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Sumas Mountain (British Columbia)

Abbotsford, British ColumbiaBritish Columbia geography stubsMountains of the Lower Mainland

Sumas Mountain, also referred to as Canadian Sumas to distinguish it from an identically-named mountain just 10 km (6.2 mi) to the south in U.S. state of Washington across the border, is a mountain in eastern Fraser Lowland, in the Lower Mainland region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It sits on the south bank of the Fraser River, west of the smaller Chilliwack Mountain across the Vedder River mouth, and serves as a geographic landmark dividing the Fraser Valley into "Upper" and "Lower" sections. The mountain is separated from the Vedder Mountain and the North Cascades by the drained Sumas Lake, now a flatland called Sumas Prairie that is part of the greater floodplain of the Fraser River basin, south of which is a same-named sister mountain (American Sumas) in Washington state's Whatcom County. West of the mountain is Matsqui Prairie, another floodplain, and north of the Fraser, which lies along the mountain's north flank, are similar floodplains - Nicomen Island and Hatzic Prairie. The urban area of Abbotsford is located to the mountain's west, and it is home to a number of Abbotsford's suburban areas, notably Clayburn. In its central portion is the historic community of Straiton, officially named in 1904 for Thomas Bell Straiton who founded a homestead on Sumas Mountain in 1893 and also a store and post office. Its higher eastern reaches tower over Greendale, a community within the City of Chilliwack and is mostly wilderness; the mountain's summit, Sumas Peak, is located in this area, along with Chadsey Lake. Sumas Mountain Provincial Park is located in the higher, northern reaches of the mountain. Historic industry on the mountain includes livestock and crop farming, logging, and mining, notably brick-clay, which gave rise to the mining community of Clayburn. Farming, gravel mining, and logging continue on the mountain to the present day. Located on the mountain's north foot, adjacent to the Fraser, is a Canadian Forces base naval station. On its south side is the reserve of the Sumas First Nation. The mountain protects McDonald Park, a dark-sky preserve, from the light pollution caused by the nearby cities of Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Sumas Mountain (British Columbia) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Sumas Mountain (British Columbia)
Abbotsford

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N 49.089166666667 ° E -122.17083333333 °
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Abbotsford


Abbotsford
British Columbia, Canada
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Dewdney, British Columbia

Dewdney, originally named Johnson's Landing from 1884–1892, is an unincorporated community in the Central Fraser Valley of British Columbia, Canada, about 15 km east of the city of Mission. It was incorporated as a district municipality on April 17, 1892, including adjoining areas of Hatzic and Hatzic Island but the anticipated real estate boom on that island didn't pan out and economic damage from the Great Fraser Flood of 1894 led to the municipality's disincorporation on March 12, 1906. Another municipality eastwards, Nicomen, was incorporated in the same year but similarly later disincorporated. Though in the same school district as Mission, it and other adjoining rural areas did not join that municipality when offered. It is now represented as part of Electoral Area 'G' in the regional district government, which currently is the Fraser Valley Regional District. Dewdney is located at the western end of Nicomen Island, one of the larger settled islands in the Fraser, and at the southeast corner of Hatzic Prairie, a lowland floodplain at the south end of which is Hatzic Lake, an oxbow lake with a community of the same name on the island in its centre. Downtown Dewdney spans the Nicomen Slough, which is fed by Norrish Creek (aka Suicide Creek), one of the main water supplies for the District of Mission. Running east on the north side of the slough is the famous Hawkins Pickle Road (famous mostly for its name). Dewdney has a couple of stores, a post office, the Historic Dewdney Pub (aka "Church of the Blues"), the Dewdney Elementary School featuring a Community Outdoor Recreation Education program, and other businesses and is a service centre for other nearby communities, most of which are more rural in character. Though situated in rich farmland Dewdney also has a history and continuing economic presence in lumbering and milling community, and also in relation to the fishery and shipping on the river Dewdney was the destination of the Dewdney Trunk Road, one of the Fraser Valley's earliest main roads, which ran from Port Moody to Dewdney. The Dewdney Trunk Road, or Dewdney Trunk as it is often called, should not be confused with the Dewdney Trail, which is a colonial-era route from Hope to the East Kootenay region built by Edgar Dewdney. He had been in charge of surveying the site of New Westminster during colonial times and had served on the Legislative Council, the colony's governing body, and as Member of Parliament. The community of Dewdney was named in 1892 when he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia and who had been Lieutenant-Governor of the Northwest Territories from 1881, and federal Minister of the Interior from 1888–1892.

Sumas Lake
Sumas Lake

Sumas Lake (Halq’eméyle: Semá:th Lake, Nooksack: Semáts Xácho7, (Level Place Lake)) was a shallow freshwater lake surrounded by extensive wetlands that once existed in eastern Fraser Lowland, located on the south side of the Sumas River between the foothills of Sumas Mountain (not to be confused with the same-named American mountain) and Vedder Mountain. It disappeared after being artificially drained for flood control and land reclamation from 1920 to 1924, leaving behind a low-lying flatland known as the Sumas Prairie, which is nowadays drained by the Saar Creek (a lower tributary of the Sumas River) and the namesaked Sumas Drainage Canal. The traditional territory of the Semá:th people (Sumas First Nation), a band of the Sto:lo Nation, the lake lay midway between the present-day Canadian cities of Chilliwack and Abbotsford, British Columbia, and extended past the Canada–United States border into the territory east of Sumas, Whatcom County, Washington, necessitating a British Columbia Electric Railway trestle (which remains today as a dyke) across it from Huntingdon to the foot of Vedder Mountain. The lake used to support sturgeon, trout, salmon, grizzly bears and geese, and its wetland habitat was a destination for migrating birds and a breeding ground for both fish and waterfowl. Flocks of white-fronted goose as well as whistling swan and Hutchins geese also used the lake. Its partially sandy banks also provided for sturgeon spawning grounds. The lake supplied food to the Sumas Band, and their life ways were intimately connected to it. In the late 1800s, the lake drew the attention of various naturalists within the growing European population engaged in the work of cataloging the flora and fauna that they encountered where they settled.