Rising waters were so high in Chilliwack, Tuesday, people were throwing themselves off bridges.
Not in desperation, mind you. When the Fraser River is in spring freshet, the outflow of the Hope River on the north end of the city gets backed up. Waters deepen and the drop from the bridge railing gets shorter and more inviting to people wanting to beat the heat.
The currently wider and deeper waters also offer more opportunities to canoeists and kayakers, with parking and public access at a number of places along the river.
Don’t be scared off by the word ‘river.’ The only whitewater on this route is when the cottonwood trees shed their seeds and the river’s surface is seemingly blanketed in snow. Even when levels subside and the current starts to move, it would be classed as the first level above flatwater canoeing.
Bonus points for the Hope River, over lake paddling: you’re never far from shore — and there are no motorboats.
The big question at the moment: will you be able to fit under the bridges, as long as the Fraser waters remain high?
Tuesday, I went for a canoe with my grandsons, launching at the Lions’ hall on Camp River Road. We comfortably fit under the pedestrian bridge, just upstream of the hall (where teenaged boys were later jumping in). Things got tighter when we got to the road bridge at Chartwell Drive. I had to do the limbo and grab the underside of the bridge, to propel the canoe through.
This was with Fraser levels at Hope at around nine metres, according to Government of Canada figures. By Wednesday morning, the Hope gauge was reading 9.2 metres and the air gap at Chartwell Bridge was narrowing to impassable.
Before heading down for a paddle, check the Fraser levels at wateroffice.ec.gc.ca/report/real_time_e.html?stn=08MF005. If they are at nine metres or higher, do a drive-by at Chartwell, behind Little Mountain, to see how the levels look. If it’s tight, there are two other places to launch your boat.
Upstream, at the corner of Hope River and Camp River Roads, there’s a good launching point and some parking. From here, you can venture downstream toward Chartwell. This stretch of a little over 1 km is particularly beautiful when the waters subside and you’re left with a gentle current and narrow path through waving river grasses. Currently, you may be subject to low gaps under private bridges. We encountered one upstream of Chartwell, though there was more space than the public bridge offered.
At Camp River, you can also venture upstream for about 1.6 km, where the river gets away from roads and bisects farmlands and the Meadowlands golf course. You can paddle perhaps a few more kilometres along Old Yale Road, while spring run-off levels stay strong.
Your other easy-access launch point is at Corbould Park. Approach from the corner of Corbould and Berkeley and you have about 3.6 km of paddling between the Young Road bridge and the mouth of the Hope River, where it meets the Fraser. The first bridge downstream of Corbould is at 1.2 km. At current levels, you may not make it under, making the Camp River launch point your surest bet for a Hope River adventure.
Once the waters get back to normal, by July, you’ll have some nine kilometres of navigable paddling on the Hope River, where you’re likely to come across wildlife such as beaver, muskrat, otter, herons and bald eagles.
The waterway is at its worst in August and September, though, when choking water weeds are exposed — especially between Young and Menzies — and it’s just not a pretty sight.
Why ‘Hope’ River? The name appears on an 1876 map, before any Hope family lived in the area. My guess is that it was likely a route for heavily-laden Hudson Bay Company riverboats, doing the trip from Fort Langley to Fort Hope. With no bridges in the way, Hope River and Camp River would have provided a short cut and easier poling or paddling for the crews on their way to Hope, especially during Fraser freshets. Surely, local First Nations would have been using the route.
Fort Hope was established in 1848 and the first paddle-wheeled steam boat, the Surprise, landed at Hope in 1858. The Hudson Bay’s human and sail-powered York boats wouldn’t have survived the competition, so the Hope River may have been so-named in that 1848-58 gap.
