The Nechako River arises on the

Nechako Plateau The Nechako Plateau is the northernmost subdivision of the Interior Plateau, one of the main geographic regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It spans the basin of the Nechako River and its tributaries the Stuart River and Endako ...

east of the

Kitimat Ranges , photo = Lax Kw'alaams.jpg , photo_size = 280px , photo_caption = Lax Kw'alaams backdropped by Mount McNeil , map = , map_image = BC-relief_Kitimatranges.png , map_caption = Kitimat Ranges ...

of the

Coast Mountains The Coast Mountains (french: La chaîne Côtière) are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the Coast of British Columbia ...

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 Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, and flows north toward Fort Fraser, then east to Prince George where it enters the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...

. "Nechako" is an anglicization of ''netʃa koh'', its name in the indigenous

Carrier language The Dakelh (ᑕᗸᒡ) or Carrier language is a Northern Athabaskan language. It is named after the Dakelh people, a First Nations people of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, for whom Carrier has been a common English name derive ...

which means "big river". The Nechako River's main tributaries are the Stuart River, which enters about east of Vanderhoof, the Endako River, the

Chilako River The Chilako River is a tributary of the Nechako River, one of the main tributaries of the Fraser River, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It flows through the Nechako Plateau. The name "Chilako" comes from the Dakelh The Dakelh (pro ...

, which enters about west of Prince George, and the

Nautley River Nautley River (Dakelh: Nadlehkoh - ″Where the salmon return creek″ or Nadleh - ″(fish) run″) drains Fraser Lake into the Nechako River in the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Only long, it is one of the shortest rivers in t ...

, a short stream from

Fraser Lake Fraser Lake is a village in northern British Columbia, Canada. It's located on the southwest side of Fraser Lake between Burns Lake and Vanderhoof alongside the Yellowhead Highway. The small community's population is primarily employed by eithe ...

. Other tributaries include the Cheslatta River, which drains Cheslatta Lake and enters the Nechako at the foot of the

Nechako Canyon The Nechako Canyon, also known as the Grand Canyon of the Nechako, is a canyon on the Nechako River in the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, located between Cheslatta Falls and Knewstubb Lake, which lies immediately above the Kenny D ...

via Cheslatta Falls, near

Kenney Dam Kenney may refer to: * Kenney (name) Places United States communities * Kenney, Illinois * Kenney, Texas Geographical features * Hotel Kenney, Rideau Lakes, Ontario, Canada * Kenney Dam, a hydroelectric dam on the Nechako River, British Co ...

and the

Nechako Reservoir The Nechako Reservoir, sometimes called the Ootsa Lake Reservoir, is a hydroelectric reservoir in British Columbia, Canada that was formed by the Kenney Dam making a diversion of the Nechako River through a 16-km intake tunnel in the Kitimat Range ...

History

The expedition of Alexander MacKenzie went past the mouth of the Nechako in 1793, curiously without observing it. The first European to ascend the Nechako was James McDougall, a member of Simon Fraser's expedition, in 1806.

Nechako Reservoir

The Nechako is one of the main tributaries of the Fraser River, although half of its flow was diverted through the

to the

Kemano Kemano was a settlement situated 75 km (47 mi) southeast of Kitimat in the province of British Columbia in Canada. It was built to service a hydroelectric power station, built to provide energy for Alcan to smelt aluminum from its ore. ...

generating station at sea level on the

Gardner Canal The Gardner Canal is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. Technically a side-inlet of the larger Douglas Channel, the Gardner Canal is still in length in its own right; total length of the waterways converging on the Douglas ...

, below the reservoir's intakes, which supplies power to the

aluminum smelter Aluminium (aluminum in AmE, American and CanE, Canadian English) is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately o ...

at nearby

Kitimat Kitimat is a district municipality in the North Coast region of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine regional government. The Kitimat Valley is part of the most populous urban distr ...

. The main reservoir of the Nechako power diversion is called the

or Ootsa Lake Reservoir, but there are many subnames for different parts of the lake because its conversion into a reservoir involved the amalgamation of chains of lakes, the largest of which were Eutsuk Lake and Natalkuz Lake, which form the south arm of the reservoir. The reservoir's alternate name comes from

Ootsa Lake The Nechako Reservoir, sometimes called the Ootsa Lake Reservoir, is a hydroelectric reservoir in British Columbia, Canada that was formed by the Kenney Dam making a diversion of the Nechako River through a 16-km intake tunnel in the Kitimat Ranges ...

, now merged into the north arm of the reservoir but originally flowing into the Oosta River, a tributary of the Nechako. Other lakes also merged into the north arm are Whitesail Lake and Tahtsa Lake, with the correspondingly-named rivers connecting them now flooded and renamed Whitesail Reach and Tahtsa Reach. The

Quanchus Range The Quanchus Range is a subrange of the Nechako Plateau in the Interior of British Columbia, Canada, located on the north end of Tweedsmuir North Provincial Park and Protected Area. It is almost completely an island after the creation of the Nech ...

is located between the two arms of the reservoir. The damming of the Nechako in 1952 and the consequent massive reduction in flow has been the source of considerable political controversy. The

Cheslatta Carrier Nation The Cheslatta Carrier Nation or Cheslatta T'En (pronounced chez-la-ta), of the Dakelh (pronounced ) or Carrier people (Ta-cullies, meaning "people who go upon water", whose traditional lands where originally where the Kitimat Kemano Project I was ...

, a subgroup of the

Dakelh The Dakelh (pronounced ) or Carrier are the indigenous people of a large portion of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. The "Carrier" name was derived from an English translation of ''Aghele'', the name from the neighbouring Sekani ...

or Carrier people, were flooded out by the creation of the reservoir and forced to abandon their homes with only two weeks' warning. The increase in water temperature caused by the reduction in flow has been an ongoing problem for the

salmon run ''Salmon Run'' is a 1982 video game for the Atari 8-bit family created by Bill Williams and distributed via the Atari Program Exchange. ''Salmon Run'' was the first game in Williams's career, followed by a string of successes noted for their o ...

on 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 e ...

and Stuart Rivers as well as the Nechako. Populations of White Sturgeon may have also been affected as studies show an unnatural decline in late-juvenile/early adult populations of the species.

References

External links

BC Lakes and Rivers

'' "Engineers Invade Another Wilderness - Huge Canadian Power Project Marks 20th Century Frontier Boom" '', by Richard Neuberger
detailed 1951 Popular Science article on the Kemano Hydro Project {{authority control Nechako Country Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako Rivers of British Columbia Tributaries of the Fraser River Cariboo Land District

History

Nechako Reservoir

See also

References

Further reading

External links