Talk:Vedder River

River's mouth

I just made a few edits to this page. One thing I can't quite tell from reading the BCGNIS entries is whether it flows into the Fraser River or the Sumas River. The "Vedder River". BC Geographical Names. entry says it flows into the Sumas River, but the "Chilliwack River". BC Geographical Names. pages says the Fraser River. The Chilliwack entry also has info on an alteration of the river's original mouth, and there is something about the Vedder Canal. But without doing more research I can't quite tell what the deal is. So I described it as best I could for now, with footnotes. Perhaps someone can explain it better, or I'll find time to do more research. Pfly (talk) 18:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll check BC Basemap to see which is designated as having its mouth on the Fraser. The Chilliwack River thing is difficult to explain, but easy to describe - the Chilliwack becomes the Vedder when it enters the Fraser floodplain and exits the Chilliwack River Valley; minor tributaries such as that from Cultus Lake join it there...btw while you're at the business of river-article-creation, let me suggest the Nahatlatch River, Seton River and McGregor River, which are the remaining large tributaries; see Talk:List of British Columbia rivers for more on redirects to provpark articles in some cases which maybe should be fixed into having separate articles for the creeks....Churn Creek primarily as it's a major tributary, but there are others also...Skookum1 (talk) 20:10, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I just checked, the Vedder Canal/River is a tributary of the Sumas, not the other way around; the ref on the Chilliwack River would appear to mean "eventually is a tributary of the Fraser River [after becoming the Vedder and joining the Sumas]". The Vedder Canal pretty much shoudl have an article as it's in teh "buildings and structures" categorization, or maybe that could be applied to this article as most of the river's length is canal; it's a drainage canal which keeps the waters of the Chilliwack/Vedder from flooding Sumas Prairie and most of Chilliwack on a very-annual basis....Dyking systems in the Fraser Valley is probably a worthwhile article some day, as it's such a big part of the human geographic reality of the Lower Mainland, much of which wouldn't be habitable if it weren't for the dykes and the Sumas and Vedder canals (the Sumas is pretty much an artificial drainage channel, though not exactly a canal).Skookum1 (talk) 20:17, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I just dug up some info on it and found some interesting historical stuff about why the name changes and so on, and that yes it feeds into the Sumas River. I'll add what info I've found. Check out the footnotes more more. It also appears that the Sumas River used to flow into a large and seasonally changing lake on the Fraser floodplain, but was drained in the early 20th century. Sounds like the landscape in this particular area has been radically transformed. Pfly (talk) 21:53, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Completely and totally, but likewise Hatzic Prairie, Matsqui Prairie, Chilliwack Prairie, Kent, Pitt Meadows....Port Coquitlam was once a vast berry bog full of spawning salmon a few times of year, hence the meaning "land of stinking fish". By the way the '-am" there is the "people" suffix that you also observed, sort of, with Kwantlen - when you showed me Kwanitlum it made sense; likewise the -am on the end of Muqueam and certain others; -imc/imx, -mx, -emx, -mec are all pretty much the same word, just as it turns up in the various Salish languages; it's not the only word for "people" or "nation" though - there's uxuiumixw, temexw, -ullh/-ull/-ulh-/ul and others I wouldn't hazard to explain the differences of, and it may vary from language to language. Another area, my own turf, that's seen major change is the Stave River Valley, even speaking only of the old oxbow lake/marsh at the bottom of its canyon, 2 miles up from the Fraser where Ruskin Dam is now (my bad for no separate dam article, as I'm from there, I just keep on putting it off as i don't have the stomach for the technical details, being raised around them....technical data I'd prefer to get paid for transcribing out, though I've added some info to certain articles....which brings me back round to this one, as there'll be reports on the Vedder Canal as well as the ongoing Sumas Lake drainage project/systems, hard to say under whose aegis, i.e. whether the RD, Fisheries, BC Public Works (whatever that's called at the moment), or the Fraser Valley Dyking Commission (composed mf members from regional district boards and community representatives from affected areas, with lots of reports out there). Although the dyking system was in place, such as it was, from early on, it didn't hold up to the Fraser Great Flood of 1894 (1989?) and the Fraser Great Flood if 1948 (whatever the proper article titles might be; there's a format) - there are of course doubts about today's system, too - given the prospect of a 200-year or more flood - but it's a given in BC history that the post-war Dutch immigration which heavily settled in the Fraser Valley, and the Mennonite community likewise (many Dutch Mennonite) are to credit for the re-engineering of the Fraser dykes which have held out, more or less, until now. Talk about a disaster waiting to happen but it's not why the comments; it's because the whole Fraser Lowland has has been far more transformed than nearly anyone living in it today realizes; even in my time, but since Contact times it's boggling. One place you might find interesting, and starkly beautiful in its own way (I find the country in that area "dark") is the Pitt Polder, a few square miles of what used to be Pitt Lake, which was drained as a post-war project - ironically settled by Icelanders rather than the Dutch, who preferred the south bank of the valley, and Agassiz, likewise the certain sort of German more common on the north side of the Fraser; in my experience of the respective individuals and communities, that is (the north bank is more secular, for one thing, for all ethnic groups though the religionist element is still there); among things needed in the Lower Mainland area, just to jot the notes here and maybe migrate them later, is a writeup of the dairy and vegetable and fruit industries in the Fraser Valley, and there's yet to be an article on the Fraser fishery - a monster, for anyone wanting to tackle the topic; the fishery as practiced on the river by the three competing interest gropus (cmomercial First Nations and sport); too big for my taste but an important part of the history; likewise th background to the Vedder Canal - I think it was a WAC Bennett-instigated project and has a particular legislative history; given that area's historical right-wing voting pattern/importance as a "safe seat" probably a under the wing of the area's MLA, who was because of the aforesaid most likely a cabinet minister ("Want to get something done in your area? Vote for a government member/cabinet minister - the pork barrel in BC and Canada is so entrenched in the system that, as evinced in such politicking, it's even used for political advertising as a good thing; talk about a "wash" huh?' Anyway there's a political history here, and lots of engineering and environmental content to be done; again, in the case of nearly all rivers/prairie areas in the Lower Mainland. Sumas Lake's a fascinating story - one reason it was drained was anti-mosquito and anti-malaria policies - one of my neighbours used to have a job diong the mosquito count back in the '60s, as it's an ongiong issue....and one reason we don't have the bird populations we used to see, also....like anywhere else on this sorry planet of late, huh? In regard to Sumas, by the way, if you haven't read Louie Sam or heard the story, I recommend it as far as cross-border articles that could use collaborative improvement...likweise Whatcom Trail, which needs fixing/improvement and so on; and so and so and so on....Skookum1 (talk) 02:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It's funny - I've been up into and around BC a bunch of times, but never through the Fraser Valley; never even seen the river, except while crossing it on the way to Vancouver or crossing someplace in the interior like Lillooet. Our less-than-epic-length forays typically aim for Squamish and perhaps the Garibaldi area for hikes and snowshoeing, etc. On the other hand, we've cross the border at Sumas, which requires at least some traverse of the lower Fraser Valley- though from the highway it just looks like any old sprawl. The river diversion stuff reminds me of similar, if smaller scale, stuff that happened down in the Puget Sound region- especially the logjam-made-permanent diversion of the White River into the Puyallup. Similar issues with flooding and farm land being made from floodplains. Still there's no river in the Puget Sound region anywhere close to the size of the Fraser. I can just imagine the lower Fraser Valley's flood and flood control history being rather monumental. It's just something that hadn't occurred to me before looking into the Vedder, Chilliwack, and Sumas Rivers. I did find a number of websites with info about the draining and dyking and so on, but nothing extremely detailed in my cursory search. One hit was a Google Books book about mosquitos that had a section on Sumas Lake. Anyway, I gotta run, but as a final tidbit, you mentioned the fishery thing on the Fraser, which reminds me again of Mackie's interesting info about how the non-indigenous fishery began with HBC's Fort Langely, which apparently did almost or better with salmon exports than with furs in the 1830s and 40s- the fish being pickled and barreled and exported to Oahu, Hawaii, and Yerba Bunea, California. As I understand it, once they got the hang of preserving salmon the Fraser salmon commanded better prices than the Columbia salmon exported from Fort Vancouver. Ok, gotta put the kid to bed. Pfly (talk) 03:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Seton River

If you'l start me a Seton River stub I'll flesh it out, I'm just not in the mood for raw-article creation right now, been up sicne early on a film shoot....the Seton was renamed/upgraded to full river nomenclature after being Seton Creek for years, and locally it's still referred to as Cayoosh Creek, a designation which formally ends at their confluence near Seton Lake but which isn't reflected in local usage -which is why the bridge across it just below the town of Lillooet still says "Cayoosh Creek" (I'll get someone totake a snap to that effect). The section between Anderson and Seton Lakes was for al ong time called th Portage River, then Seton Portage River, now it's been "absorbed' by the new Seton River designation - the Gates River, which feeds Anderson Lake, hasn't been however, which is inconsistent but so are a lot of things in BC nomenclature.Skookum1 (talk) 20:20, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

It was also called a "strait" at one point in reference to the 3km length between Anderson and Seton Lakes, I guess wishful or promotional thinking to make the Lakes Route sound easier; but it's very much a creek and not flatwater in the slightest....there may have been canal plans once-upon-a-time too.....(if the Birkenhead and Gates had been at all navigable one might have actually gotten built...).Skookum1 (talk) 20:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, done, Seton River. I didn't read the rest of your comment here until now, and now see why I couldn't find the river in my little map book. Its labeled Cayoosh Creek. Btw, it looks like List of British Columbia rivers has the "old style" names, if I understood your above comments right. Pfly (talk) 20:32, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Map issues

Pretty clear this article could benefit from an illuatrative, rather than a locational map (worthwhile switches to add to the reqmap template no? Hmmm), showing the various stretches of the river's name, and also Chilliwack Creek. About which:

The former course of the Chilliwack River below Vedder Crossing is now known as Chilliwack Creek, which flows north to the Fraser River.[7]

Gets me wondering about the complex sloughs along the Fraser, and which of them could have been considered part of the Chilliwack's subdelta within the Fraser's. BTW the Fraser Delta is designated on a highway overlook on the "Agassiz Mountain" (actually Mount Woodside, but the colloquial meaning is teh mountain road that gets you to, or is near, Agassiz) which says that the area below, Rosedale Prarie on the south and Agassiz Prairie on the north, are where the delta begins; excluding interpolary uplands that is. I think S. Holland defines Fraser Lowland as a geographic unit, not sure if he distinguishes Fraser Delta; to me that would tend to mean Lulu Island and South Delta, not upstream from it; so usages vary. The idea is that the old Chilliwack River must have hit around the maze of sloughs in that area; the end of its official course at the time of its existence may not correspond with the outlet of Chilliwack Creek....just speculating....Skookum1 (talk) 02:32, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

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