What is the Fraser River?

The Fraser River is British Columbia's longest river and the 11th-longest river in Canada, flowing about 1,375 kilometres from Mount Robson Provincial Park in the Rockies to the Strait of Georgia at Vancouver. The river drains a basin of about 220,000 square kilometres covering about 25 per cent of British Columbia, including most of the BC Interior Plateau. The Fraser is the only major Canadian river that drains directly to the Pacific without crossing the United States border.

The river rises near Yellowhead Pass at the BC-Alberta border and flows northwest through the Rocky Mountain Trench to Prince George, then south through the Cariboo region, then south and west through the Fraser Canyon, and finally west across the Lower Mainland to the Pacific. The Fraser Canyon section, about 270 kilometres long between Lytton and Yale, is one of the most dramatic river canyons in North America, with cliffs rising 1,000 metres above the river. The 1808 expedition of Simon Fraser of the North West Company first descended the river to its mouth, and the river is named after him.

The Fraser River supports one of the world's largest Pacific salmon runs. Five Pacific salmon species (sockeye, chinook, coho, chum, and pink) spawn in Fraser tributaries, with sockeye runs peaking in even-numbered years (the dominant cycle). The 2010 sockeye run of 28 million returning fish was the largest in 100 years, while subsequent runs have been historically low (the 2019 return of 628,000 was the worst on record). The Cohen Commission of 2009 to 2012 investigated the decline. The Fraser sockeye fishery is managed by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Pacific Salmon Commission (under the 1985 Pacific Salmon Treaty with the United States), and First Nations co-management.

The Fraser River basin contains about 60 per cent of British Columbia's population. Major centres include Vancouver, New Westminster, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Hope, Lytton (destroyed by wildfire on June 30, 2021 after setting Canada's all-time temperature record of 49.6 degrees Celsius), Lillooet, Williams Lake, Quesnel, and Prince George. The Fraser Canyon and the Cariboo Wagon Road (built 1862 to 1864 for the Cariboo Gold Rush) opened the BC Interior to settlement. The 1858 Fraser Canyon Gold Rush brought about 30,000 prospectors from California to British Columbia and led to the creation of the Colony of British Columbia on August 2, 1858. The Stl'atl'imx, Nlaka'pamux, Tsilhqot'in, Secwepemc, and Sto:lo nations hold treaty and Aboriginal title claims to the basin.