"Every great river in the world, whether the Nile or the Orinoco, has its own distinctive personality."

Our home on the Fraser River. Starline Tours Photo

At first glance, British Columbia’s Fraser River is muscular, an industrial waterway shouldering log booms, tugs and barges to the lumber mills lining its route through the Fraser Valley. But the Fraser is much more than that. It is a river with glinting shifts of mood and colour. It needles its way through forests and mountain canyons and then flows leisurely through the Valley’s rich farm land. It is filled with the whispers of old Indian legends, and robust tales of the Province’s gold-rush era.

The Fraser is also the skein, which weaves through the lives of the 2.4 million people who live and work along its 1,368 kilometre route from the rugged mountains deep in the heart of British Columbia, to the Delta where it empties into the Gulf of Georgia. It nourishes a unique ecology of plant, fish and bird life, and has been a partner in the Province’s history and development over the past two centuries.

Ulrich Gaeda, our host and guide, welcomes us aboard. Margaret Deefholts photo

I am about to explore that history as I board the Beta Star at the New Westminster Quay at seven o’clock on a cool July morning. We are on our way to Harrison Lake, fifty-five miles up river. As we leave New Westminster, Starline Tours’ host and guide Ulrich Gaeda introduces himself and the crew. He then announces breakfast chilled champagne and orange juice, a buffet of cold cuts and cheese, smoked salmon tips, croissants, bagels, doughnuts and trays of freshly cut fruit. There is a visible brightening among the passengers, many of whom have been up since five to catch this trip along British Columbia’s most diverse and majestic watercourse.

The sky is a swathe of grey felt, but as we head up-river, a nimbus of light above the rim of the mountains offers the hope that the weather gods might smile on us after all. This year’s freshet has swelled the waters to ominous levels and the river runs high and swift past our bows.

Ulrich and skipper Bill Harvey regale us with anecdotes some funny, others bizarre and a few cooked up on the spur of the moment! They know their territory, however, and share snippets of history, river-lore, and Native traditions. We cruise through old railway swing bridges and hear tales about their construction. And pass Fort Langley where British Columbia was born, on November 19, 1858. According to the Victoria Gazette, it rained all day. A hundred and forty-one years later, Canada Day, July 1st, 1999 was just as soggy.

Some things just never change!

The river is a pastiche of impressions. An osprey sits on a piling, its feathers ruffled by the breeze. White flecks from the cottonwoods drift across the water. Nets dry on the decks of fishing boats. Red farmhouses dot rolling pastures. The bell-tower of the Benedictine Monastery of Westminster Abbey in Mission, arches against the sky. And ahead of us, the mountains in varying shades of grey and blue lie folded one against the other.

At Mission, John Brown joins us as pilot. This part of the Fraser is tricky to navigate, but John has the uncanny ability to read the rippled surface of the river and can pick his way, delicate as a dancer, through the sand and gravel bars that wind spaghetti-like throughout this section. It’s an easy ride this time, however, as the sandbanks are submerged far below the surface of the swollen waters.

Gravel bars are spawning grounds for salmon, and during the salmon run, river traffic is halted along this stretch of the Fraser. This is also the home of the River’s oldest and grandest piscine resident. Weighing between 500 and 750 pounds, the mighty sturgeon’s evolutionary history dates back 150 million years to the Cretaceous period.

The beach at Harrison Hot Springs. Lois Peterson photo

At the mouth of the Harrison River, the water turns emerald-green, and as we cruise onto the Lake, Ulrich tells us that the hot springs were discovered accidentally by miners whose boat capsized nearby. They were astonished (and, no doubt, delighted) to find that instead of freezing to death, they were in the midst of a gush of warm water.

After a sumptuous lunch at the Harrison Hot Springs Hotel, we make our way back to New Westminster by coach. As we round a curve along the road, I catch a bird’s eye view of the Fraser. Laden with its riches of silt. Powerful. Confident. British Columbia’s heritage and its future.

The Beta Star awaits another group of river adventurers. Margaret Deefholts photo

When You Go:
For more information on their full range of cruises contact Starline Tours
13942-96th Avenue, Surrey, B.C. V3V 1Z4.
Phone: (604) 522-3506 or (604) 272-9187. Fax: (604) 930-0556.
E-mail: starline_tours@bc.sympatico.ca

Margaret Deefholts is a freelance travel writer/author/ photographer. Follow more of her travels elsewhere on this site. Lois Peterson is also a freelancer writer/photographer and writing teacher.