Fraser
Fraser is a mapped river in the YearMaps hydrographic index. River courses organise settlement, agriculture and frontier-making more durably than any political boundary, and this reach is indexed against the dams, lakes and cities within its catchment.
- Feature Class
- River
- Coordinates
- 50.97°, -121.87°
About Fraser
The Fraser River () is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for 1,375 kilometres (854 mi), into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual discharge at its mouth is 112 cubic kilometres (27 mi3) or 3,550 cubic metres per second (125,000 cu ft/s), and each year, it discharges about 20 million tons of sediment into the ocean.
Encyclopedic summary adapted from Wikipedia: Fraser River (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Fraser in Depth
Course
The Fraser drains a 220,000-square-kilometre (85,000 mi2) area. Its source is a dripping spring at Fraser Pass in the Canadian Rocky Mountains near the border with Alberta. The river then flows north to the Yellowhead Highway and west past Mount Robson to the Rocky Mountain Trench and the Robson Valley near Valemount. After running northwest past 54° north, it makes a sharp turn to the south at Giscome Portage, meeting the Nechako River at the city of Prince George, then continues south, progressively cutting deeper into the Fraser Plateau to form the Fraser Canyon from roughly the confluence of the Chilcotin River, near the city of Williams Lake, southwards.
History
The Maris Pacifici map published in 1589 features on the west coast of North America the first ever representation of two major coastline features: the delta of the Fraser River, labelled "Baia de las isleas", and the mouth of the Columbia River, identified as "Rio Grande". These rivers would therefore have been sighted by visitors long before official records would confirm. In spite of limited evidence of the Francis Drake expedition's whereabouts in the Pacific Northwest, BC history commentator Sam Bawlf posited that the Ortelius map was a proof that Drake sighted the mouth of the Fraser and came through the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Sections adapted from Wikipedia: Fraser River (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Fraser: Key Facts
| Length | 2,657 km |
|---|---|
| Average discharge | 3,475 m³/s |
| Drainage basin | 233,100 km² |
| Source | Rocky Mountains |
| Mouth | Strait of Georgia |
| Drainage system | Fraser River basin |
| Tributaries | Bowron River, Quesnel River, Thompson River, Coquihalla River, Nechako River, Bridge River, Harrison River, Chilcotin River |
Facts from Wikidata Q269710 (CC0).
Major River Dossiers
Hand-written studies of the great river systems of history.
Connected Reaches
Nearby watercourses in the same drainage network.
Water Bodies in the Catchment
Settlements Along the Reach
Hydraulic Infrastructure Nearby
Surrounding Terrain
Fraser: Quick Answers
- Where is Fraser?
- Fraser is located in Canada, at 50.9652° N, 121.8707° W.
- Are there dams on the Fraser?
- No dam on the Fraser is recorded in the YearMaps dam index, which covers major structures only.