256 REPORT OP COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



phenomenal, and is progressing year by year in an ever-increasing 

 ratio. The recent gold excitement at the north lias given a new impetus, 

 but the fisheries, so long as they are preserved, will figure as one of 

 the most valued features of the region. 



This landlocked sea has only one large tributary stream, the Fraser 

 River, which belongs entirely in British territory. With a single excep- 

 tion at the north, all other streams which enter from the east belong 

 to the western drainage of the Cascade Range, and are therefore short 

 and correspondingly unimportant. The Fraser is derived from several 

 sources on the western side of the Rocky Mountains in the neighbor- 

 hood of Yellow head Pass. Flowing northwest about 190 miles through 

 the deej) valley between the Rockies and the Selkirks, it rounds the 

 northern edge of the latter and thence continues southward about 470 

 miles, when it bends toward the west, completing in that direction the 

 remaining 80 miles of its course. The total length of the Fraser is 

 therefore in the neighborhood of 740 miles. There is one principal 

 affluent, the Thompson, which Joins it about 145 miles above its mouth, 

 but of minor tributaries it has very many, ranging from medium size 

 down, which are distributed throughout the system. Belonging with 

 these, as a conspicuous feature of the system, are numerous lakes, gen- 

 erally elongate in shape, placed singly or in chains, which are mostly 

 enlargements of the water-courses and have originated in the obstruc- 

 tion of channels by silt and coarser debris brought down by freshets 

 derived from melting snow on the mountain sides. 



The variable nature of the country through which the Fraser flows 

 gives it a great diversity of characteristics, and in its passage through 

 the Coast Range it has produced the celebrated canyon which bears 

 its name. Its surroundings are in many places extremely wild and 

 picturesque, but its lower 80 miles are through a flat, alluvial plain 

 mainly deposited from its own silt, and about 10 miles above its mouth 

 it divides to form a delta through which it reaches the Gulf of Georgia 

 by two principal channels and several lesser ones. This plain affords 

 rich farming land, much of which is under cultivation. 



The river is navigable for vessels of ordinary draft a distance of 

 about 80 miles from the sea, and for smaller craft about CO miles far- 

 ther. Its current is strong, increasing greatly in the season of freshets, 

 the late spring and early summer, when it overflows its banks to a 

 greater or less extent in the lower levels. This flood condition is 

 chiefly caused by melting snow in the upper and tributary waters, and 

 while varying in extent it seldom causes any appreciable damage, as 

 dikes have been built around the farming lands. There have, how- 

 ever, been occasional extraordinary floods since the region has been 

 settled, the most severe one on record having occurred the last of May 

 and the first of June, 1894, when the river burst all bounds, covering 

 the lowlands and valleys, sweeping away houses, and devastating 

 crops. At this season the fishing is not important and its interests are 

 not materially atiected. 



