The Parsnip River is a long river in central

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 ...

. It flows generally north-westward from the Parsnip Glacier in the

Hart Ranges The Hart Ranges are a major subrange of the Canadian Rockies located in northeastern British Columbia and western Alberta. The mountains constitute the southernmost portion of the Northern Rocky Mountains. The Hart Ranges were named in honour of ...

to the Parsnip Reach of

Williston Lake Williston Lake is a reservoir created by the W. A. C. Bennett Dam and is located in the Northern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Geography The lake fills the basin of the upper Peace River, backing into the Rocky Mountain Trench which is whe ...

, formed by the impounding of the waters of the

Peace River The Peace River (french: links=no, rivière de la Paix) is a river in Canada that originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows to the northeast through northern Alberta. The Peace River joins the Athabasca River in th ...

by the

W.A.C. Bennett Dam The W. A. C. Bennett Dam is a large hydroelectric dam on the Peace River (Canada), Peace River in northern British Columbia, Canada. At high, it is one of the world's highest Dam#Earth-fill dams, earth fill dams. Construction of the dam began in ...

in 1968. Prior to that, the Parsnip joined with the

Finlay River The Finlay River is a 402 km long river in north-central British Columbia flowing north and thence south from Thutade Lake in the Omineca Mountains to Williston Lake, the impounded waters of the Peace River formed by the completion of the W.A. ...

to form the Peace at

Finlay Forks Finlay Forks (also called Finlay Junction and sometimes misspelt Findlay), is the confluence of the Finlay River and Parsnip River. The Finlay Bay Recreation Site, on the southeast bank, is about southeast of the former settlement (on the earlier ...

, with both sharing an alignment along the

Rocky Mountain Trench The Rocky Mountain Trench, also known as the Valley of a Thousand Peaks or simply the Trench, is a large valley on the western side of the northern part of North America's Rocky Mountains. The Trench is both visually and cartographically a s ...

Name origin

The river's name derives from the abundance of cow-parsnip (''

Heracleum lanatum ''Heracleum maximum'', commonly known as cow parsnip, is the only member of the genus '' Heracleum'' native to North America. It is also known as American cow-parsnip, Satan celery, Indian celery, Indian rhubarb or pushki. Description Cow p ...

''), also known as Indian rhubarb, which grows along its banks.

History

The Parsnip is of historical significance as forming part of the route Alexander MacKenzie took in his epic journey to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

in 1793. Fish populations and their protozoan and metazoan parasites in the headwater areas of the

McGregor River The McGregor River is a tributary of the Fraser River in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The McGregor River was named for the Provincial Land Surveyor Captain James Herrick McGregor, who fought and died in 1915 at the Second Battle of Y ...

(Pacific drainage) and of the Parsnip River (Arctic drainage) were the subject of studies carried out in the 1970s concerning the proposed diversion of waters across the continental divide. Three parasites (''

Ceratomyxa shasta ''Ceratonova shasta'' (syn. ''Ceratomyxa shasta'') is a myxosporean parasite that infects salmonid fish on the Pacific coast of North America. It was first observed at the Crystal Lake Hatchery, Shasta County, California, and has now been reporte ...

'', ''Cryptobia salmositica'', and ''Haemogregarina irkalukpiki'') were identified as posing the greatest threat to the fisheries resources of the immediate area and also to the downstream areas. Based in part on these studies, the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, in a public announcement, suspended engineering studies of the proposed diversion.

Tributaries

* Hominka River *

Anzac River The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was a First World War army corps of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. It was formed in Egypt in December 1914, and operated during the Gallipoli campaign. General William Birdwood comma ...

Table River Table may refer to: * Table (furniture), a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs * Table (landform), a flat area of land * Table (information), a data arrangement with rows and columns * Table (database), how the table data ...

* Missinka River * Crooked River *

Misinchinka River The Misinchinka River is a river in the north-central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, rising in the northern Hart Ranges to flow northwest to join the Parsnip River just before that river's estuary into the Parsnip Reach of Lake Williston, ...

Atunatche Creek Atunatche Creek is a small river in the Hart Ranges of the Northern Rockies of British Columbia. Atunatche Creek adopted 2 September 1954 on 93 O, as labelled on BC map 3C, 1923. Had been labelled "Tillicum Creek" on BC map 3E, 1922. "Atunatch ...

References

Hisao P. Arai and Dwight R. Mudry. 1983. Protozoan and Metazoan Parasites of Fishes from the Headwaters of the Parsnip and McGregor Rivers, British Columbia: A Study of Possible Parasite Transfaunation. Canadian. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 40(10): 1676–1684 (1983) {{authority control Rivers of the Canadian Rockies Northern Interior of British Columbia Rivers of British Columbia Cariboo Land District