The Sarita River is an approximately -long river on the west coast of

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are o ...

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 ...

, just north of the hamlet of

Bamfield Bamfield is a community that is surrounded by Crown Land, First Nation Lands belonging to the Huu-ay-aht Nations, and portions of the Pacific Rim National Park, located on Barkley Sound, Vancouver Island in British Columbia. The community, with ...

History

The Sarita River basin is the traditional homeland of the Huu-ay-aht Peoples. The river was important to the Huu-ay-aht for thousands of years as a source of food and as a means of transportation between villages throughout the territory. The Huu-ay-aht wintering village, Nuumakimyiis, was located at the mouth of the river. In the twentieth century,

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...

through the Sarita River watershed has reduced habitat and resulted in damage to the river ecosystem. By 1997, 62% of the watershed had been logged. In 2018, the Huu-ay-aht First Nations announced plans to begin a

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

renewal program to bring back the important food staple to the Sarita River.

River course

The river has its

source Source may refer to: Research * Historical document * Historical source * Source (intelligence) or sub source, typically a confidential provider of non open-source intelligence * Source (journalism), a person, publication, publishing institute o ...

in the mountainous interior of Vancouver Island, not far from the Nitinat River basin. The river flows westerly into

Sarita Lake Sarita Lake is a lake located on Vancouver Island an expansion of Sarita River and east of Numukamis Bay, Barkley Sound. See also *List of lakes of British Columbia This is an incomplete list of lakes of British Columbia, a province of Cana ...

and empties the lake over Sarita Falls before meandering through a lowland valley towards the ocean at Numukamis Bay on the eastern edge of the

Barkley Sound , image = Fishing boat in the Broken Group Islands.jpg , image_size = 260px , alt = , caption = Barkley Sound , image_bathymetry = , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = , locat ...

. The Sarita River has a braided river mouth with a number of

distributaries A distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. Distributaries are a common feature of river deltas. The phenomenon is known as river bifurcation. The opposite of a distributary ...

. The main tributary for the Sarita River is the South Sarita River. The South Sarita River starts south-west of the Sarita River in the Somerset Range. It flows north-east and meets the Sarita River west of Sarita Lake. The Bamfield Road, the main road to

, follows the middle course of the Sarita River valley.

References

{{reflist Rivers of Vancouver Island