Birkenhead Lake Provincial Park | |
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Location | British Columbia |
Nearest city | D'Arcy, British Columbia |
Coordinates | 50°34′59″N122°44′59″W / 50.58306°N 122.74972°W |
Area | 104.39 square kilometres (40.31 sq mi) |
Established | October 10, 1963 |
Birkenhead Lake | |
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Location | British Columbia |
Coordinates | 50°32′N122°41′W / 50.533°N 122.683°W |
Primary inflows | Phelix Creek, Sockeye Creek |
Primary outflows | Taillefer Creek |
Basin countries | Canada |
Max. length | 6.4 km (4.0 mi) |
Surface area | 4.087 square kilometres (1.578 sq mi) |
Average depth | 21.6 m (71 ft) |
Max. depth | 38.4 m (126 ft) |
Birkenhead Lake Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located in the Lillooet Country region. The park lies north of the communities of Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton, and immediately northwest of Birkenhead Peak and Gates Lake (a.k.a. Birken Lake) at the community of Birken.
The park has a size of 104.39 km2 (40.31 sq mi), while Birkenhead Lake itself is 4.087 km2 (1.578 sq mi). [1] [2]
Birkenhead Provincial Park was established in 1963 to provide a recreation and conservation area between the Pemberton Valley and Lillooet. It was expanded in 1993 and again in 2008 to preserve more of the Sockeye Creek watershed. [1]
The park's wildlife includes mountain goats, moose, snowshoe hare, black bears and grizzly bears, while Birkenhead Lake itself is home to Rainbow Trout and Kokanee. The lakes in the park are also home to a protected species of bull trout, often mistaken for Dolly Varden.
The park is located 90 kilometres north-east of Whistler, the last 12 kilometres of which are a non-paved gravel road branching off the main paved between Mount Currie and D'Arcy northeast of the community of Birken. The park has 91 vehicle accessible campsites and a lakeside beach area.
The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District is a quasi-municipal administrative area in British Columbia, Canada. It stretches from Britannia Beach in the south to Pavilion in the north. Lillooet, Pemberton, Whistler and Squamish are the four municipalities in the regional district. Its administrative offices are in the Village of Pemberton, although the district municipalities of Squamish and Whistler are larger population centres. The district covers 16,353.68 km2 of land area.
Seton Portage is a community on a narrow strip of land between Anderson Lake and Seton Lake in Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, British Columbia. The community is home to two Seton Lake First Nation communities at either end of the portage and a non-native recreational community between them. Local services include a post office, fire department, library, and general store, among other small businesses. The community is also the location of Seton Portage Historic Provincial Park, a small provincial park protecting a historically significant stretch of railway.
The Lillooet River is a major river of the southern Coast Mountains of British Columbia. It begins at Silt Lake, on the southern edge of the Lillooet Crown Icecap about 80 kilometres northwest of Pemberton and about 85 kilometres northwest of Whistler. Its upper valley is about 95 kilometres in length, entering Lillooet Lake about 15 km downstream from Pemberton on the eastern outskirts of the Mount Currie reserve of the Lil'wat branch of the St'at'imc people. From Pemberton Meadows, about 40 km upstream from Pemberton, to Lillooet Lake, the flat bottomlands of the river form the Pemberton Valley farming region.
Lillooet Lake is a lake in British Columbia, Canada about 25 km in length and about 21 km2 (8.1 sq mi) in area. It is about 95 km downstream from the source of the Lillooet River, which resumes its course after leaving Little Lillooet Lake, aka Tenas Lake. Immediately adjacent to the mouth of the upper Lillooet River is the mouth of the Birkenhead River and just upstream along the Lillooet is the confluence of the Green River, which begins at Green Lake in the resort area of Whistler.
N'Quatqua, variously spelled Nequatque, N'quat'qua, is the proper historic name in the St'at'imcets language for the First Nations village of the Stl'atl'imx people of the community of D'Arcy, which is at the upper end of Anderson Lake about 35 miles southeast of Lillooet and about the same distance from Pemberton. The usage is synonymous with Nequatque Indian Reserve No. 1, which is 177 ha. in size and located adjacent to the mouth of the Gates River.
The Birkenhead River, formerly known as the Portage River, the Pole River and the Mosquito River, is a major tributary of the Lillooet River, which via Harrison Lake and the Harrison River is one of the major tributaries of the lower Fraser River. It is just over 50 km long from its upper reaches in the unnamed ranges south of Bralorne, British Columbia ; their western area towards the named Bendor Range east of Bralorne is sometimes called the Cadwallader Ranges.
Pemberton is a village municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. This Pemberton Valley community is on the southwest shore of the Lillooet River and northeast shore of Pemberton Creek. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road about 153 kilometres (95 mi) north of Vancouver, 33 kilometres (21 mi) northeast of Whistler, and 100 kilometres (62 mi) southwest of Lillooet.
Nairn Falls Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada located on the Green River adjacent to British Columbia Highway 99 and the Canadian National Railway line just south of Pemberton and less than twenty minutes north of the resort town of Whistler. The 170 hectare park was established in 1966, shortly after the highway's opening, to protect and enhance visitor access to Nairn Falls.
Gold Bridge is an unincorporated community in the Bridge River Country of British Columbia, Canada. Although numbering only around 40 inhabitants, Gold Bridge is the service and supply centre for the upper basin of the Bridge River Valley, which includes recreation-residential areas at the Gun Lakes, Tyaughton Lake, Marshall Creek, and Bralorne; and the nearby ghost towns of Brexton and Pioneer Mine.
The Sea-to-Sky Corridor, often referred to as the Corridor or the Sea to Sky Country, is a region in British Columbia spreading from Horseshoe Bay through Whistler to the Pemberton Valley and sometimes beyond to include Birken and D'Arcy. From Whistler on up, the region overlaps with the older and more historic Lillooet Country, of which Squamish, at the region's centre, was once the southward extension in the days when it was the rail-port terminus from the Interior, via Lillooet, and accessible from the Lower Mainland only by sea. Most of the region is in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, although south of Britannia Beach a small part of the region is in the Greater Vancouver Regional District.
Mount Currie is a settlement in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road about 160 kilometres (99 mi) north of Vancouver, 39 kilometres (24 mi) northeast of Whistler, and 92 kilometres (57 mi) southwest of Lillooet.
The Lil'wat First Nation, a.k.a. the Lil'wat Nation or the Mount Currie Indian Band, is a First Nation band government located in the southern Coast Mountains region of the Interior of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is a member of the Lillooet Tribal Council, which is the largest grouping of band governments of the St'at'imc or Stl'atl'imx people. Other St'at'imc governments include the smaller In-SHUCK-ch Nation on the lower Lillooet River to the southwest, and the independent N'quatqua First Nation at the near end of Anderson Lake from Mount Currie, which is the main reserve of the Lil'wat First Nation, and also one of the largest Indian reserves by population in Canada.
The Lillooet Icecap, also called the Lillooet Icefield or the Lillooet Crown, is a large icefield in the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is about 90 km (56 mi) northwest of the towns of Pemberton and Whistler, and about 175 km (109 mi) north of Vancouver, British Columbia. The Lillooet Icecap is one of the largest of several large icefields in the Pacific Ranges which are the largest temperate-latitude glacial fields in the world. At its maximum extent including its glacial tongues it measures 30 km (19 mi) east to west and 20 km (12 mi) north to south; its central icefield area is approximately 15 km (9 mi) in diameter.
Gates Lake, also known as Birken Lake, Tenass Lake, Halfway Lake, and Summit Lake, is a small lake located at the summit of the Pemberton Portage area of the one-time Lakes Route through the Coast Mountains, located at the summit of a low pass connecting the Upper and Lower Lillooet Country of the Southern Interior of British Columbia. Birken Lake sits at the divide between the Birkenhead and Gates-Seton drainage, known as the Pemberton Pass or Mosquito Pass, and is part of the Gates River drainage.
Pemberton Pass, 505 m (1,657 ft), also formerly known as Mosquito Pass, is the lowest point on the divide between the Lillooet and Fraser River drainages, located at Birken, British Columbia, Canada, in the principal valley connecting and between Pemberton and Lillooet. The pass is a steep-sided but flat-bottomed valley adjacent to Mount Birkenhead and forming a divide between Poole Creek, a tributary of the Birkenhead River, which joins the Lillooet at Lillooet Lake, and the Gates River which flows northeast from Gates Lake, at the summit of the pass, which flows to the Fraser via Anderson and Seton Lakes and the Seton River.
The Gates River is a short river in the Lillooet Country of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Approximately 14.5 km in length, it flows generally northeast from the outlet of Birken Lake to its mouth at the head of Anderson Lake. Its main tributaries are Haylmore Creek, from the southeast, and Blackwater Creek, from the northwest, which originates near the head of Birkenhead Lake. Augmented by the waters of McGillivray Creek, Lost Valley Creek and others, its flow becomes the Seton River from the foot of Anderson Lake onwards.
Birken is an unincorporated community on the north shore of Gates Lake in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. On Pemberton Portage Road, the locality is by road about 182 kilometres (113 mi) north of Vancouver and 62 kilometres (39 mi) northeast of Whistler.
The Gates Valley is a valley and group of communities in the Lillooet Country of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, located between the summit of Pemberton Pass and the head of Anderson Lake at the community of D'Arcy. Though the term strictly refers to the valley of the Gates River, it is usually used more in a sense of the communities located in the valley and is not a term used for the river's drainage basin, which is much larger.
Birkenhead Peak, commonly known as Mount Birkenhead and sometimes Birkenhead Mountain or Mount Birken is a mountain in the Gates Valley region of the Lillooet Country of the South-Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Located approximately midway between the towns of Lillooet (NE) and Pemberton-Mount Currie, the mountain's very high prominence separates it from the adjoining Cadwallader Range by the pass between Blackwater Creek and Birkenhead Lake.
Bridge River Delta Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located 65 kilometres (40 mi) north of Pemberton and 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Lillooet. Established in 2010, the park covers 992 hectares.