The Lillooet River is a major river of the southern

Coast Mountains The Coast Mountains (french: La chaîne Côtière) are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the Coast of British Columbi ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

. It begins at Silt Lake, on the southern edge of the Lillooet Crown Icecap about 80 kilometres northwest of Pemberton and about 85 kilometres northwest of Whistler. Its upper valley is about 95 kilometres in length, entering Lillooet Lake about 15 km downstream from Pemberton on the eastern outskirts of the Mount Currie reserve of the

Lil'wat The Lil'wat First Nation ( lil, líl̓watǝmx), a.k.a. the Lil'wat Nation or the Mount Currie Indian Band, is a First Nation band government located in the southern Coast Mountains region of the Interior of the Canadian province of British Co ...

branch of the St'at'imc people. From Pemberton Meadows, about 40 km upstream from Pemberton, to Lillooet Lake, the flat bottomlands of the river form the

Pemberton Valley The Pemberton Valley is a valley flanking the Lillooet River upstream from Lillooet Lake, including the communities of Mount Currie, Pemberton, British Columbia and the agricultural district surrounding them and flanking the river as far upstre ...

farming region. Below the 30 km (18.6 mi) length of

Lillooet Lake Lillooet Lake is a lake in British Columbia, Canada about 25 km in length and about 33.5 square kilometres (22 mi²) in area. It is about 95 km downstream from the source of the Lillooet River, which resumes its course after leavi ...

, it resumes again just north of the native community and ghost town of Skookumchuck Hot Springs, which is known in the St'at'imcets language as Skatin. The lower stretch of the Lillooet River, from

Harrison Lake Harrison Lake is the largest lake in the southern Coast Mountains of Canada, being about 250 square kilometres (95 mi²) in area. It is about 60 km (37 mi) in length and at its widest almost 9 km (5.6 mi) across. Its so ...

, is approximately 55 km (c. 34 mi) in length. Its main tributaries are

Meager Creek Meager Creek is a creek in the southern Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. It flows northeast into the Lillooet River approximately northwest of the village of Pemberton and is adjacent to the Upper Lillooet P ...

, the Ryan River, the Green River, and the Birkenhead River. Below

, the stream is renamed as the

Harrison River The Harrison River is a short but large tributary of the Fraser River, entering it near the community of Chehalis, British Columbia, Canada. The Harrison drains Harrison Lake and is the ''de facto'' continuation of the Lillooet River, which feed ...

, which enters the

Fraser Fraser may refer to: Places Antarctica * Fraser Point, South Orkney Islands Australia * Fraser, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen * Division of Fraser (Australian Capital Territory), a former federal e ...

near the First Nations community of Chehalis. The lower Lillooet River and

were part of a short-lived main route between the Coast and the Interior in the days of the

Fraser Canyon Gold Rush The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, (also Fraser Gold Rush and Fraser River Gold Rush) began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River a few miles upstream from the Thompson's ...

. See the

Douglas Road The Douglas Road, a.k.a. the Lillooet Trail, Harrison Trail or Lakes Route, was a goldrush-era transportation route from the British Columbia Coast to the Interior (NB another route known as the Lillooet Trail was the Lillooet Cattle Trail, which ...

The "other" Lillooet River

Until the 1910s, the name Lillooet River also applied to what is now the Alouette River in Maple Ridge; the neighbourhood that grew up on its south branch became known as South Lillooet, but to avoid confusion the new postmaster was requested to come up with a name, choosing Yennadon after his family manor on the

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

shire Moors.Yennadon
/ref> The river name was changed formally on March 31, 1915 with "Alouette" chosen because of its resemblance to the sound of "Lillooet".

Geology

The Lillooet River was dammed with

breccia Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of ...

from a Plinian style eruption of the

Mount Meager massif The Mount Meager massif is a group of volcanic peaks in the of the Coast Mountains in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc of western North America, it is located north of Vancouver at the northern end of the P ...

2,400 years ago. The breccia damming the Lillooet River was not very strong, and the water soon eroded the breccia that was damming the river, forming Keyhole Falls. There was a massive

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

when the water first broke through the breccia. The flood was big enough that small

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air cond ...

sized blocks of breccia were carried away during the flood.

References

{{Authority control Tributaries of the Fraser River Rivers of the Pacific Ranges Pemberton Valley

The "other" Lillooet River

Geology

See also

References