Mission Creek is a large creek in the

Okanagan The Okanagan ( ), also called the Okanagan Valley and sometimes the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is part of ...

Region of British Columbia. Originally called N'wha-kwi-sen (smoothing stones), it was later mapped as Rivière de l’Anse-au-Sable (Sandy Bay River), the name Mission Creek was adopted in 1860 in honour of the Catholic Oblate Mission established by Father Pandosy and other settlers. The Creek rises in the Greystoke Mountain Range and runs west about before emptying into

Okanagan Lake Okanagan Lake () is a lake in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, Canada. The lake is long, between wide, and has a surface area of 348 km2 (135 sq. mi.). Hydrography Okanagan Lake is called a fjord lake as it has been carved o ...

south of

Kelowna Kelowna ( ) is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan, Okanagan Valley in the British Columbia Interior, southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the head office of the Regional District of Central Okanagan. The name Kelowna ...

. Its watershed covers about . Mission Creek was designated a BC Heritage River by the province in 1996.

Kokanee

Mission Creek is the main spawning channel of Kokanee. The landlocked salmon likely made their way into the Okanagan when a remnant of Glacial Lake Penticton was connected by streams to the Pacific Ocean.

Mission Creek Greenway

The Mission Creek Greenway is a

linear park A linear park is a type of park that is significantly longer than it is wide. These linear parks are strips of public land running along canals, rivers, streams, defensive walls, electrical lines, or highways and Esplanade, shorelines. Examples o ...

extending along the creek from the shores of

to Mission Creek Falls. Geological features along the trail are numerous and diverse, including; Layer Cake Hill, the Pinnacle, the White Lake Formation, hoodoos, exposures of ancient river systems and gigantic

boulders In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...

dropped by the Fraser

Glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

Channelization

Mission Creek has been heavily modified through narrowing of the channel by the building of dikes for

flood control Flood management or flood control are methods used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. Flooding can be caused by a mix of both natural processes, such as extreme weather upstream, and human changes to waterbodies and ru ...

from East Kelowna Bridge to the river mouth at Okanagan Lake. The Mission Creek channel has lost natural alluvial geomorphic processes ( riffles, stream pools, and

meanders A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank or river cliff) and deposits sediments on an inn ...

), connection to the

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

and

wetlands A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

, fish spawning and incubation habitats, diverse fish rearing habitats, diverse overwintering habitats, and fish refuge from high velocity water. In 1938, much of the Mission Creek channel was significantly wider than it is currently, up to a maximum of . The channel narrowed to from when dyking was completed in 1951 until sometime between 1973 and 1986 when the channel narrowed to . By 2006, channel width had decreased to .

Mining

The creek was first mined in the 1870s. Later people such as Dan Gallagher mined the creek until the 1940s.

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

historian

Bill Barlee Neville Langrell "Bill" Barlee (October 6, 1932 – June 14, 2012) was a Canadian politician who was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia as a New Democrat in 1988 (after unsuccessfully running in the 1969 and 197 ...

believes the lost McLean Mine is located between the headwaters of Mission Creek and Monashee Creek. McLean was a

First Nations First nations are indigenous settlers or bands. First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to: Indigenous groups *List of Indigenous peoples *First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...

prospector Prospector may refer to: Space exploration * Prospector (spacecraft), a planned lunar probe, canceled in 1962 * ''Lunar Prospector'', a NASA spacecraft Trains * Prospector (train), a passenger train operated by the Denver & Rio Grande Western ra ...

who lived near Kelowna. Placer mining occurred in Mission Creek around the early 20th century.

Bridges

Several bridges span the Mission Creek. Here is a list starting from Lake Okanagan: * Lakeshore Road - this bridge was rebuilt in the summer of 2014. * Gordon Drive - this bridge was rebuilt in the summer of 2010 * Casorso Road - this bridge was rebuilt in the summer of 2007 * KLO Road * East Kelowna Road * Bridges above Gallagher's Canyon are not listed (Forestry Roads and Highways)

References

External links

Friends of Mission Creek Society

Mission Creek Restoration Initiative
Rivers of the Okanagan Articles containing video clips {{BritishColumbia-river-stub