Siska, also known historically as Cisco, is a locality 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 ...

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 9.4 kilometres south of the town of Lytton. It is at Siska that the

Canadian Pacific The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...

and Canadian National Railways switch from one side of the river to the other, because it is impossible for both rail lines to occupy the same bank of the Fraser, due to the narrow and steep terrain. The resulting pair of bridges, with the CNR bridge just upstream of the CPR's, and the CPR's bridge's west foot entering the Cantilever Bar Tunnel into the side of Cisco Bluff, remains one of the most famous images of the CPR's route through British Columbia today and is easily viewable from the adjacent

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean on ...

. Siska is also home to the Siska First Nation, a local government of the

Nlaka'pamux The Nlaka'pamux or Nlakapamuk ( ; ), also previously known as the ''Thompson'', ''Thompson River Salish'', ''Thompson Salish'', ''Thompson River Indians'' or ''Thompson River people'', and historically as the ''Klackarpun'', ''Haukamaugh'', ''Kni ...

peoples who have lived in the Fraser Canyon for thousands of years. The Siska First Nation

rancherie A Rancherie is a First Nations residential area of an Indian reserve in colloquial English throughout the Canadian province of British Columbia. Originating in an adaptation of '' ranchería'', a Californian term for the residential area of a ''ran ...

- main residential area - is just off the highway on a broad

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 ...

just below the CPR bridge, and has a general store, the

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

and band office, plus other band services. One of the band's economic ventures, a project in applied ethnobotany intended to use traditional knowledge to help preserve the land against logging extraction through economic competition for forest leases, is the nurturing and harvesting of traditional food and other plant materials in the surrounding wilderness, made into health and bath products and teas and other products. Siska is the northernmost point in the Fraser Canyon where

bigleaf maple ''Acer macrophyllum'', the bigleaf maple or Oregon maple, is a large deciduous tree in the genus '' Acer''. It is native to western North America, mostly near the Pacific coast, from southernmost Alaska to southern California. Some stands are al ...

is found. Other vegetation is noticeably denser than at Lytton, part of the transition from dry Interior to coast rainforest ecotypes that begins near Siska and is largely complete at

Spuzzum Spuzzum is an unincorporated settlement in British Columbia, Canada. Because it is on the Trans-Canada Highway, approximately north of the community of Hope, it is often referred to as being "beyond Hope". Environment Spuzzum lies in a constrict ...

References

Canadian Pacific Railway Canadian National Railway Unincorporated settlements in British Columbia Nlaka'pamux Fraser Canyon Populated places on the Fraser River Populated places in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District {{BritishColumbia-geo-stub