Nechako River
| Nechako River | |
|---|---|
 The Nechako River and Highway 16 bridge, near Fort Fraser | |
| Etymology | Dakelh term meaning "big river"[1] |
| Location | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | British Columbia |
| District | Cariboo Land District |
| City | Prince George |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | Nechako Plateau |
| Mouth | Fraser River |
• location | Prince George |
• coordinates | 53°55′2″N 122°42′53″W / 53.91722°N 122.71472°W[2] |
• elevation | 559 m (1,834 ft)[3] |
| Length | 516 km (321 mi)[1] |
| Basin size | 42,700 km2 (16,500 sq mi) |
| Discharge | |
| • location | gauge at Isle Pierre[4] |
| • average | 277 m3/s (9,800 cu ft/s)[4] |
| • minimum | 40.8 m3/s (1,440 cu ft/s) |
| • maximum | 1,180 m3/s (42,000 cu ft/s) |
The Nechako River (
The Nechako River's main tributaries are the
History
The expedition of Alexander MacKenzie went past the mouth of the Nechako in 1793, curiously without observing it. The first European to ascend the Nechako was James McDougall, a member of Simon Fraser's expedition, in 1806.
Nechako Reservoir
The Nechako is one of the main tributaries of the Fraser River, although half
The damming of the Nechako in 1952 and the consequent massive reduction in flow has been the source of considerable political controversy. The Cheslatta Carrier Nation, a subgroup of the Dakelh or Carrier people, were flooded out by the creation of the reservoir and forced to abandon their homes with only two weeks' warning. The increase in water temperature caused by the reduction in flow has been an ongoing problem for the salmon run on the Fraser and Stuart Rivers as well as the Nechako. Populations of White Sturgeon may have also been affected as studies show an unnatural decline in late-juvenile/early adult populations of the species.
See also
References
- ^ a b "Fraser Basin Watersheds". Fraser Basin Council. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
- ^ a b "Nechako River". BC Geographical Names.
- ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model, using GeoLocator, and BCGNIS source coordinates.
- ^ a b "Archived Hydrometric Data Search". Water Survey of Canada. Archived from the original on 24 December 2010. Retrieved 4 August 2013. Search for Station 08JC002 Nechako River at Isle Pierre
- )
Further reading
- Christensen, Bev (1995) Too Good to be True. Vancouver: Talonbooks. (A history of the Kemano project, which dammed the Nechako.)
- Giesbrecht, Jean Clark (1994) Heritage Lost: A People's History of the Ootsa Lake Region 1905-1955. Likely, BC: Quesnel Lake Publishing. (Contains an account of the flooding caused by the construction of the Kemano Project.)
- Wood, June (2013). Home to the Nechako: The River and the Land. Heritage House Publishing Co. ISBN 978-1-927527-13-9. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
External links
- BC Lakes and Rivers
- "Engineers Invade Another Wilderness - Huge Canadian Power Project Marks 20th Century Frontier Boom" , by Richard Neuberger detailed 1951 Popular Science article on the Kemano Hydro Project