Cadwallader Creek that the major mines of the Bridge River goldfields are located at Bralorne and Pioneer Mine . Other mining towns and camps built around mines in the Bridge River goldfields were Minto City , Wayside, Congress, Lajoie, Haylmore and Brexton (aka Fish Lake). Around Bralorne other localities such as Ogden grew up along road right-of-ways and slips of land between

1152-541: The Fraser, today's community of Fountain The river came to be called the Bridge River due to the location of a bridge across the Fraser at this point, originally a pole-structure built by the native St'at'imc people but replaced at the time of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858 by a white-run tollbridge. Because of the diversion of the river to Seton Lake by Terzaghi Dam and tunnels through Mission Mountain , which

1200-577: The North Arm, which is the southern boundary of the City of Vancouver , and the South Arm, which divides the City of Richmond from the City of Delta to the south. Richmond is on the largest island in the Fraser, Lulu Island and also on Sea Island , which is the location of Vancouver International Airport , where the Middle Arm branches off to the south from the North Arm. The far eastern end of Lulu Island

1248-885: The area has changed since it was first proposed for a park in the 1930s, due to the efforts of the prospecting and mining community in the goldfield towns. The protectionist vs. resource extraction battle over that area has raged since that time, and names used in debates for the area have included the Charlie Cunningham Wilderness, the Spruce Lake-Eldorado Study Area , the Spruce Lake-Eldorado Management Planning Unit (SLRMP), Southern Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park, and South Chilcotin Provincial Park. In 2007

1296-733: The banks of the river for the thirty kilometres between the community of Moha, at the confluence of the Yalakom and the Bridge. Gun Creek and Tyaughton Creek jointly drain the south flank of the protected wilderness area known as the Spruce Lake Protected Area , popularly known as the South Chilcotin although the area is not actually in the Chilcotin, which lies north of it, but in the Chilcotin Ranges . The official designation for

1344-529: The coast. When an Arctic high-pressure area moves into the British Columbia Interior and a relatively low-pressure area builds over the general Puget Sound and Strait of Georgia region, the cold Arctic air accelerates southwest through the Fraser Canyon . These outflow winds can gust up to 97 to 129 kilometres per hour (60 to 80 mph) and have at times exceeded 160 kilometres per hour (100 mph). Such winds frequently reach Bellingham and

1392-408: The estuary, most notably Westham Island , a wildfowl preserve, and Iona Island , the location of the main sewage plant for the City of Vancouver. After 100 kilometres (about 60 mi), the Fraser forms a delta where it empties into the Strait of Georgia between the mainland and Vancouver Island . The lands south of the City of Vancouver , including the cities of Richmond and Delta , sit on

1440-469: The first Europeans to find and enter it. The existence of the river, but not its location, had been deduced during the 1791 voyage of José María Narváez , under Francisco de Eliza . The upper reaches of the Fraser River were first explored by Sir Alexander Mackenzie in 1793, and fully traced by Simon Fraser in 1808, who confirmed that it was not connected with the Columbia River . The lower Fraser

1488-627: The flat flood plain . The islands of the delta include Iona Island, Sea Island, Lulu Island, Annacis Island, and a number of smaller islands. While the vast majority of the river's drainage basin lies within British Columbia, a small portion in the drainage basin lies across the international border in Washington in the United States, namely the upper reaches of the tributary Chilliwack and Sumas rivers. Most of lowland Whatcom County, Washington

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1536-517: The flood problems, but over time, the dykes were allowed to fall into disrepair and became overgrown with brush and trees. With some dykes constructed of a wooden frame, they gave way in 1948 in several locations, marking the second disastrous flood. Flooding since 1948 has been minor in comparison. 1948 saw massive flooding in Chilliwack and other areas along the Fraser River. The high-water mark at Mission rose to 7.5 metres (24.7 ft). The peak flow

1584-551: The flow during the winter. The Fraser's highest recorded flow, in June 1894, is estimated to have been 17,000 cubic metres per second (600,000 cu ft/s) at Hope . It was calculated using high-water marks near the hydrometric station at Hope and various statistical methods. In 1948 the Fraser River Board adopted the estimate for the 1894 flood. It remains the value specified by regulatory agencies for all flood control work on

1632-574: The lakes the Nahatlatch River flows generally east to join the Fraser River in the Fraser Canyon. The Mehatl Creek watershed is within Mehatl Creek Provincial Park . The Nahatlatch Provincial Park and Protected Area encompasses the Nahatlatch River's valley from Mehall Creek to Nahatlatch, Hannah, and Frances Lakes. This article about a river in the Coast of British Columbia , Canada

1680-605: The low-lying areas not protected by dikes in the Lower Mainland . However, the water levels did not breach the dikes, and major flooding was averted. Major flooding occurred in November 2021 as part of the November 2021 Pacific Northwest floods . Tributaries are listed from the mouth of the Fraser and going up river. Bridge River The Bridge River hydroelectric complex , operated by BC Hydro , consists of three successive dams, providing water for four hydro power plants with

1728-518: The mineral claims which dominate the northwestern flank of the Bendor Range in this area, providing services not approved of by company towns, including "sporting houses" , some of which were also in Gold Bridge until forced to move to Minto as Gold Bridge became larger. Other gold-mining activity is found throughout the river's basin. During the 19th Century, large hydraulic mining operations lined

1776-437: The poorly maintained dyke systems failed to contain the water. At the height of the 1948 flood, 200 square kilometres (50,000 acres) stood under water. Dykes broke at Agassiz, Chiliwack, Nicomen Island, Glen Valley and Matsqui. When the flood waters receded a month later, 16,000 people had been evacuated, with damages totaling $ 20 million, about $ 225 million in 2020 dollars. Major flooding occurred once again in 1972 due to

1824-476: The river was designated as a Canadian Heritage River for its natural and human heritage. It remains the longest river with that designation. The Fraser is heavily exploited by human activities, especially in its lower reaches. Its banks are rich farmland, its water is used by pulp mills , and a few dams on some tributaries provide hydroelectric power . The main flow of the Fraser has never been dammed partly because its high level of sediment flows would result in

1872-613: The river, the canyon opens up and the river widens, though without much adjoining lowland until Hope , where the river then turns west and southwest into the Fraser Valley , a lush lowland valley, and runs past Chilliwack and the confluence of the Harrison and Sumas Rivers , bending northwest at Abbotsford and Mission . The Fraser then flows past Maple Ridge , Pitt Meadows , Port Coquitlam , and north Surrey . It turns southwest again just east of New Westminster , where it splits into

1920-454: The river. Further studies and hydraulic models have estimated the maximum discharge of the Fraser River, at Hope during the 1894 flood, as within a range of about 16,000 to 18,000 cubic metres per second (570,000 to 640,000 cu ft/s). On June 14, 1792, the Spanish explorers Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayetano Valdés entered and anchored in the North Arm of the Fraser River, becoming

1968-613: The total rated power of total 492 megawatts. Its name in the Lillooet language is Xwisten (pronounced Hwist'n), sometimes spelled Nxwisten or Nxo-isten). Dubbed Riviere du Font by Simon Fraser's exploring party in 1808, it was for a while known by the English version of that name, Fountain River , and some old maps show it as Shaw's River, after the name of one of Fraser's men. The Bridge River Ocean , an ancient ocean, takes its name from

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2016-471: The two powerhouses on Seton Lake Reservoir. Due to the force of the rivers at the Bridge's original confluence into the Fraser, the area has been for millennia the most important inland salmon-fishing site on the Fraser. The flow of the Bridge River, however, was near-completely diverted into Seton Lake with the completion of the Bridge River Power Project in 1961, with the water now entering

2064-408: The walls narrow dramatically, forcing the entire volume of the river through a gap only 35 metres (115 feet) wide. An aerial tramway takes visitors out over the river. Hells Gate is visible from Trans-Canada Highway 1 about 2 km (1.2 mi) south of the tramway. Simon Fraser was forced to portage the gorge on his trip through the canyon in June 1808. At Yale , at the head of navigation on

2112-454: Was about 15,600 cubic meters per second. Cool temperatures in March, April, and early May had delayed the melting of the heavy snowpack that had accumulated over the winter season. Several days of hot weather and warm rains over the holiday weekend in late May hastened the thawing of the snowpack. Rivers and streams quickly swelled with spring runoff, reaching heights surpassed only in 1894. Finally,

2160-468: Was caught and released on the Fraser River in July 2012. In 2021, a white sturgeon was caught on the river weighing 890 pounds (400 kg), with a length of 352 cm (11.55 ft). It was estimated to be over 100 years old. The fish was tagged and released. The most significant Fraser river floods in recorded history occurred in 1894 and 1948. After European settlement, the first disastrous flood in

2208-411: Was revisited in 1824 when the Hudson's Bay Company sent a crew across Puget Sound from its Fort George southern post on the Columbia River . The expedition was led by James McMillan . The Fraser was reached via the Nicomekl River and the Salmon River reachable after a portage. Friendly tribes met earlier on by the Simon Fraser crew were reacquainted with. A trading post with agricultural potential

2256-421: Was the site of its first recorded settlements of Aboriginal people ( see Musqueam , Sto:lo , St'at'imc , Secwepemc and Nlaka'pamŭ ), the site of the first European-Indigenous mixed ancestry settlement in southern British-Columbia ( see Fort Langley ), the route of multitudes of prospectors during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush and the main vehicle of the province's early commerce and industry. In 1998,

2304-462: Was to be located. By 1827, a crew was sent back via the mouth of the Fraser to build and operate the original Fort Langley . McMillan also led the undertaking. The trading post original location would soon become the first ever mixed ancestry and agricultural settlement in southern British Columbia on the Fraser (Sto:lo) river. In 1828 George Simpson visited the river, mainly to examine Fort Langley and determine whether it would be suitable as

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