Headwaters Ahoy!

The 13 boxes of shipped equipment arrived at the University of the Fraser Valley only hours before us. To fit everything into our rental car, we had to jettison a few items (including the 3rd row of seats and a personal piece of luggage).

Now we’re off to Valemount, where we will be sampling the headwaters of the Fraser River. The idea is that over the course of our fieldwork we will follow the same 1,375 km journey as the river water, albeit a little slower.

The Fraser begins as tiny rivulets fed by melting glaciers, and swiftly-grows, carving its way through the Rocky Mountain trench before turning south through its steep canyon, and finally curving into the floodplain to drop its organic-rich sediment in the large delta near Vancouver.

Fraser Fun Facts:

• The Fraser is the largest salmon spawning river in the world, and 1 of only 3 rivers in which North America’s largest game fish, the white sturgeon, live.
• Construction on the Canadian Northern Railway in 1913 nearly decimated Fraser River salmon runs.
• The Fraser is the largest river in British Columbia, and the fifth largest river in Canada.
• The Fraser has no dams in its main stem.