Mighty River: A Portrait of the Fraser

by Richard C. Bocking

Like the world's other great waterways, the Fraser River is the lifeblood of the territory through which it flows. And the Fraser's domain is vast, the river's basin encompasses half of British Columbia's forests and agricultural lands, the majority of the province's salmon streams, and two-thirds of its human population. Tacoutche Tesse -- the Mighty One, as the people of the Carrier National call the Fraser River -- has long been a provider of food, transport and inspiration to the people who live near its generous waters.

Genres: Nonfiction

294 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Richard Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting history of the Fraser River, from the headwaters to the ocean with sidetrips up the major tributaries. Geological, natural and political histories… The reader gets a real sense of the beauty and bounty or the Fraser River Basin (with a major focus on salmon resources) but that is offset by some pretty grim statistics and scenarios regarding the pressures that man has and is putting on the system – overharvesting resources (fish and other wildlife, forests), pollution, water mismanagement (the Kemano Dam), irrigation, diking and filling in of streams in the Fraser Valley), unsustainable population growth and economic growth, the long term effects of climate change, the potential for disaster as control of the basin’s resources is taken over by globally oriented corporations and economic interests.

I just finished (January 27, 2016) reading this book again aloud to Maggee, partly to see — before adding it to the Bump Memorial Library collection — if it was as good as I remembered it. It was; if not better.

The book was published in 1997, and I was hoping that Bocking had gotten around to writing an expanded volume covering some of the developments during that time. I seems he hadn't. And he died in September of 2015. Perhaps a colleague will undertake the task. Bocking make the point near the end of the book that the Fraser Basin system is one of the last remaining watersheds that is pristine enough that there is (was in 1997) a chance (very remote, but a chance) for it to become a model for how to create a sustainable balance between the needs of all the users (human and other) of a complex system. I wonder if we have made any progress in that direction or have slipped past the point of no return.

MIGHTY RIVER is #4 on our 2016 Read-aloud list.