Fountain is an unincorporated rural area and

Indian reserve In Canada, an Indian reserve (french: réserve indienne) is specified by the '' Indian Act'' as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." Ind ...

community in the

Fraser Canyon The Fraser Canyon is a major landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser Ca ...

region of

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, ...

, Canada, located at the ten-mile (16 km) mark from the town of

Lillooet Lillooet () is a district municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. The town is on the west shore of the Fraser River immediately north of the Seton River mouth. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road abou ...

on BC Highway 99, which in that area is also on the route of the

Old Cariboo Road The Old Cariboo Road is a reference to the original wagon road to the Cariboo gold fields in what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia. It should not be confused with the Cariboo Road, which was built slightly later and used a differen ...

and is located at the junction of that route with the old gold rush-era trail via Fountain Valley and the Fountain Lakes.

Name

The name of the Fountain area in the

St'at'imcets Lillooet , known in the language itself as / (), is the language of the St’át’imc, a Salishan language of the Interior branch spoken in southern British Columbia, Canada, around the middle Fraser and Lillooet Rivers. The language of ...

language is ''Cacli'p'', also spelled ''Xaxli'p''. In gold rush times, today's Fountain was known as the Upper Fountain while the nearby Six Mile Rapids, just downstream at the confluence of the Fraser and

Bridge River The Bridge River is an approximately long river in southern British Columbia. It flows south-east from the Coast Mountains. Until 1961, it was a major tributary of the Fraser River, entering that stream about six miles upstream from the town of ...

s, was known as the Lower Fountain, and the two together were known as "The Fountains", although this term was usually used to refer to the Upper Fountain only and over time was shortened to the singular form used today; another variant La Fountain is fairly common in older sources. The term is a reference to the foaming rapids on the Fraser at these locations, particularly the Lower Fountain where at high water the Fraser gushes through narrow rock ledges, leading to the comparison to a fountain. In a few early maps, the Bridge River appears as ''Rivière du Font'' because of this (or as a fortuitous misspelling of ''Rivière du Pont'', in reference to an old aboriginal pole-bridge across the river there).

Geography

Fountain lies at the southern apex of a double-horseshoe bend in the Fraser Canyon formed by the meeting of 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 ele ...

and Yalakom Faults. This fault convergence also created

Fountain Ridge A fountain, from the Latin "fons" ( genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. Fountains were o ...

, which lies immediately above the community and forms a natural wall between it and the town of Lillooet, which lies a few miles south of the northward bend just downstream from Fountain. Fountain Ridge forms the west flank of Fountain Valley while its east flank comprises the western lip of the plateau-like

Clear Range The Clear Range is a small mountain range located in the angle of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers in south-central British Columbia. It has a small subdivision just northeast of that confluence named the Scarped Range. The Clear Range totals 16,27 ...

; the flattish peak overlooking Fountain proper is Chipuin Mountain ("round", a reference to its dome-like shape). . The Fraser Canyon in this area is a mix of sand and rock gorge flanked by

benchland In geomorphology, geography and geology, a bench or benchland is a long, relatively narrow strip of relatively level or gently inclined land that is bounded by distinctly steeper slopes above and below it. Benches can be of different origins and ...

formed from ancient lake bottoms, with the benchlands hundreds of feet above the river. Fountain is partly located on one of these benchlands. The climate is quite dry, with summer temperatures reputedly hotter than nearby Lillooet which vies with neighbouring Lytton for the title of "Canada's Hot Spot". Located at a higher elevation than Lillooet and exposed to the north and under the shadows of Fountain Ridge and the Clear Range, Fountain is considerably colder in winter. Natural vegetation in the area includes sagebrush and cactus verging into

mixed coniferous forest Mixed coniferous forest is a vegetation type dominated by a mixture of broadleaf trees and conifers.Sierra Nevada Wildflowers, Karen Wiese, 2nd ed, 2013, p 13–14 It is generally located in mountains, below the upper montane vegetation type. Si ...

(mostly pine at lower elevations).

History

The Fountain area has been inhabited since the retreat of the glaciers (in this area the Fraser Glacier); archeological digs in the area, focussing on

quiggly hole A quiggly hole, also known as a pit-house or simply as a quiggly or kekuli, is the remains of an earth lodge built by the First Nations people of the Interior of British Columbia and the Columbia Plateau in the United States The word ''quiggly ...

(''kekuli'') "towns", date back thousands of years. The most important of the sites and one of the oldest in BC is at

Keatley Creek Archaeological Site Keatley Creek is a significant archaeological site in the interior of British Columbia and in the traditional territory of the St'at'imc peoples. Its location is in the Glen Fraser area of the Fraser Canyon ranchlands about 18 miles from the town ...

, near Fountain between Glen Fraser and Pavilion. During the site's heyday the Fraser had been dammed by a landslide near Texas Creek, several miles below Lillooet and a lake stretched up what is now the Fraser Canyon past Pavilion, with the ''kekuli'' village situated near its shores, but today high on a semi-desert mountainside. The main bench at the intersection of the Fountain Valley Road with Highway 99 was homesteaded in the mid-19th Century by Joseph L'Italienne, also known as Joseph Italian, who started a successful vineyard, which was British Columbia's first. He sold the land, a holding, to Chief Tsil.húsalst and several other members of the Fountain Band in 1883; it is now

First Nation

The band government whose reserves are focussed around Fountain is the Xaxli'p First Nation, officially styled simply "Xaxli'p". The Fountain Band's traditional name for the place is ''

Cacli'p Xaxli'p, ( lil, xáxl̓ǝpamx) also known as the Fountain or the Fountain Indian Band, is a First Nations government located in the Central Interior-Fraser Canyon region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is a member of the Lillooet ...

'' (in the now-standard Van Eijk orthography – - ''Xaxli'p'' is an older spelling system).

References

External links