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Northern B.C.: The Last Wild River

Posted on 17. Dec, 2009 by Dave Quinn in Environment & Sustainability, teaser

Wade Davis and David Suzuki fight to save the Stikine, Nass and Skeena headwaters

by Dave Quinn

In 1879, legendary American naturalist and wilderness advocate John Muir paddled B.C.’s lower Stikine River, which from its headwaters on the Spatsizi Plateau carves a 250-km path through the Coast Mountains between Telegraph Creek, B.C., and Wrangell, Alaska — a remote waterway described by Muir as a “Yosemite 100 miles long.”

Some 130 years later, the Stikine’s lower half has survived the salmon wars, plans to dam its “Grand Canyon” and a proposed open-pit gold mine in a major tributary. But the threat of coal-bed methane (CBM) development in its headwaters — which requires a particularly destructive fossil-fuel extraction technique — still looms. The good news: local First Nations and conservationists such as David Suzuki and Wade Davis have united to “save the sacred headwaters” of the Stikine, Nass and Skeena, three of the province’s most important salmon-producing rivers. The collapse of B.C.’s southern salmon stocks in the summer of 2009, resulting in closures to commercial and First Nations fishing on the Fraser and dramatic decreases in grizzly populations on the south coast, only reinforces the urgency of their struggle.

>>Related reading: 2010 update on the Stikine + excerpt from Gary Fiegehen’s photography book Stikine: The Great River; Northern B.C.: Swim the Skeena;

B.C.’s Latest RAVE Focuses on the Flathead ; Flathead on the Mind

>>Tame the Wild Facts? Reader Comments:

On the whole, Westworld magazine has been a very interesting and informative read over the years. Occasionally though, an article appears that really “gets my goat” – usually when a story’s focus leads readers to believe something that is more sensational than factual, such as winter 2009’s Landmarks column (“The Last Wild River” by Dave Quinn).

It’s a beautiful river and deserves protection. However, while I am uncertain what is meant by “wild,” I’m sure the Stikine is not the last wild river – in B.C., Canada, the U.S. or the world. Also, the last sentence has two errors. First, there was a much lower return in the sockeye runs than anticipated, but the other species have returned in good and, in some cases, record numbers on the south coast. In fact, the biggest single effect on these returns is ocean survival, something we have little control over. Second, the coast’s grizzly populations are dependent on returning salmon, but why does their range seem to be expanding on the south coast? Grizzlies are swimming from the mainland to Vancouver Island because there’s not enough territory for them.

–Laurence Brown, via email

The collapse to which Dave Quinn is referring involves sockeye salmon, specifically the Chilko River run. There are five species of salmon – six if you count steelhead, which are now included in the same genus – and the numerous runs of these species in literally thousands of streams in the province did not all “collapse” this summer. (All the “southern” runs did not collapse, either.)

–Geoff Chislett, via email

Writer’s Note: For years, news reports have noted declining and less predictable salmon returns along the southern west coast. According to the CBC, for example: “On the U.S. west coast many salmon runs have completely collapsed; in B.C. the situation is only slightly better. But in the north Pacific . . . many salmon runs are at or near all-time highs.” In fact, the 2009 sockeye collapse on the Fraser (and the Chilko, according to Mr. Chislett) led to a judicial inquiry. Some returns of other species were larger than expected, as Mr. Brown correctly asserts, but the situation is frighteningly similar to the prelude to the collapse of the east coast cod fishery.

Re: B.C.’s grizzlies – these bears swim from the mainland in a natural process called “dispersal.” They rarely, if ever, survive the first humans they encounter after “island hopping” to Vancouver Island.

>>Do you have an update on the fight to save the Stikine, Nass and Skeena? Let us know!

Photo courtesy Dave Quinn.

Tags: B.C. environment, David Suzuki, Nass, Save the Sacred Headwaters, Skeena, Stikine Rivers, Sustainability - B.C., Wade Davis