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The Fraser River
Alan Haig-Brown has won the book prize named after his father for The Fraser River (Harbour $49.95), a coffee table book co authored with photographer Rick Blacklaws, who instigated the project.
It isn't a family first. In 1989, Celia Haig Brown won the Roderick Haig Brown Regional Prize for Resistance and Renewal, her study of an Indian Residential School.
"I guess I should say something about my father and my mother who instilled in me a love of books and first took me on the Fraser River,";Haig Brown said, accepting the prize, "but I'm just glad to win this award because my sister won it and she's younger than I am!";
Alan Haig Brown remembers visiting the Fraser with his father at age 15. "We walked down the trail to Hells Gate to see the fishways and he told me with some reverence the story of the man made fish blocking slide of 1913."; Haig Brown Sr. also educated his son about the consequences of dams, publishing his fears and warnings about a proposed dam site near Lillooet in The Living Land.
Many years later, while raising his own family, Alan Haig Brown extensively explored the Fraser and Chilcotin Rivers when living at the Tsilqot'in community of Stoney. His daughter netted her first salmon on one of the Fraser's tributaries while camping with her mother and father.
Just as a spine holds a book together, the Fraser River is the backbone of the province. Haig Brown's text shows the relationship of the river to everyday lives, something he first began to appreciate when he was running a fishboat from Queensborough to Steveston.
He nonetheless credits photographer Rick Blacklaws, who took 160 colour photos for the book, for crystallizing his thinking about the river system. They became friends after Blacklaws arranged for Haig Brown's first raft ride through Hells Gate in celebration of Rivers Day.
Together Blacklaws and Haig Brown researched and photographed all 820 miles of the Fraser River, covering some of the well known spots, such as Rudy Johnson's self built bridge near Soda Creek, as well as some of the river's best kept secrets, such as Russian Island, in between Williams Lake and Lillooet.
According to local legend, the small wooden house and the mining operation on Russian Island were built by a Russian immigrant who came to mine gold. The island was, and still is, accessible only by aerial tram during the summer, or across the ice in winter. All the materials for the house and outbuilding had to be hauled great distances. Russian Island was abandoned in the 1950s or 1960s, and today is inhabited only in the summer by several pairs of nesting geese.
People who live along the river include Dr. Robert Dykes, who moved to Prince George in the late 1960s. Pulp mills were expanding and the city was growing. Dykes started asking questions about the mills' effect on his patients' health. In 1984 he and a group of concerned citizens founded the Nechaka Environmental Coalition. After they tackled the issue of air pollution, they turned their attention to the Fraser, succeeding in having the water tested for dioxin levels.
Dioxins and their chemical cousins, furans, are carcinogenic and their properties allow them to linger in the environment. A study found that sturgeon living at Stone Creek, about 25 km downstream from Prince George, had the largest concentration of dioxins in the area. "The Department of Fisheries declared resident fish inedible and many First Nations even swore off salmon,"; says Dykes. Since then conservation standards and monitoring along the Fraser have increased.
"The good news is that, unlike the dams that have permanently deformed the neighbouring Columbia River,"; says Haig Brown, "the problems that bedevil the Fraser are reversible. They can be remedied when the public decides they are important enough to demand action.";
Even though approximately 2.4 million British Columbians live along the Fraser River Basin and it's the longest undammed river in North America, The Fraser River is the first book about the river in its entirety since Bruce Hutchison's classic The Fraser in 1950.
In February the Fraser River was nominated to be recognized under the Canadian Heritage Rivers System for the enhancement of future management and heritage values. A decision is expected by the end of this year.
[BCBW 1997]
It isn't a family first. In 1989, Celia Haig Brown won the Roderick Haig Brown Regional Prize for Resistance and Renewal, her study of an Indian Residential School.
"I guess I should say something about my father and my mother who instilled in me a love of books and first took me on the Fraser River,";Haig Brown said, accepting the prize, "but I'm just glad to win this award because my sister won it and she's younger than I am!";
Alan Haig Brown remembers visiting the Fraser with his father at age 15. "We walked down the trail to Hells Gate to see the fishways and he told me with some reverence the story of the man made fish blocking slide of 1913."; Haig Brown Sr. also educated his son about the consequences of dams, publishing his fears and warnings about a proposed dam site near Lillooet in The Living Land.
Many years later, while raising his own family, Alan Haig Brown extensively explored the Fraser and Chilcotin Rivers when living at the Tsilqot'in community of Stoney. His daughter netted her first salmon on one of the Fraser's tributaries while camping with her mother and father.
Just as a spine holds a book together, the Fraser River is the backbone of the province. Haig Brown's text shows the relationship of the river to everyday lives, something he first began to appreciate when he was running a fishboat from Queensborough to Steveston.
He nonetheless credits photographer Rick Blacklaws, who took 160 colour photos for the book, for crystallizing his thinking about the river system. They became friends after Blacklaws arranged for Haig Brown's first raft ride through Hells Gate in celebration of Rivers Day.
Together Blacklaws and Haig Brown researched and photographed all 820 miles of the Fraser River, covering some of the well known spots, such as Rudy Johnson's self built bridge near Soda Creek, as well as some of the river's best kept secrets, such as Russian Island, in between Williams Lake and Lillooet.
According to local legend, the small wooden house and the mining operation on Russian Island were built by a Russian immigrant who came to mine gold. The island was, and still is, accessible only by aerial tram during the summer, or across the ice in winter. All the materials for the house and outbuilding had to be hauled great distances. Russian Island was abandoned in the 1950s or 1960s, and today is inhabited only in the summer by several pairs of nesting geese.
People who live along the river include Dr. Robert Dykes, who moved to Prince George in the late 1960s. Pulp mills were expanding and the city was growing. Dykes started asking questions about the mills' effect on his patients' health. In 1984 he and a group of concerned citizens founded the Nechaka Environmental Coalition. After they tackled the issue of air pollution, they turned their attention to the Fraser, succeeding in having the water tested for dioxin levels.
Dioxins and their chemical cousins, furans, are carcinogenic and their properties allow them to linger in the environment. A study found that sturgeon living at Stone Creek, about 25 km downstream from Prince George, had the largest concentration of dioxins in the area. "The Department of Fisheries declared resident fish inedible and many First Nations even swore off salmon,"; says Dykes. Since then conservation standards and monitoring along the Fraser have increased.
"The good news is that, unlike the dams that have permanently deformed the neighbouring Columbia River,"; says Haig Brown, "the problems that bedevil the Fraser are reversible. They can be remedied when the public decides they are important enough to demand action.";
Even though approximately 2.4 million British Columbians live along the Fraser River Basin and it's the longest undammed river in North America, The Fraser River is the first book about the river in its entirety since Bruce Hutchison's classic The Fraser in 1950.
In February the Fraser River was nominated to be recognized under the Canadian Heritage Rivers System for the enhancement of future management and heritage values. A decision is expected by the end of this year.
[BCBW 1997]
Submitted on August 13, 2003 in By David.
