Keatley Creek

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Keatley Creek is a left tributary of the Fraser River in the Glen Valley area of the Fraser Canyon in the Interior of British Columbia, Canada. [1] Its outlet into the Fraser is between those of Pavilion and Fountain Creeks, approximately 16 miles upstream from the town of Lillooet; the next tributary southwards is the larger Sallus Creek.

Contents

Course

The creek begins high in the northwestern ramparts of the plateau-like Clear Range, and its upper course is between eroded mountainsides that are actually only the flanks of the flat summits of the range. In the midst of its course, as with most other tributaries of the Fraser in this region, it cuts through benchlands formed by old lake beds via a steep canyon. The benchlands are ranchland and have been at times irrigated for alfalfa and other crops.

History

On one of those benchlands is the Keatley Creek Archaeological Site, which was once a large riverside housepit (quiggly hole or kekuli) village. Of great antiquity like X̱á:ytem in the Fraser Valley, the site is among the most important in Canada and has been exhaustively studied and documented by archaeologists. Investigations have been led by Brian Hayden of Simon Fraser University, who dubbed the largest pithouse in the site as "Coyote's Big House" in the title of one of his works, as the trickster-being Coyote is important in local legends and name-stories. What caused the demise of the village's society is as yet unknown, though a landslide blocking the Fraser near Texas Creek, south of Lillooet, may have critically destroyed the local indigenous fishery. Alternative theories put emphasis on relative over-population and resource over-exploitation in the context of climate change. The large village is one of the biggest of its kind found to date in the Mid-Fraser.

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Fountain, British Columbia

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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 Nahatlatch River is a tributary of the Fraser River in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It originates in the Lillooet Ranges of the Coast Mountains and empties into the Fraser River in the Fraser Canyon, north of Boston Bar.

Churn Creek

Churn Creek is a tributary of the Fraser River in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

Cayoosh Creek River in Canada

Cayoosh Creek is a northeast-flowing tributary of the Seton River in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The name Cayoosh Creek remains on the bridge-sign crossing the stream on BC Highway 99 and continues in use locally to refer to the final reaches of the Seton River, formerly Seton Creek, which prior to the renaming ending at the confluence with Cayoosh Creek. The creek is the namesake of Cayoosh Creek Indian Reserve No. 1, one of the main Indian reserves of the Cayoose Creek Indian Band, which lies adjacent to what was renamed the Seton River without local consultation.

Pavilion Mountain is a mountain in the Marble Range in the South Cariboo region of the South-Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, located northeast of the ranching and First Nations community of Pavilion and to the north of Marble Canyon and immediately south of Kelly Lake, which is the focus of Downing Provincial Park. The term Pavilion Mountain is also used to refer to the historic ranch and associated rangeland on the "bench" on the mountain's southwestern side, and also to the road which traverses that benchland and the mountain's western shoulder and is the route of the Old Cariboo Road. The switchback descent from the summit of the road was known as the Rattlesnake Grade and was an infamous stretch of the old wagon road. From a junction at the road-summit, a road leads east along the spine of the mountain to the peak, which is the site of a microwave relay and former fire lookout. The mountain's only named subpeak, Mount Carson, at 2005 metres, is southeast of the fire lookout and is named for the original owner of the ranch and was briefly misapplied as the name of Pavilion Mountain. Robert Carson was one of the first settlers in the region and whose sons later became prominent MLAs and provincial cabinet ministers. The north wall of Marble Canyon is essentially the southeast buttress of Pavilion Mountain.

Mission Ridge, also known as Mission Mountain, is a ridge in the Bridge River-Lillooet Country of the South-Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, extending westward from the town of Lillooet along the north side of Seton Lake to Mission Pass, which is immediately above and to the north of the lakeside community of Shalalth. The road over the pass is also known as Mission Mountain, which is short for "Mission Mountain Road". Mission Creek lies on the north side of the pass, and is a tributary of the Bridge River, the lower reaches of which lie on the north side of the ridge, and which was the only road access into the upper Bridge River Country before the construction of a road through the Bridge River Canyon in the mid-1950s opened that region up to road access from the lower Bridge River valley and the town of Lillooet via the community or Moha. Most, or virtually all, of the ridge, is Indian Reserves, notably Slosh 1, under the administration of the Seton Lake Indian Band, and Bridge River 1, which is under the administration of the Bridge River Indian Band. Parts of the ridge's eastern end are in reserves controlled by the Lillooet Indian Band, including its final spires above Lillooet, which were dubbed St. Mary's Mount by the Reverend Lundin Brown in the 1860s, though that name never stuck and is ungazetted.

The Bridge River Rapids, also known as the Six Mile Rapids, the Lower Fountain, the Bridge River Fishing Grounds, and in the St'at'imcets language as Sat' or Setl, is a set of rapids on the Fraser River, located in the central Fraser Canyon at the mouth of the Bridge River six miles north of the confluence of Cayoosh Creek with the Fraser and on the northern outskirts of the District of Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada.

Keatley Creek is a significant archaeological site in the interior of British Columbia and in the traditional territory of the St'at'imc peoples. Its location is in the Glen Fraser area of the Fraser Canyon ranchlands about 18 miles from the town of Lillooet on a benchland flanking Keatley Creek, whose name derives from a former ranch owner, and from which the site takes its name.

Texas Creek is a medium-sized right tributary of the Fraser River in the Fraser Canyon region of that river's course, located approximately 16 miles down the river from the town of Lillooet. Texas Creek is also the name of the rural neighbourhood in the area of the creek, and also that of the Texas Creek Ranch which is one of the larger holdings.

Glen Fraser is a locality in the central Fraser Canyon of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, located c. 18 miles north of the town of Lillooet and between the communities of Fountain (S) and Pavilion. It is a ranching area formed of benchlands on the west side of the Fraser and is the location of the Keatley Creek Archaeological Site, one of Canada's most important ongoing investigations. The name was conferred as that of a railway stop on the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, now Canadian National.

References

Coordinates: 50°47′50″N121°51′30″W / 50.79722°N 121.85833°W / 50.79722; -121.85833