Desperate to get downriver to the Fraser, the vision of golden riches often blinded these prospectors from the dire reality of traveling upon the wild Thompson River to Cache Creek and into Marble Canyon before joining the Fraser. On Rocky Mountaineer, guests can choose their views of these forceful rivers: either from the top of a bi-level coach that has domed windows and an outdoor viewing platform, or through the oversized windows of single-level coaches.
Rocky Mountaineer offers dozens of Canadian vacation packages and four distinctive rail routes through British Columbia, Alberta and the Pacific Northwest. Paid and Presented By:. About this. Photography: Rocky Mountaineer. Approximately million juvenile salmon migrate along the river every year. There can be up to 20 million salmon on any given day in the estuary.
More than 60 other kinds of fish use the Fraser River also, such as the mighty Sturgeon. The Fraser River begins high in the Rocky Mountains. It is fed by heavy rain, snowfall and melting glaciers. The river flows slowly northwest until it gets to Prince George. Here it turns south into the middle of British Columbia. It is joined by the Stuart, Nechako, and Chilcotin Rivers. The water from each of these large rivers causes the Fraser River to grow and pick up speed.
As the Fraser flows south it winds through dense evergreen forests, wetlands, grasslands and dry canyons. The clear blue Thompson River joins the muddy Fraser south of Lillooet. The Fraser rushes on, boiling and powerful through the narrow Fraser Canyon. Near Hope, the Fraser escapes the narrow mountain canyon.
It turns west into a broad flat valley and this is where Chilliwack is. While you may live near it, drive across it, or simply walk along it from time to time, there's probably a great deal that you don't know about the Fraser River. Not only is the area inhabited by roughly 2. The Fraser River Sturgeons galore. The river holds Canada's largest population of the mighty sturgeon. These prehistoric relics grow to massive sizes and live a really long time. They may reach sizes of up to 12 feet and live for over years.
The Fraser River as it passes through Fort Langley. While you may venture out to parts of it, you may not be aware that this mighty waterway is a whopping miles long! The gravel banks of the Fraser then increase in height to 50— m, where the river has cut down into the glacial deposits of the central Interior Plateau; the river's velocity of flow increases south of Prince George as it is joined by several tributaries, the largest being the Nechako River from the northwest.
Here the river has cut down — m into the bedrock of the Interior Plateau. In this middle section the Fraser is joined by other large tributaries such as the Quesnel and Thompson rivers from the east and the West Road River from the west. At the southern end of the canyon, near Yale, the river flows between the north end of the Cascade Mountains to the east and the Coast Mountains to the west.
The valley then broadens into a delta that is about 50 km wide, where the river empties into the Strait of Georgia at Vancouver. The southwestern part of the Fraser delta is in Washington State. Water flowing through the Fraser River comes primarily from melting snow, with highest flows from May to July and lowest flows from January to March.
The Fraser River and its tributaries are home to one of the most productive salmon fisheries in the world, supporting five species of Pacific salmon — sockeye, coho, chum, Chinook and pink. Salmon eggs hatch in fresh water, but salmon spend most of their lives in the ocean before migrating back upstream to spawn. The Fraser River basin includes alpine tundra , coniferous forest, grasslands and coastal rainforest,and therefore supports a wide diversity of vegetation. Dominant species include lodgepole pine , white spruce , trembling aspen , Douglas fir , Engelmann spruce , alpine fir and western hemlock , with grassland found in arid regions.
One of the greatest threats to forest environments in the Fraser River basin is the ongoing mountain pine beetle epidemic. In , for example, mountain pine beetles had affected more than 8. Mountain pine beetles target and kill mature trees by tunnelling through the bark and feeding on the wood layers beneath. The most abundant pine in BC, the lodgepole pine, has been hardest hit.
The needles on the dead trees turn red, and vast areas of red forest can be seen in the Fraser River basin. Loss of living trees, through mountain pine beetle infestations as well as clear-cut forestry practices, increases the rate of rainfall and snowmelt runoff, in turn affecting the flow of the Fraser River.
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