Fraser River

Map of the Fraser River and the main tributaries

Panorama on the Fraser River

The Fraser River is the longest completely located in the Canadian province of British Columbia river.

It rises near Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains and flows by about 1375 km south of the city of Vancouver in the Pacific.

The river drains an area of 248,035 km ². The source is located on Mount Edith Cavell. First, Fraser River to the northwest past Mount Robson. At 54 ° N it makes a sharp bend to the south and then flows almost to the border of the United States. The Coast Mountains it traverses in a deep canyon. Then the river bends in the direction of west and passes Chilliwack. A few kilometers south of Vancouver, it forms a delta and flows into the Strait of Georgia between the mainland and Vancouver Iceland. At the mouth, the annual amount of water 112 cubic kilometers ( average about 3550 m³ / s) and it will be carried 20 million tons of sediment into the ocean.

The river delta is particularly in the area of ​​Boundary Bay an important stopover during migration of plovers.

History

On 14 June 1792, the Spanish explorer Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayetano Valdes drove the first Europeans in the northern tributary of the Fraser River.

The upper reaches of the Fraser River was explored by Alexander MacKenzie in 1793. Simon Fraser toured in 1808 the river along its entire length and confirmed that he is not connected to the Columbia River.

The development of the Province of British Columbia connected with the river, as this south of the 49th parallel, the main route between the inland and the coast constituted after the cession of territory to the United States with the Oregon Treaty in 1846.

Larger tributaries

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