Taseko Lakes | |
---|---|
Location | British Columbia |
Coordinates | 51°15′33″N123°35′26″W / 51.25917°N 123.59056°W |
Primary inflows | Taseko River, Lord River, Tchaikazan River |
Primary outflows | Taseko River |
Basin countries | Canada |
Max. length | 25 km (16 mi) |
Max. width | 1.8 km (1.1 mi) |
Surface area | 17.56 km2 (6.78 sq mi) |
Average depth | 43.3 m (142 ft) |
Max. depth | 110.6 m (363 ft) |
Water volume | 1.35 km3 (0.32 cu mi) |
Surface elevation | 1,323 m (4,341 ft) |
Islands | None |
Settlements | None |
The Taseko Lakes are a pair of lakes, Upper Taseko Lake [1] and Lower Taseko Lake, [2] which are expansions of the upper Taseko River in the southern Chilcotin District of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. [3] Their name is based on the original in the Chilcotin language, Dasiqox Biny, where "Desiqox" means "Mosquito River" and is cognate to the name of the river as in English; the Chilcotin name refers to both lakes as one lake, which was also originally the case with the English usage until official designation of the separate lakes in 1954. The lakes are separated by the short Taseko Narrows, the name of which in Chilcotin is nanats'akash, and is an important crossing place for deer. The Tchaikazan River flows the area between the upper & lower lake from the southwest, while the Taseko River feeds it from the southeast, while the equally large Lord River joins it from the south, at the head of the lake.
The Taseko Lakes were proposed to be part of a massive hydroelectric development which would have seen the flow of the Taseko River dammed and diverted westward via a tunnel to Chilko Lake, which would have been also dammed and diverted through further tunnels to Tatlayoko Lake on the Homathko River, which unlike the Taseko and Chilko Rivers drains directly to the ocean at Bute Inlet rather than via the Chilcotin and Fraser Rivers. Fisheries and aboriginal land claims concerns have derailed the Taseko diversion, although the Chilko diversion remains as a possibility.
The Taseko Lakes are now part of Tsʼilʔos Provincial Park, which also includes Chilko Lake and the intervening country, including Nemaiah Valley and Yohetta Valley, which form wide alpentals connecting the two lake valleys.
The Bridge River is an approximately 120 kilometres (75 mi) long river in southern British Columbia. It flows south-east from the Coast Mountains. Until 1961, it was a major tributary of the Fraser River, entering that stream about six miles upstream from the town of Lillooet; its flow, however, was near-completely diverted into Seton Lake with the completion of the Bridge River Power Project, with the water now entering the Fraser just south of Lillooet as a result.
The Chilcotin region of British Columbia is usually known simply as "the Chilcotin", and also in speech commonly as "the Chilcotin Country" or simply Chilcotin. It is a plateau and mountain region in British Columbia on the inland lee of the Coast Mountains on the west side of the Fraser River. Chilcotin is also the name of the river draining that region. In the language of the Chilcotin people their name and the name of the river means "people of the red ochre river"
The Chilcotin River /tʃɪlˈkoʊtɪn/ located in Southern British Columbia, Canada is a 241 km (150 mi) long tributary of the Fraser River. The name Chilcotin comes from Tŝilhqot’in, meaning "ochre river people," where ochre refers to the mineral used by Tŝilhqot’in Nation and other Indigenous communities as a base for paint or dye. The Chilcotin River, Chilko River and Lake, and Taseko River and Lake make up the Chilcotin River watershed. This 19,200 km2 (7,400 sq mi) watershed drains the Chilcotin Plateau which reaches north to south from the Nechako Plateau to Bridge River county and east to west from Fraser River to the Coast Mountains. It is also one of twelve watersheds that make up the Fraser River Basin. Made up of seven major tributaries, Chilcotin River starts northeast of Itcha Mountain, flowing southeast until it joins the Fraser River south of Williams Lake, 22 km (14 mi) upstream from Gang Ranch.
Tŝilhqox Biny, known as Chilko Lake, is a 180 km2 lake in west-central British Columbia, at the head of the Chilko River on the Chilcotin Plateau. The lake is about 65 km long, with a southwest arm 10 km long. It is one of the largest lakes by volume in the province because of its great depth, and the largest above 1,000 m in elevation. It and Harrison Lake are the largest lakes in the southern Coast Mountains.
The Chilko River is a 75-kilometre-long (47 mi) river in the Chilcotin District of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, flowing northeast from Chilko Lake to the Chilcotin River. Its main tributary is the Taseko River.
The Niut Range is 3600 km2 in area. It is a subrange of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, although in some classifications it is considered part of the Chilcotin Ranges. The Niut is located in the angle of the Homathko River and its main west fork, Mosley Creek. It is isolated, island-like, by those rivers from its neighbour ranges, as both streams have their source on the Chilcotin Plateau in behind the range. Razorback Mountain is its highest peak.
Tŝ’ilʔoŝ, also known as Mount Tatlow, is one of the principal summits of the Chilcotin Ranges subdivision of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains of southern British Columbia. Standing on an isolated ridge between the lower end of Chilko Lake and the Taseko Lakes, it is 3,063 m (10,049 ft) in elevation.
The Homathko River is one of the major rivers of the southern Coast Mountains of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is one of the few rivers that penetrates the range from the interior Chilcotin Country to the coastal inlets of the Pacific Ocean. The Homathko River reaches the sea at the head of Bute Inlet, just west of the mouth of the Southgate River.
The Spruce Lake Protected Area, formerly known variously as the Southern Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park, Southern Chilcotins, and also as South Chilcotin Provincial Park, is a 71,347-hectare Protected Area in the British Columbia provincial parks system, approximately 200 km north of Vancouver. The area had been the subject of an ongoing preservationist controversy since the 1930s. In 2007, its status as a provincial park was downgraded to protected area.
Big Creek is a roughly 120-kilometre (75 mi) long tributary of British Columbia's Chilcotin River.
The Taseko River or Dasiqox in the original Chilcotin, is a tributary of British Columbia's Chilko River, a tributary of the Chilcotin River which joins the Fraser near the city of Williams Lake.
The Bridge River Power Project is a hydroelectric power development in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located in the Lillooet Country between Whistler and Lillooet. It harnesses the power of the Bridge River, a tributary of the Fraser, by diverting it through a mountainside to the separate drainage basin of Seton Lake, utilizing a system of three dams, four powerhouses and a canal.
The British Columbia Interior, popularly referred to as the BC Interior or simply the Interior, is a geographic region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. While the exact boundaries are variously defined, the British Columbia Interior is generally defined to include the 14 regional districts that do not have coastline along the Pacific Ocean or Salish Sea, and are not part of the Lower Mainland. Other boundaries may exclude parts of or even entire regional districts, or expand the definition to include the regional districts of Fraser Valley, Squamish–Lillooet, and Kitimat–Stikine.
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.
Waddington Canyon is a canyon on the Homathko River in the heart of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Canada, located below the confluence of Mosley Creek.
Great Canyon is the official name of a stretch of the Homathko River as it pierces the heart of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains between the Chilcotin District of the British Columbia Interior and the Central Coast region at Bute Inlet. Also known unofficially as the Grand Canyon of the Homathko, it is located above the confluence of Mosley Creek. The canyon is the largest on the Homathko and lies on the west side of the Waddington Range massif containing Mount Waddington, the range's highest, and like other parts of the Homathko has been proposed as the site of dams in a region-wide hydroelectric development involving the Homathko, Southgate, Chilko and Taseko Rivers.
Mount Vic 3005 m (9859 ft), prominence: 712 m, is a mountain in the Chilcotin Ranges of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, located east of the southernmost of the Taseko Lakes and southeast of Taseko Mountain. Adjoining its lower slopes to the northeast is the Dil-Dil Plateau, a lava plateau rising above the main Chilcotin Plateau, which extends north and northeast in general from this area, which is to the west of the headwaters of Big Creek. Mount Vic is one of the highest summits of the southern Chilcotin Ranges, which are a subrange of the Pacific Ranges subdivision of the Coast Mountains.
The Tchaikazan River is an important tributary of the Taseko River in the Chilcotin District of the Central Interior of British Columbia, flowing into it from the southwest at the narrows of the Taseko Lakes from its source on the north flank of Mount Monmouth. The river's course is ~35 km in length.
Gunn Valley is a valley in the southern Chilcotin District of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, just west of the Taseko Lakes and, like them, running on a north–south axis and at a perpendicular angle to Yohetta Valley, which drains to it via Yohetta Creek but also connects through a low pass to Chilko Lake farther west. In Gunn Valley are Tuzcha and Fishem Lakes, which are fed and drained by Yohetta Creek, which joins the Tchaikazan River at the valley's southern end. Lastman Lake is at the valley's north end and is connected to the other lakes by a swampy pass, through which runs the access road to Yohetta Valley. There is an airstrip near the valley's southern end.
The Lord River is a tributary of the Taseko River in the southern Chilcotin District of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, joining that river via the head of Upper Taseko Lake, which is also fed by the upper reaches of the Taseko River proper. The Lord River rises in the area of Lord Pass, which connects to the headwater area of the Bridge River immediately south.
51°15′33″N123°35′26″W / 51.25917°N 123.59056°W