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The Fate of the Fraser

Exploring BC's future by journeying the length of its mightiest river. First in a series.

By Colleen Kimmett, 19 Nov 2008, TheTyee.ca

Colleen Kimmett on the mighty Fraser

Tyee writer Kimmett and companions paddling the Fraser in the Robson Valley. Photo by Jeremy Williams.

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Exploring the Fate of the Fraser River

In 1995, Fin Donnelly swam the length of the Fraser River for the first time.

At one point, nearly hypothermic, doubting his ability to continue the 1400-kilometre journey, Donnelly reached out and touched a salmon.

"Making that connection gave me the clarity of vision of why I was doing what I was doing," says Donnelly.

His vision was to spread the word about salmon, stewardship and sustainability in communities along the Fraser and across B.C.

He received a smattering of local press that year for his remarkable feat, but in 2000 when he swam the river for a second time, something changed.

People were there to greet him when he stopped at towns along the way. They had heard of him and were excited about his mission.

For Donnelly, it was proof that his message was getting through. And if he could serve as a river ambassador, why not others?

In 2002, Donnelly launched the Sustainable Living Leadership Program (SLLP) with funding from the Rivershed Society of B.C. That year, the SLLP graduated its first seven participants.

In August 2008, I joined the fifth group to go through the program. Together we travelled the length of the Fraser River, a three-week journey from source to sea.

We were 12 people altogether: eight participants, three facilitators, a videographer and myself. Our purpose was to see first-hand how British Columbians live and work on the Fraser, and gain a better understanding of how people, land and rivers are connected.

What we learned along the way -- complex, compelling, and vital to the fate of British Columbia's people and ecology -- I will be sharing with you in a series of articles to run Wednesdays here on The Tyee.

A free-roaming classroom

Travelling by foot, van, canoe and raft, we started in Mount Robson National Park -- the glacial source of the Fraser headwaters -- and finished at Jericho Beach in Vancouver, just inland from where the main stem pours into the Pacific.

Our classroom was the ever-changing landscape of the river, from lush inland rainforest, to arid desert canyons, to the fertile tidal flats.

Our teachers were our facilitators -- Donnelly, Doug Radies and Glenda Newsted -- and the many people we met along the way: ecologists, farmers, fishermen and guides.

All of them spoke of their own connections with the land and water, and of the paradigm shift that is happening in themselves and their communities.

Brenda Beckwith, an ethno-ecologist who would join us for the final leg of the trip, described this shift in the context of her work in habitat restoration.

"We used to pick through old journals, photos and newspaper articles to get a snapshot in time of a certain place," she explained. "Then we would try and recreate that snapshot."

"We now know that's impossible -- we have no idea how to engineer an ecosystem. Now we look at ecological fidelity."

This is like the promise of faith exchanged at the altar, Beckwith explained. Simply put, it means understanding the capacity of our ecosystem, and operating within it.

'We're trying to localize our life'

Gary and Wendy Lowe take this concept of fidelity to a whole higher level.

They own Twin Meadows Farm, an idyllic 350 acres nestled in the Robson Valley on the banks of the Fraser.

This is where the first leg of our journey ends after four days through the Robson Valley in a 34-foot canoe called the Cedar Spirit.

We've eddied out on a stone beach adjacent to the property. Soon Doug will meet us here with the van, and we'll make our way to Soda Creek, where we'll get back on the water in a raft.

While we wait, Gary comes down to chat. He's wearing his work attire: jeans, grey T-shirt and a white cowboy hat. We're strangers to him, but he invites us to stay the night if (God forbid) our ride doesn't show up.

"Being organic is very important to us, it's an extension of our life," he says.

He and Wendy are working towards a zero-input farm, he tells us, meaning that nothing, not even seeds, will be imported from elsewhere. With any luck, they will even breed their own resident bee populations.

"We're trying to localize our life here as much as possible... we see this as our own little micro-world."

Measuring the Mighty Fraser

The Fraser River stretches 1,399 kilometres from Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Rockies, to the Fraser Valley, where it branches north towards Vancouver and south towards Surrey to meet the Pacific Ocean.

The wider Fraser watershed drains roughly one-quarter of the province, an area about the size of California. This great basin is comprised of 13 sub-basins, and precipitation that falls in thousands of even smaller tributary watersheds, defined by ridgelines, eventually ends up in the main stem of the Fraser.

These watersheds span 11 of the 14 biogeoclimatic zones in the province, representing both the wettest and driest areas in Canada. -- C.K.

Perhaps it's easier to make sustainable choices within such a micro-world. Yet, even in own group, we struggle with how our behaviours and decisions would affect our own campsites and those downstream.

We try to leave as little trace as possible wherever we go. Arriving at a site, one of the first tasks is digging a pit toilet or setting up the 'honey pot' -- a portable toilet we carry down the Fraser Canyon -- in a spot with the best view.

Leaving a site, we pack out all waste, including organics. The fire is to ash and the camp swept of anything that wasn't there when we arrived. Still, we ask one another around the campfire, could we be doing better?

One evening, at one of our few two-day stops of the trip, a participant confesses to having washed dirty clothes upriver.

Now she has seen traces of a whitish film lapping up on our beach, and feels guilty.

I, too, have brought my dirty clothes and CampSuds down the river tonight, but the soap is biodegradable. That's okay, right?

Wrong. The biodegradable stuff needs to filter through earth before it will completely break down.

Glenda tells us not to beat ourselves up and offers a quote from Maya Angelou: "We do the best we can with what we know, and when we know better, we do better."

Among the beleaguered salmon

If only things were that simple. The Fraser is part of a system extending far out into the Pacific. When salmon farms first arrived in the 1990s in the Broughton Archipelago, they seemed like a good economic solution for the depressed communities there.

But over the next decade, scientists started to see links between fish farm operations and deadly sea lice infestations among wild salmon populations.

The knowledge is there; but still provincial and federal governments ignore recommendations to ban or limit open-net fish farming.

Midway through the trip, some DFO officers visit our camp to demonstrate seine netting. Dragging the 15 by 2 metre net through the shallow eddy, they get a sampling of the species and size of young fish resting and feeding here.

They open up about their work, communities and love for the river. The subject of fish farms is a touchier subject for them.

"DFO's official role is to support the aquaculture industry and help develop it and promote it and ensure that it's not to the detriment of other species," says Roy Argue, a community advisor.

Guy Scharf, a habitat specialist, is glad he's not in the Broughton, but says there are problems in the Interior as well.

Here, says Scharf, some salmon spawning streams have dangerously low water levels, the result of over-irrigation.

"But it's the province that gives out irrigation licenses," he says.

"DFO is in charge of the fish, but we don't regulate the land and the water... it provides a grey area for habitat protection."

A swirling current of choices

It's humbling to sit on a sand bar in the Fraser Canyon, under a full moon in a clear sky.

Our little circle around the campfire is dwarfed by 400-metre-high canyon walls. With the moonlight reflected off these walls, it's bright enough to have a game of Frisbee at midnight.

The Fraser River today is a trickle compared to what it must have been when it started carving out its path through the interior plateau 24 million years ago.

On this scale, all human existence is like one grain of sand on this entire beach; as if our little green choices make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

On a smaller scale, a couple of generations, we will have to deal with the unravelling of our ecosystem. More people will vie for fewer resources.

Our discussions about healthy and secure food, air and water supplies often quickly turn political. We can buy local and organic food, carry it home in cloth bags, but only policy-makers can ban plastic and pesticides.

'From consumer to conserver'

This particular group is one of the most politically savvy he's had, Donnelly tells me later. But that's not the focus of the program.

"If outreach can be focused on changing public policy, then great," says Donnelly. "But what often happens when you're focused specifically on the issues, is that you fight the issues, it's a win or lose and then things fizzle.

"What I would like to see is a solid foundation built where we're moving towards shifting the world view from a consumer paradigm to a conserver paradigm."

We are all connected, and we must use resource wisely. It's a simple message, but until people truly understand and accept this, sustainability is nothing but a buzzword.

Next Wednesday: At the Fraser's headwaters. And the promise and limits of eco-tourism in BC's greatest watershed.

Related Tyee stories:

[Tyee]

Tyee frequent contributor Colleen Kimmett is a Vancouver-based journalist who writes about environmental issues and policy.

14 Comments:

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  • BC Mary

    3 years ago

    A great river ...

    ... and a good story. Strange, really, that The Fraser has never been a recreation river. Too muddy? Too swift? Is Hell's Gate the problem?

    But canoes on the river will bring connections and better understanding of what's happening to the once-mighty Fraser. And that's a good thing.

    Thanks, all.

  • G West

    3 years ago

    Thanks Colleen

    Sadly, this...we will have to deal with the unravelling of our ecosystem..is happening now - it won't be two generations that 'we' have to deal with it.

  • Sam Salmon

    3 years ago

    Mary?

    "Strange, really, that The Fraser has never been a recreation river."

    You must not live anywhere near the Fraser Mary-in season there's a constant parade of pleasure craft up and down the calmer portions, work craft of course are on the river 24/7.

  • ME2

    3 years ago

    Query

    Perhaps this is the opportunity to get an answer to a question I've often seen and heard discussed, but not for some years.

    Does anyone know if, or how much, effluent is reaching the river from industrial, urban, or farming sources?

    I know there was worry over this a few years back, along with promises to clean it up.

  • Sam Salmon

    3 years ago

    Monitoring is Ongoing

    "Does anyone know if, or how much, effluent is reaching the river from industrial, urban, or farming sources?"

    Yes the Provincial Govt continues to monitor water quality levels, when people are found to be polluting the river they are taken to court.

  • Glen Murtz

    3 years ago

    Get a job.

    We need to get the Fraser up off its ass and maybe work for a living. Sure, this government's got "working forests" and all, but that friggin Fraser just sits around all day doing nothing!
    Un-bee-leev-a-bull!
    It's time the Fraser got up off its duff and got a job. Time for this tributary to kick in a tribute or two, I say.
    I'm sick and tired of my hard earned tax dollars supporting this over-sized stream and its babbling brooks while it meanders all day.

    ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
    CRACK THE "ECO-WHIP"!
    PUT THE FRASER TO WORK!

  • snert

    3 years ago

    Not too much wrong with the river.

    Lots wrong with our fish management practices.

    I was talking to a biologist that does sampling counts in all the small streams in the Fraser Valley and he said that the Chum counts are way up this year. Only the eagles, bears, ducks and maybe sturgeon eat them

    The river will support the fish if we quit over fishing them.

    I suspect that in the world the Fraser River is one of the better rivers that runs through densely populated areas.

  • BC Mary

    3 years ago

    The Fraser has never been a recreation river ...

    When I wrote the following comment at the top of this thread

    " ... Strange, really, that The Fraser has never been a recreation river. Too muddy? Too swift? Is Hell's Gate the problem?"

    a friend replied:

    Too many eddies/boils/whirlpools.....Hell's Gate is just an extreme case, the Bridge River Rapids are actually worse, likewise the Fountain Rapids another three miles upstream, and French Bar Canyon farther up near Big Bar.....the issue with the Fraser, even way up by Prince George, is that it's very turbulent and full of dangerous currents; tough for canoeing, dangerous to do so upstream, deadly to swim in except in sheltered back-eddies, and cold as hell (because it's opaque and the Bridge, Chilcotin and Stein are all cold-contibutors, likewise the McGregor, Torpy, Rausch, Canoe, Milk and other uppper-upper tributaries....it's actually navigable from Boston Bar to, of all places, Kamloops Lake, if you've got the right hulls and a real powerful motor/turbine/propshafts....the Skuzzy did it, long ago, depsite the incredible rapids of the lower Thompson; point is a lot of it, say from Lillooet to Lytton, is realtively placid for rafts; it's the sections that aren't that make it impracticable for recreation, and also a lack of access to the good waterfront along its middle length, which tends to be on IR or on private property (because private landowners wanted that nice-looking sandbar/side-water; anywhere that you can get to the riverbank is either a fishing/camping spot for natives, i.e .IR, or it's part of someone's spread....

    [Continued below ...]

  • BC Mary

    3 years ago

    The Fraser has never been a recreation river ...

    When I wrote the following comment at the top of this thread

    " ... Strange, really, that The Fraser has never been a recreation river. Too muddy? Too swift? Is Hell's Gate the problem?"

    a friend replied:

    Too many eddies/boils/whirlpools.....Hell's Gate is just an extreme case, the Bridge River Rapids are actually worse, likewise the Fountain Rapids another three miles upstream, and French Bar Canyon farther up near Big Bar.....the issue with the Fraser, even way up by Prince George, is that it's very turbulent and full of dangerous currents; tough for canoeing, dangerous to do so upstream, deadly to swim in except in sheltered back-eddies, and cold as hell (because it's opaque and the Bridge, Chilcotin and Stein are all cold-contibutors, likewise the McGregor, Torpy, Rausch, Canoe, Milk and other uppper-upper tributaries....it's actually navigable from Boston Bar to, of all places, Kamloops Lake, if you've got the right hulls and a real powerful motor/turbine/propshafts....the Skuzzy did it, long ago, depsite the incredible rapids of the lower Thompson; point is a lot of it, say from Lillooet to Lytton, is realtively placid for rafts; it's the sections that aren't that make it impracticable for recreation, and also a lack of access to the good waterfront along its middle length, which tends to be on IR or on private property (because private landowners wanted that nice-looking sandbar/side-water; anywhere that you can get to the riverbank is either a fishing/camping spot for natives, i.e .IR, or it's part of someone's spread....

    [Continued below ...]

  • BC Mary

    3 years ago

    The Fraser continued ...

    My friend continues ...

    my comments about bank-access are for Hope upwards, obviously not the case below there...swimming the side-sloughs, yeah, fair game (though still often icy cold, depending on the slough and what streams flow into it) . I don't recall a single public beach, i.e. a place you'd take the kids swimming, along its entire length from Yale on down; I know of private beaches along its length, but only in backwaters and sloughs; swimming in the Fraser is idiocy, unless you're doing it to prove a point (like so-and-so who's swimming down it, and did it before....).

    BTW while the rafting companies have done well on the river, and in fact as a result of those companies I'd venture that more people from OUTSIDE BC have ridden on the Fraser than those of us actually from the place, that more canoeing activity in the way of sponsored youth races isn't going on is rather nuts; it's a cultural issue though; "we" (Canadians, the Canadians of the kind we're told we're to be) are only nuts about hockey; there's little investment or encouragement of attitdue towards developing teams in other sports. But with whitewater kayaking and various forms of canoeing now Olympic sports, it's nuts that we don't encourage more community canoe races/training even in Williams Lake and Prince George etc; "we" (BCers) could clean up just by having better training grounds; out here in NS apparently competitive canoeing (though not war canoes, with the big crews) is a big deal; to me, for all my disdain for Canadian nationalism I think canoeing should be made a national sport and given as much hype and brainwashing as canoeing; all you need is a paddle and a boat, basically, and a good strong river as well as lakes etc....

    point is the Fraser IS under-used recreationally, but so are all of BC's rivers......was a time when, even before steamboats, the big Indian canoes were the express fleet of the Fraser (and they were faster than the early steamboats, in fact, even upstream unless the canoe was really heavy)......

    ********************************************************

    I hope others found this as interesting as I did. It's written by Skookum 1 who was a favourite commentor on these Tyee threads until the Banning Machine went out of control. Only in Canada, you say? Pity.

  • ME2

    3 years ago

    Re Skookum 1

    So Skookum 1 fell before Beer's PC lawn-mower? I had wondered why we haven't seen more of his well-researched, insightful and original commentary. Oh well, until the public tires of seeing the Emperor's new clothes, I suppose we'll have to put up with bleeding-heart propaganda like the current Squaw Lake article.....

    Maybe Beers could sub-contract for Campbell's current revisioning of civil servants? It's interesting how the hard-Left and the hard-Right tend to think alike when it comes to revisionism and social engineering.

  • snert

    3 years ago

    Thanks for that BC Mary

    I've lived by the Fraser almost all my life. Played on it when I was a kid when it wasn't a wise idea to fall in because of the raw sewage.

    Now there is lots of recreational activity on the lower part. Tons of pleasure boats in the summer. Water skiers as well. Sport fishermen will line the shore shoulder to shoulder along some bars. Fellow employees take a two day canoeing trip from Hope to Mission every year.

    I think that people just don't know the potential of the lower Fraser. From the mouth of the river one can power boat to just past Yale without too much difficulty. Both Pitt Lake and Harrison Lake are accessible as well.

    If you want to canoe or kayak you can take advantage of the tides up to Mission. There needs to be some more overnight camping places though for this to work well.

    Lots of wild life at different times of the year. I've even seen California Sealions up as far as Port Haney, harbour Seals up as far as Yale and into Harrison Lake.

    Now if they could just get the Oolichans back things would be good.

  • Steelyjan

    3 years ago

    Resources on Impacts to the Fraser

    The Fraser River is the world's largest salmon producing river but does not draw the conservation funding or protection that pristine areas of the province receive (i.e. Great Bear Rainforest, Stikine, etc.). Some believe it to be so highly impacted it is not worth the investment. They are misunderstood.

    The Fraser retains significant biological integrity despite bring a primary economic engine for the province and is much healthier than many other North America river basins. The Outdoor Rec Council has listed it in the top 5 most endangered rivers for 15 of the last 16 years.

    Otto Langer, R.P. Bio. has produced some great reports and documents on the Fraser which are available at the Rivershed Society of BC's website: http://www.rivershed.com/media_news.shtml

    Of particular interest is the "Environmental hazards and conflicts threatening fish habitat in the Lower Fraser River and its Estuary – A Fisheries Perspective".

    Other documents include: DFO’s and others No Net Loss of Habitat 2008 and Historic Overview of DFO Pacific Region Habitat Management Workload 1995 – 2008, Brief to DFO on Environmental Process Modernization Program March 2006 and Brief to Auditor General and DFO Habitat Protection Record March 2008.

  • David Beers

    3 years ago

    Administrator

    Banning

    BC Mary and ME2 may imply that a person can be banned from commenting on the tyee because they don't fit the editor's ideological agenda, but it just isn't so. The rules are plain and very simple. No overtly racist, sexist or libelous remarks, and no personal insults and attacks on other commenters or the authors. Skookum 1 refused to abide by those simple rules. He was asked to do so, and did not. Without the ability to block people who insist on repeatedly violating the rules, the rules are meaningless. It is possible to debate all ideological points of view on this thread without violating the rules of civility. And despite my being constructed as a 'hard left' 'banning machine out of control' I believe we provide a forum for very disparate points of view.

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