Long before this valley had an English name, it was home to the Ts’elxwéyeqw (Ch-ihl-kway-uhk), who describe themselves as the First People of the Chilliwack River watershed. Their name is the root of the English word “Chilliwack,” which Tourism Ch’illiwack’s place names guide translates as “going back upstream, as far as you can go in a canoe.” To honour them, we share who they are, the seven Ts’elxwéyeqw First Nations, some of the place names and stories they have made public, and ways you can learn from and support them, with links to their own words and other trusted sources.

The Ts’elxwéyeqw are part of the Stó:lō (STALL-oh), the People of the River, and of the wider Coast Salish family of peoples. Their language is Halq’eméylem, the upriver dialect of Halkomelem. They have lived here for thousands of years and still care for this land, which they call S’ólh Téméxw: “our land, our world.” Their guiding principle, shared by the Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre, is “S’ólh Téméxw te íkw’élò. Xólhmet te mekw’ stám ít kwelát.” In English: “This is our land. We have to look after everything that belongs to us.”

Much of their history lives in oral tradition, carried from Elders to younger generations. In Halq’eméylem, sqwélqwel means “true news or personal histories,” and sxwōxwiyám are the stories of the distant past, when the world was mixed up, including the stories of Xexá:ls, the Transformers. This knowledge is ancient, and fewer people carry it with each generation. If you’re ever given the chance to listen to a Ts’elxwéyeqw Elder or knowledge keeper, take it seriously, listen closely and ask thoughtful questions.

We’re guests on their land, and we share all of this with respect. At a glance:

• The people: the Ts’elxwéyeqw, part of the Stó:lō, the People of the River
• The land: a shared territory of 95,000 hectares in southwestern BC, reaching across the border into Washington State
• The language: Halq’eméylem, with free lessons on FirstVoices
• Today: seven First Nations, also called bands, each with its own government
• Their values: unity, harmony, family, culture, nature and respect

The seven Ts’elxwéyeqw First Nations share a vision: “We sustain our culture, our lands, and our families.” In January 2013, their Chiefs and Councils gathered at Stehiyaq, the Nations’ property at Centre Creek in the valley, to renew their connection with their ancestral lands. Here they are in the order the Ts’elxwéyeqw list them, with the spellings the Ts’elxwéyeqw use:

• Shxwhá:y Village (Skway): Stó:lō Chief Harry Edwards translated Shxwhá:y as “a place where they made canoes,” and the village describes itself as “a home that unites us all.” Its ancestors’ homelands were at Sx̱ótsaqel, at the head of Chilliwack Lake, and over generations the community moved downriver to its present home, where the Chilliwack River meets the Fraser. Today Shxwhá:y builds canoes, joins community canoe journeys, teaches regalia-making (ceremonial clothing), harvests and cans salmon and berries, and hosts gatherings at the Shxwhá:y Village Cultural Centre. Learn more on Shxwhá:y Village’s website.
• Th’ewá:li (Soowahlie): a Stó:lō First Nation at Cultus Lake (Swílhcha), near the mouth of the valley. Learn more on Soowahlie’s website.
• Ch’íyáqtel (Tzeachten): the name means the place of the fish weir, after the weirs its ancestors built on the Chilliwack River. A weir is a fence of poles built across a river to catch fish. Its website greets visitors with “éy swáyel siyá:ye,” hello, friend. Ch’íyáqtel was among the 24 First Nations that formed the Stó:lō Nation in 1977. Its first Chief was William Augustine Hall, and its first woman Chief was Glenda Campbell. Today it runs Halq’eméylem language classes and a traditional foods program for fishing, canning and sharing salmon. It also has a longhouse (a traditional gathering house), a community hall, a sports complex and Vedder Crossing Plaza.
• Sxwoyehálá (Squiala): a Stó:lō First Nation near Chilliwack whose stated goal is a healthy, productive community with fair representation for its members. Learn more on Squiala’s website.
• Sq’ewqéyl (Skowkale): the name refers to the large bend in the Chilliwack River, and the community sits in the heart of Chilliwack. Its economic development corporation is named Tómiyeqw, which means “7 Generations, a reminder that understanding where we come from helps us know who we are.” Sq’ewqéyl is home to The’í:tselíya S.A.Y. Health and Community Centre, with a gym, youth room, carving area, sports field and café, which it shares with Áthelets and Yeqwyeqwí:ws. Volunteers at the Sq’ewqéyl hatchery raise up to 20,000 chum salmon a year for release into Chilliwack Creek.
• Áthelets (Aitchelitz): S.A.Y. stands for Sq’ewqéyl, Áthelets and Yeqwyeqwí:ws, the three Nations served by the S.A.Y. Lands Office. Áthelets shares The’í:tselíya centre with its neighbours.
• Yeqwyeqwí:ws (Yakweakwioose): the Halq’eméylem spelling of Yakweakwioose. Like Áthelets, it’s served by the S.A.Y. Lands Office and shares The’í:tselíya centre.

Ts’elxwéyeqw place names hold history and teachings. Here are a few of the best known, from Tourism Ch’illiwack’s place names guide and the Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre’s glossary:

• Chilliwack Lake (Sx̱ótsaqel, said SKOT-SAKEL): “sacred lake,” the ancestral homeland at the head of the valley. The lake is home to the S’o:lmexw, the water babies, powerful spiritual beings. The provincial park there is now named Sx̱ótsaqel/Chilliwack Lake Park.
• Slesse Mountain (Selísi, said SE-LEE-SEE): “fang.” Stó:lō Elders say the name comes from the old Ts’elxwéyeqw language, which was closely related to the language of the Nooksack people. The peak was shaped by Xexá:ls, the Transformers, who in Stó:lō teaching are four black bears.
• Mount Cheam (Lhílheqey, said THEETH-UL-KAY): “glacier,” “to resoak” or “to rehydrate,” and the name of a woman turned to stone.
• Cultus Lake (Swílhcha, said SWEEL-CHA): “an empty basin that quickly filled with water” or “somebody died.” The lake is said to be home to stl’áleqem, supernatural beings. “Cultus” itself isn’t Halq’eméylem; it comes from Chinook Jargon, the old trade language of the Pacific Northwest.
• T’xwelátse, the man turned to stone: the first man of the Ts’elxwéyeqw. In 1892, local farmers took the stone figure and sold it to a museum in Sumas, Washington, and it later spent about a century at the Burke Museum in Seattle. Herb Joe of Ch’íyáqtel, who carries the name T’xwelátse, and his family worked for fifteen years, with help from the Stó:lō Nation, the Nooksack people and others, to bring him home. T’xwelátse came home in October 2006, after 114 years away. Read his story.

Ts’elxwéyeqw culture isn’t only history. Today the Nations:

• Teach Halq’eméylem, through Ch’íyáqtel’s community classes and at the Coqualeetza Cultural Education Centre in Sardis
• Build canoes and paddle them on community canoe journeys
• Gather in longhouses at Shxwhá:y and Ch’íyáqtel
• Fish, can and share traditional foods
• Raise salmon at the Sq’ewqéyl hatchery
• Run community centres, sports fields and housing
• Own businesses together through the Ts’elxwéyeqw Limited Partnership, including a forestry woodlot in the valley, a spiritual treatment centre at Centre Creek and Seven Generations Environmental Consulting

You can learn from and support them in many ways:

• Take a tour: Stó:lō Tourism offers cultural tours of the Coqualeetza grounds in Sardis.
• Shop Indigenous: the Stó:lō Gift Shop is on the Coqualeetza grounds, and the Stó:lō business directory lists more than 300 Indigenous-owned businesses.
• Learn the language: try the free Halq’eméylem lessons on FirstVoices.
• Go deeper: the Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre shares Stó:lō history and culture.
• Respect cultural places: archaeological sites in BC are protected by law, whether or not they’re marked. If you find an artifact, leave it where it lies.

We’ve chosen to focus here on the strength, culture and living presence of the Ts’elxwéyeqw. We know their history also holds deep sorrow, from the epidemics that arrived with newcomers to the residential schools, and we hold that knowledge with care. Those stories belong to them, and it isn’t our place to tell them. If you’d like to understand that part of their history, we gently invite you to learn it from the seven Ts’elxwéyeqw First Nations themselves, whose own websites are linked above.

The City of Chilliwack is home to ten First Nations. Alongside the seven Ts’elxwéyeqw Nations are three neighbouring Stó:lō First Nations, each with its own government, history and territory. We haven’t described them in the same depth because they aren’t among the seven Ts’elxwéyeqw Nations, and we’d rather they tell their own stories, but we’re grateful to share this region with them:

• Xwchíyò:m (Cheam): “wild strawberry place,” near Rosedale, whose people have lived in S’ólh Téméxw for thousands of years. Learn more on Cheam’s website.
• Kwaw-kwaw-a-pilt: a Stó:lō First Nation with its office on Chilliwack River Road. Learn more on the Province of BC’s page for the Nation.
• Sqwá (Skwah): a Stó:lō First Nation in Chilliwack. Learn more on Skwah’s website.

Thank you for taking the time to learn about the people whose land this is. We’re still learning too, and we’d be grateful for your help. If you see something we’ve got wrong, or know a story or resource that belongs here, please email us at hi@chilliwackrivervalley.com. We only add something new once it’s verified and, when it comes from a Nation, with that Nation’s permission.

Looking for a guided hike near Chilliwack? We plan and lead guided hiking tours throughout the Chilliwack River Valley, from easy forest walks near Vedder Crossing to alpine ridges, mountain lakes and backcountry routes near Chilliwack Lake and the Washington border. Whether you’re coming from Vancouver, Abbotsford or elsewhere in the Fraser Valley, or you live here and want to see more of it, every hike is shaped around your group, your pace and what you’d like to see.

Our hikes are for beginners, families, photographers, birdwatchers, experienced hikers and seasoned backcountry explorers alike, from one-on-one outings to large groups. Our team has decades of backcountry experience, including outdoor survival situations, and we hike at a human pace. Questions about nature, geology and history are always welcome, and we talk openly as a group about what we’re doing and seeing. Many people bring a camera, or binoculars for birding.

Every guided hike starts the same way:

• We talk first: who’s coming, your experience and fitness, where you’d like to go, what you’d like to see, your budget and the time of year.
• We design it with you: we shape the hike around your group, or match you with a trusted local guide when another provider is the better fit.
• We agree on everything in advance: the route, timing, meeting point, gear, food and cost. Everyone signs the waiver and terms before the day, so expectations are clear and the value is apparent before anything is paid.

At a glance:

• Group size: one-on-one up to large groups
• Length: one hour up to a full day, and a full day can end with backcountry camping. Multi-day backcountry trips are available for experienced hikers, but most hikes start and finish the same day.
• Ages: any age for short, easy walks with a parent or guardian; 12 and up for longer or more challenging day hikes, or younger by agreement; 16 and up for overnight and multi-day trips, with anyone under 19 accompanied by a parent or guardian
• Meeting point: most groups meet us at a trailhead or meeting point in the valley. If you need help getting here, we can help plan transport depending on where you’re coming from and how many are in your group.
• Food and drink: optional snacks, meals, water and drinks, arranged in advance around dietary needs and allergies, and sourced from local businesses in the valley
• Gear: bring your own. We recommend what to bring when you sign your waiver and can point you to local shops to buy or rent anything you need.
• Dogs: welcome wherever they’re allowed

Most of our hikes are on Crown land, the public land managed by the Province, much of it reached by forest service roads, which are gravel roads built for logging. Here’s a sample of where we go, from Vedder Crossing upstream. Distances are round trips. They vary a little between sources, so unless another source is linked, the figures are from Tourism Ch’illiwack’s Hiking Guide (PDF).

In the lower valley:

• The Chilliwack River: riverside walks from Vedder Crossing upstream, including at the Tamihi Creek, Allison Pool and Thurston Meadows recreation sites, which are simple campgrounds and day-use areas on Crown land, managed by Recreation Sites and Trails BC
• Elk–Thurston: 8 km and 800 metres of climbing to Elk Mountain, or 15 km and 1,030 metres to Mount Thurston, with views across the Fraser Valley to the ocean
• Chilliwack River Hatchery: a self-guided, 30-minute loop trail on a paved site with wheelchair access, about 20 km up Chilliwack Lake Road
• Trans Canada Trail: sections of the cross-Canada trail, which follows the valley from Cultus Lake toward Chilliwack Lake

In the middle valley:

• Pierce Lake: 16 km and 1,040 metres of climbing, best from July to September. Mount MacFarlane, beyond it, is 21 km and 1,760 metres, a strenuous hike that’s ideal as an overnight trip.
• Mount Cheam (Lhílheqey): 9.5 km and 665 metres of climbing to 2,112 metres, with 360-degree views of the Fraser Valley. The road in needs a high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicle, and there are sheer drops near the summit. The Foley Creek Forest Service Road, the usual way in, has been closed at kilometre 0 by a washout since December 16, 2025.
• Baby Munday Peak: 10.5 km and 1,407 metres of climbing to 2,250 metres, on a secluded route with few other hikers. It’s also reached by the Foley Creek Forest Service Road, which is closed for now.
• Ford Mountain: 14.6 km and 1,005 metres of climbing, or 6 km if a four-wheel-drive vehicle gets you to the trailhead. Past the summit, the trail connects to Williams Ridge.
• Slesse Memorial Trail: 8 km and 460 metres of climbing to a memorial plaque for Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, which crashed into Slesse Mountain on December 9, 1956, killing all 62 people aboard. Going on to the propeller cairn, a stone monument holding part of one of the plane’s propellers, makes it 12 km and 920 metres. The crash site is a protected memorial site, so please treat the whole trail as a place of remembrance.
• Williams Ridge: 11 km and 1,435 metres of climbing, 1,000 metres of it in just 1.7 km. Williams Peak, beyond the ridge, is a technical rock scramble that needs experience and equipment.

At Chilliwack Lake, in Sx̱ótsaqel/Chilliwack Lake Park:

• Lindeman and Greendrop lakes: from the Post Creek trailhead, 3.4 km and 215 metres of climbing to turquoise Lindeman Lake, or 10.4 km and 365 metres to Greendrop Lake
• Flora Lake: 14 km, over Flora Ridge at 1,770 metres, with views of Chilliwack Lake. It’s often done as part of a challenging 20 km loop with Lindeman and Greendrop lakes, and an overnight trip is recommended. BC Parks says the route between Greendrop and Flora is overgrown, crosses large landslides and should only be travelled by experienced backpackers.
• Radium Lake: 15 km and 910 metres of climbing, best from June to October because of snow
• The lakeshore and Sappers Park: Sappers Park, at the south end of the lake, was built by a visiting British company of military engineers

Near the border and beyond:

• Paleface and Depot creeks: near the end of the road, which continues past the park as a gravel forest service road along the east side of Chilliwack Lake, close to the Washington border
• Paleface Pass: where the Trans Canada Trail climbs to 1,270 metres before descending along Silverhope Creek toward Hope
• Skagit Valley Provincial Park: the next valley to the east

Not every hike suits every hiker, so we match the route to your group’s skill and fitness, and we refer you to a trusted specialist when that’s the better fit.

We guide year-round. In fall and winter we stay on lower trails, and we lead snowshoe outings only on flat, level ground away from slopes and banks. Steep winter backcountry often means avalanche terrain, so for those trips we connect you with local professionals who specialize in it, and we recommend checking Avalanche Canada before any winter trip. Local shops rent and sell snowshoes, and some run their own tours.

If a trail is closed, we find another route. If the weather turns, we reschedule, always talking it through with your group. Because equipment, people and fuel are arranged in advance, guided hikes aren’t refundable, but the value isn’t lost: we move your hike to another day, or the funds can go toward our other services.

A few things worth knowing before you hike in the valley:

• No cell service: there’s no cell reception past the On the Way store near the start of Chilliwack Lake Road.
• Roads change: forest service roads wash out and close. Check current road conditions before you go.
• Dogs in the park: BC Parks asks visitors not to bring pets on trails or into the backcountry in Sx̱ótsaqel/Chilliwack Lake Park.
• Leave no trace: we follow the principles of Leave No Trace Canada, such as staying on trail, packing out everything, giving wildlife space and respecting cultural sites.
• Trail rules: we follow the rules of every park and Crown land area we hike in.

Whether it’s a one-hour walk with your kids or a multi-day trip into the backcountry, the best hike starts with a conversation. Tell us who’s coming, what you’d like to see and when, and we’ll plan it with you. Email us at hi@chilliwackrivervalley.com.

Looking for camping near Chilliwack, or a quiet getaway close to home? We plan custom camping retreats throughout the Chilliwack River Valley, from simple weekends at a riverside campsite to catered glamping getaways for groups, and we connect you with local bed and breakfasts and vacation rentals for an easy staycation. Whether you’re coming from Vancouver, elsewhere in the Fraser Valley or farther away, every retreat is shaped around your group, your budget and your favourite way to camp.

Our camping retreats are for families, friends and groups of every size. Some groups want a simple camp weekend. Others want glamping, short for glamorous camping, with catered meals, a dinner tent and an outdoor movie. Either way, you tell us how you love to camp, and we take care of the details, saving you the many stops it usually takes to get organized.

Every camping retreat starts the same way:

• You email us: tell us who’s coming, when you’d like to go and your favourite way to camp.
• We talk it through: on a phone call, we go over your group, your dates, your budget and your wish list.
• We design it with you: we plan your retreat and put the price and every detail in writing.
• Everyone signs: once everyone has signed the agreement and waiver and the deposit is paid, we reserve your site and arrange the rest.

At a glance:

• Group size: one-on-one up to large groups
• With us or on your own: we can camp with your group the whole time, or set up camp and let you enjoy it on your own
• Length: as long as you’d like, within each place’s limit
• Ages: children of any age are welcome, as long as a parent or legal guardian is there, watches them closely and signs the waiver. Overnight backcountry trips you hike into are for ages 16 and up, as with our guided hikes.
• Dogs: welcome when everyone in your group agrees and the place allows them
• What to bring: your own tent, sleeping bag, clothing, medications and personal items. We can arrange everything else.
• Seasons: we plan camping retreats in every season. Some campgrounds are only open part of the year, so we match your dates with places that are open.

We camp anywhere in the valley where camping is legal, and when a group needs permission to camp somewhere, we get it in advance:

• Private campgrounds: licensed, locally run campgrounds, including some lesser-known ones
• Recreation sites: simple riverside campgrounds such as Tamihi Creek, Allison Pool and Thurston Meadows, managed by Recreation Sites and Trails BC, with stays of up to 14 consecutive days
• Sx̱ótsaqel/Chilliwack Lake Park: the provincial park at Chilliwack Lake, about 40 kilometres up Chilliwack Lake Road
• The backcountry: wilder spots on Crown land, the public land managed by the Province, where anyone may camp for up to 14 consecutive days

Tell us your favourite way to camp, and we’ll build your retreat around it. Depending on your group, we can arrange:

• Meals: cheese and meat (charcuterie) boards; barbecue classics like steaks, burgers and hot dogs; camp breakfasts; and campfire s’mores. Every menu is planned around dietary needs and allergies, with vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options.
• Local food: locally smoked salmon, traditional First Nations foods bought directly from First Nations food businesses, and fresh produce from organic and natural farms in and around Chilliwack
• Drinks: coffee, tea, hot chocolate and alcohol-free drinks. If your group would like local wine, cider or beer, we can point you to the valley’s winery and local makers, where alcohol is allowed
• Comforts: shared kitchen and shade tents, large rental tents with tables for group dinners, camp chairs, lighting, and firewood where campfires are allowed
• Entertainment: outdoor movies and live music, like someone playing guitar, where it’s allowed, plus stargazing and campfire games
• Getting there: transport to and from your campsite
• Activities: a guided hike or a bushcraft lesson, and referrals to local guides for fishing, rafting and kayaking
• Occasions: family reunions, birthdays, weekends with friends and company retreats

On the West Coast, rain is part of camping, so every retreat includes a plan for wet weather. Payment comes in two parts: a deposit when everyone signs, and the final payment two weeks before your dates. Because every retreat is custom, and hours of planning and admin go into it before you arrive, payments aren’t refundable.

If a weather warning from Environment and Climate Change Canada, a wildfire, an evacuation order or a road, park or campground closure stops your retreat, we reschedule it within 12 months, at the same campground or a similar one, with the same details as your signed agreement. If your group can’t make the new date, you can pass your retreat on to someone else. If we ever have to cancel, or can’t deliver what we agreed, you can choose a full refund or a new date. We also suggest trip cancellation insurance, in case illness or other personal reasons keep you from coming.

Contact us as early as you can, ideally at least 30 days before your dates. That gives us time to plan every detail and reserve your site. Reservations can open well ahead: BC Parks, for example, takes campsite reservations up to three months before your arrival.

A few things worth knowing before you camp in the valley:

• Campfires: check current fire bans before lighting a campfire, and keep fires small and inside the fire rings provided.
• Wildlife: keep food, coolers, garbage and anything with a smell in a hard-sided vehicle or a storage locker, never in your tent, as WildSafeBC recommends.
• Quiet time: recreation sites have quiet time from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m..
• Pack it out: take everything you bring back out with you, including garbage.
• No cell service: there’s no cell reception past the On the Way store near the start of Chilliwack Lake Road.
• Roads change: forest service roads wash out and close. Check current road conditions before you go.
• Dogs in the park: BC Parks asks visitors not to bring pets on trails or into the backcountry in Sx̱ótsaqel/Chilliwack Lake Park.

Prefer to sleep indoors? For a staycation, a short getaway close to home, we connect you with bed and breakfasts and vacation rentals in the valley, and guests we refer can get special off-season rates and experiences. It’s an easy way to slow down, explore the valley and keep your spending local.

Whether you’d like a quiet weekend by the river, a catered glamping retreat for the whole family or a few nights at a bed and breakfast, the best getaway starts with a conversation. Tell us who’s coming, when, and how you love to camp, and we’ll plan it with you. Email us at hi@chilliwackrivervalley.com.

Looking for corporate team building near Vancouver that gets your team outdoors? We plan custom team-building outings and retreats in the Chilliwack River Valley, about an hour and a half from downtown Vancouver, where your team can trade the boardroom for the forest, the river and the mountains. Every outing is built around your team’s dynamic, your industry, your goals and what your leadership team has planned.

Through fun challenges and hands-on outdoor experiences, we explore the skills and traits of each person on your team, to help build communication, morale and confidence. We can also take your brainstorming sessions, meetings and conversations outdoors, into an interactive outdoor setting.

Every team-building outing starts the same way:

• You email us: tell us about your team, your goals and the challenges you’d like to work through.
• We talk it through: on a phone call, we go over your team’s size, dynamic and industry, and what your leadership team has in mind.
• We design it with you: we plan the outing and put the price and every detail in writing.
• Everyone signs: once the agreement and waivers are signed and the deposit is paid, we reserve your site, activities and rentals and arrange the rest.

At a glance:

• Group size: small teams up to large groups
• Length: a few hours, a half day or a full day, up to overnights, weekends and longer
• Food and drink: optional catering from local businesses in the valley, planned around dietary needs and allergies
• Getting there: we can help plan transport for your team, depending on where you’re coming from and how many are coming
• Seasons: we plan team building in every season

Depending on your team, an outing can include:

• Bushcraft challenges: building shelters, and chopping and sawing wood
• Fishing: different types of fishing. Anyone 16 or older needs a BC freshwater fishing licence.
• Nature finds: finding and photographing local animals, plants, insects and mushrooms, and picking berries where it’s allowed
• Motorized adventures: group rentals of dirt bikes, ATVs, side-by-sides and snowmobiles, and boats on Chilliwack Lake, all from local partners we work with every year
• Outdoor conferences and events: speakers and presentations with sound equipment, outdoor seating, gatherings around a campfire where fires are allowed, and pop-up event tents and other rentals
• Outdoor meetings: your boardroom brainstorming, moved outside
• More from the valley: a guided hike, or an overnight camping retreat to end the day

When a large group needs permission to gather somewhere, we arrange it in advance. On the West Coast, rain is part of being outdoors, so every outing includes a plan for wet weather.

Payment comes in two parts: a deposit when everyone signs, and the final payment two weeks before your date. Because every outing is custom, and hours of planning and admin go into it beforehand, payments aren’t refundable. If a weather warning from Environment and Climate Change Canada, a wildfire, an evacuation order or a road, park or site closure stops your outing, we reschedule it within 12 months, with the same details as your signed agreement. If we ever have to cancel, or can’t deliver what we agreed, you can choose a full refund or a new date. Contact us as early as you can, ideally at least 30 days before your date.

A few things worth knowing before your team heads up the valley:

• No cell service: there’s no cell reception past the On the Way store near the start of Chilliwack Lake Road, so plan any calls before you arrive.
• Campfires: check current fire bans before any outing with a campfire.
• Roads change: forest service roads wash out and close. Check current road conditions before you go.

Whether it’s a few hours of challenges or a weekend retreat for the whole company, the best team-building outing starts with a conversation. Tell us about your team, your goals and what you’d like to work through, and we’ll plan it with you. Email us at hi@chilliwackrivervalley.com.

Want to learn bushcraft and wilderness survival skills near Chilliwack? We teach hands-on outdoor skills in the Chilliwack River Valley, from building a shelter and lighting a fire to finding safe water, reading the stars and getting to know the plants and animals of the forest. Whether you’re a complete beginner or an experienced camper ready to go deeper, every lesson is shaped around your interests, your skill level and the time of year.

Our team grew up on northern traplines, hunting and trapping legally, and has spent decades in the backcountry, including real outdoor survival situations. We teach the practical, traditional know-how that life gave us, at a human pace, with plenty of time for questions.

Every lesson starts the same way:

• You email us: tell us what you’d like to learn, who’s coming and when.
• We talk it through: on a phone call, we go over your experience, your interests and your goals.
• We design it with you: we plan the lessons and put the price and every detail in writing.
• Everyone signs: once the agreement and waivers are signed and the deposit is paid, we prepare everything for your day.

At a glance:

• Group size: one-on-one up to large groups
• Length: a few hours up to full days, overnights and weekends
• Ages: children are welcome with a parent or legal guardian, and tool and fire skills are matched to each person’s age and ability
• Where: on Crown land and at campgrounds in the valley. Skills that need private land, like digging shelters, are taught on private property with permission.
• Gear: we recommend what to bring when you sign your waiver

Depending on your interests, you can learn:

• Shelter: how to build shelters on the ground and dug into it, as well as lean-tos and tarp shelters
• Fire: how to gather, saw and cut firewood and kindling, light a fire in wet weather, and keep it safe and legal
• Water: how to find water, and how to filter, treat and store it so it’s safe to drink, as HealthLink BC advises
• Navigation: how to find your way using the stars and the sun, what moss and other natural signs can and can’t tell you, and how to use a map and compass
• Food: the basics of fishing, hunting and gathering, and the rules that come with them. Anyone 16 or older needs a BC freshwater fishing licence, and hunting in BC takes the right licence and training, starting with CORE, the province’s hunter education program.
• Plants and mushrooms: how to identify local plants and mushrooms, and the edibility tests used in survival training, taught as knowledge only. We never encourage eating anything wild you can’t identify with certainty. There’s no safe test for an unknown mushroom, and some, like the death cap found in the Lower Mainland, can kill. As HealthLink BC advises, only eat wild mushrooms that someone knowledgeable has identified.
• Tools and knots: how to use basic hand tools and equipment, sharpen a knife, tie fishing flies and tie useful knots
• Wildlife: how to read tracks and signs, and how to stay safe around bears and other animals
• Staying found: how to leave a trip plan, what to carry, and what to do if you get lost
• Custom skills: anything else you’d like to learn, built around your interests

On the West Coast, rain is part of being outdoors, so every lesson includes a plan for wet weather. Payment comes in two parts: a deposit when everyone signs, and the final payment two weeks before your date. Because every lesson is custom, and hours of planning go into it beforehand, payments aren’t refundable. If a weather warning from Environment and Climate Change Canada, a wildfire, an evacuation order or a closure stops your lesson, we reschedule it within 12 months, with the same details as your signed agreement. If we ever have to cancel, or can’t deliver what we agreed, you can choose a full refund or a new date.

A few things worth knowing before you head out:

• Campfires: check current fire bans before lighting any fire.
• Kids: AdventureSmart’s free Hug a Tree and Survive program teaches children aged 5 to 11 how not to get lost, and what to do if they do.
• Cultural sites: if you find an artifact, leave it where it lies. Archaeological sites in BC are protected by law.
• No cell service: there’s no cell reception past the On the Way store near the start of Chilliwack Lake Road.

Whether you’d like to light your first fire or spend a weekend learning to live comfortably in the backcountry, it starts with a conversation. Tell us what you’d like to learn and who’s coming, and we’ll plan it with you. Email us at hi@chilliwackrivervalley.com.

Want to volunteer outdoors near Chilliwack and give back to the valley? Each spring and summer, we organize volunteer trail cleanups in the Chilliwack River Valley. Volunteers come together to remove garbage and other waste from trails and other places that need it, so they can return to their natural state. Anyone who wants to help is welcome, whether you live nearby or you’re visiting from Vancouver or elsewhere in the Fraser Valley.

Here’s how it works:

• We set the dates: we announce each cleanup on this website, with where and when to meet.
• You join the list: email us to be added to our cleanup list, and we’ll email you each new date as it’s announced.
• We meet and clean up: volunteers meet at a set place and time, then remove garbage and anything else that doesn’t belong in nature, like plastic, metal and glass.
• We take it away: everything we collect goes to the local landfill or recycling centre.

At a glance:

• When: spring and summer. If there’s interest, we may add fall and winter cleanups, but those seasons are more dangerous, and snow and rain puddles can hide the small pieces of waste we want to remove.
• Who can join: anyone who wants to help. Children are welcome with a parent or legal guardian.
• Cost: there’s no cost to volunteer.
• Waivers: as with all our outdoor experiences, everyone signs a waiver in advance.
• What to bring: we’ll tell you what to bring when we email you the date.

A few things worth knowing:

• Stay safe: never pick up needles or anything that looks hazardous. Leave it where it is and tell the cleanup lead.
• Leave no trace: between cleanups, you can help by packing out everything you bring in, as Leave No Trace Canada recommends.
• Report dumping: to report garbage dumped on Crown land, call the Province’s Report All Poachers and Polluters line at 1-877-952-7277, or report it online.

Every piece of garbage we carry out helps keep the valley healthy for the people, plants and animals that share it. If you’d like to help, email us at hi@chilliwackrivervalley.com, and we’ll add you to the list.

Planning a trip to the Chilliwack River Valley, thinking about moving here or starting a local business? We offer local consulting and business referrals, with straight answers to your questions and word-of-mouth connections to people and services you might never find on your own. Whether you’re visiting from Vancouver, coming from elsewhere in the Fraser Valley or already live nearby, we’ll help you find the right people.

We know many of the people who live and work in the valley, and we believe the best connections come from people who know each other. When you consult with us, we look first to people who live in the valley full time. If what you need isn’t here, we look next to Chilliwack’s city centre. Either way, your spending stays local.

Here’s what we can help with:

• Planning a visit: where to stay, eat and explore, and which local guides and outfitters fit what you’d like to do
• Moving to the valley: what everyday life here is like, from the seasons and roads to local services, and introductions to locals who can help
• Starting a local business: introductions to the local people, suppliers and services you’ll need
• Finding local services: trusted local businesses for whatever you need, from outdoor gear to food and places to stay

We often connect people with:

• Food and drink: local farms, the valley’s winery, craft cider and beer makers, beekeepers and First Nations food businesses
• Makers: artisans, crafters and woodworkers
• Places to stay: bed and breakfasts and vacation rentals
• Guides and outfitters: for rafting, kayaking, boating, fishing and hunting
• Outdoor gear: local shops where you can buy or rent what you need

We’re always happy to answer questions. For anything that takes more time and detail, we’ll talk it through with you first, so you know what’s involved before we start. When we connect you with someone, we introduce you and then step aside, so you can deal with them directly.

Whatever you’re planning, the best place to start is a conversation. Tell us what you need, and we’ll point you to the right people. Email us at hi@chilliwackrivervalley.com.

This timeline runs in order, from oldest to newest. Entries before 1782 are dated in years ago, in calendar years: the oldest ages come from argon–argon dating of volcanic rock and from oxygen isotopes in deep-sea mud, and those from the last 50,000 years from radiocarbon, converted to calendar years with the international IntCal20 calibration curve, because radiocarbon runs thousands of years “young” this far back. The First Peoples opens with oral history that reaches back to time immemorial, and from 1782 on, entries are dated by calendar year.

How the Valley Was Formed

About 1.3 Million to 990,000 Years Ago, fire and ice shared these mountains. The Mount Baker volcanic field, whose namesake peak stands about 25 kilometres south of today’s border, came to life about 1.3 million years ago and has been active almost continuously ever since, erupting an estimated 161 ± 56 cubic kilometres of material, with more than 70 packages of lava flows and about 110 dikes mapped so far; USGS geologists note that glacial ice has been present throughout its lifetime. About 1.15 million years ago, its largest eruption, similar in scale to the climactic eruption of Mount Mazama that formed Oregon’s Crater Lake, tapped a rhyodacite magma reservoir about 11 kilometres wide, and the ground above it collapsed into the Kulshan caldera, about 8 kilometres across, only the third Quaternary caldera identified in the Cascade arc. Ash-flow deposits, or ignimbrite, fill the caldera at least a kilometre deep, perhaps 1.5, and its ash, the Lake Tapps tephra, still lies as much as 30 centimetres thick some 200 kilometres to the south. The lavas that followed, erupted between 1.15 million and 990,000 years ago, recorded Earth’s magnetic field before, during, and after the Jaramillo subchron, a brief spell when the field flipped to today’s “normal” direction in the middle of a long reversed age, and one of them may have caught the field in the act of flipping back.

About 1.25 Million to 700,000 Years Ago, the rhythm of the ice ages themselves changed, in what climate scientists call the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. Before it, glacial cycles came about every 41,000 years, in step with the slow nodding of Earth’s axial tilt, and built only thin, modest ice sheets. After it, cycles stretched to an average of about 100,000 years and became strongly lopsided: long, slow build-ups of thick ice, ending in fast swings to warm interglacials. Why is still debated. Leading explanations include a long decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide and the “regolith hypothesis,” in which earlier glaciers scraped away the loose, weathered rock that ice slides over easily, leaving later ice sheets resting on bare bedrock, where they could grow far thicker.

About 700,000 to 130,000 Years Ago, in this new, harsher rhythm, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which has spread across large parts of North America in glacial periods for about 2.6 million years, buried this region time after time. Geologists number these swings between cold and warm as Marine Isotope Stages, read from oxygen isotopes in the shells of tiny sea creatures buried in deep-sea mud, counting back from today’s warm Stage 1: even numbers for cold stages, odd numbers for warm ones. Each advance worked on bedrock that was already ancient: folded and faulted late Paleozoic sea-floor rocks of the Chilliwack Group, younger Triassic and Jurassic rocks of the Cultus Formation, and the granodiorite of the Chilliwack batholith, emplaced 26 to 29 million years ago and the largest mass of exposed intrusive rock in the Cascade arc. The structure of that folded rock still controls the shape of the river network, a quasi-rectangular pattern of long, straight valleys meeting at sharp angles. Each advance also destroyed much of the record of the ones before: the ice sheet stripped away the Kulshan eruption’s outflow sheets, and the oldest deposits dated in the valley itself are only about 27,000 years old. The second-to-last great cold, the Penultimate Glacial Period, or Stage 6, ended about 130,000 years ago.

About 130,000 to 115,000 Years Ago, the world warmed into the Last Interglacial, Stage 5e, the last warm interglacial before our own. Temperatures were comparable to today’s interglacial and at times up to about 2 °C warmer on average, and sea level probably stood 6 to 9 metres higher than it does now.

About 115,000 to 60,000 Years Ago, the Last Glacial Period began, and the climate swung through cooler and milder phases, Stages 5d to 5a, before the deep cold of Stage 4 set in about 71,000 years ago.

About 60,000 to 28,000 Years Ago, this land sat through the Olympia nonglacial interval, sometimes called the Olympia Interglaciation, a long, largely ice-free period during which the valley — though unrecognizable compared to today — already existed as open ground. It corresponds roughly to Stage 3. According to the Geological Survey of Canada, in southwestern British Columbia it probably began more than 59,000 years ago and ended as glaciers began to grow again, perhaps as early as about 33,500 years ago in parts of the coast. Its river, estuary, and marine sediments, the Cowichan Head Formation, have been dated to between about 43,600 and 27,800 years ago.

About 27,000 to 25,800 Years Ago, cooling temperatures triggered the Evans Creek Stade, as alpine glaciers began forming across the surrounding mountains and the Fraser Glaciation, this region’s share of Stage 2, took hold. In the geologist Ian Saunders’ 1985 reconstruction of the valley’s ice-age history, a valley glacier flowed down the Chilliwack River from the high Cascades, building an outwash plain of sand and gravel that probably filled the width of the lower valley. At the Chilliwack River Pit, those gravels have yielded mammoth tusk dated to about 27,000 and 25,800 years ago. No Fraser River of that age has been found, so the Chilliwack may then have emptied straight into a marine estuary. Ice from the Coast Mountains kept building until it merged into the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which entered the region and began burying the landscape entirely.

About 24,000 Years Ago, ice from the Fraser Glaciation reached the mouth of the valley and dammed it completely, creating a glacial lake. Clays laid down in that lake, dated to about 24,300 years ago, give or take about 2,000 years, remain some of the clearest physical evidence of how deep this ice age ran here.

About 21,000 to 18,000 Years Ago, the valley lived through the height of the Vashon Stade, the most extensive phase of the Fraser Glaciation, entombed under thousands of feet of moving ice with no rivers, lakes, or forests visible at all. By the Geological Survey of Canada’s 1981 reckoning, the ice did not fully cover the southern Georgia Depression, the lowland around the Strait of Georgia, until after about 21,000 years ago, and it reached its greatest size about 18,300 years ago. The lowland ice pushed far into the lower valley and laid down a thick till that makes up nearly half of the Ryder Upland, with wood in its middle dated to about 18,900 years ago; Saunders suggests the meeting of the lowland ice and the valley glacier made it a principal dumping ground. Ice rounded almost everything below about 2,000 metres, and even the sharpest peaks were probably buried only briefly. Ice like this gave the valley its classic glacial forms: hanging valleys, horns, arêtes, truncated spurs, and the paired cirques the geologist Reginald Daly called “tandem cirques.”

About 13,800 Years Ago, the ice was finally breaking up. Farther west in the Fraser Lowland, geologists recognize a period of retreat called the Everson Interstade, but no trace of it has been found here; the ice in this valley probably stood still or melted back only slowly until the lowland lobe and the valley glacier separated and a lake filled the gap between them. By about 13,800 years ago, that lake reached at least as far upstream as Slesse Creek, its surface standing between about 300 and 430 metres. The valley glacier, by then about 20 kilometres back, built a new outwash plain in the upper valley that ran out into the lake, of which Larsons Bench is a part, and paused at Chilliwack Lake long enough to leave a bouldery moraine.

About 13,400 to 13,100 Years Ago, even as the broader retreat continued, a renewed advance called the Sumas Stade pushed a lobe of ice back into the lower valley, not once but twice, about 13,400 and 13,100 years ago. A brief retreat between the two is recorded by a layer of volcanic ash at the Tamihi Slide, and the Tamihi end moraine, which crosses the Ryder Lake upland, marks the farthest reach of the second advance — one last glacial push before the ice truly began losing its grip. Meanwhile, meltwater found new ways out: streams along the edge of the lowland ice built the Lower Bench, a kame terrace, and fed a lake at Smith Falls Creek that drained south down the Columbia Valley to the Nooksack River. The clearest surviving evidence sits at the Tamihi Slide and along Slesse Creek — both places you can visit today — where layered sediment and organic material have been radiocarbon-dated to this exact window, among them a tree stump still rooted where it grew at Slesse Creek, dated to about 13,300 years ago.

About 12,900 to 12,500 Years Ago, the retreat became real and lasting. The ice dam at the valley mouth was gone by about 12,900 years ago, and the Fraser Lowland was free of ice less than a century later. As the lake drained, stagnant ice still lying in the lower valley turned the river into the newly formed Cultus Lake basin, where it built a kame delta, the Cultus Bench, which still holds back Cultus Lake; once that ice melted, the river took its present course out of the valley at Vedder Crossing. Near the close of the glaciation, at the head of the valley, water from the neighbouring Silverhope–Klesilkwa basin spilled over the divide by Post Creek, and a brief flood, probably catastrophic, appears to have cut through the moraine at Chilliwack Lake, though the details are still tentative. By about 12,500 years ago, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet had vanished from southern British Columbia.

About 11,700 Years Ago, the Holocene began, the warm interglacial we still live in. The valley was still adjusting to the loss of its ice: with its outlet lowered, the river cut down through its own outwash, leaving high terraces near Slesse Creek, while raw, unstable slopes fed new alluvial fans in a vigorous “paraglacial” period. Forests took hold in the lower valley, soil began to form, and the Chilliwack River Valley as a living landscape — the one whose rivers, lakes, and mountains still shape everything that happens here — had finally arrived.

The First Peoples

Since Time Immemorial, this has been Stó:lō territory — the Halq’eméylem-speaking “People of the River,” part of the broader Coast Salish peoples. To the Stó:lō, this land is S’ólh Téméxw, “Our Land” or “Our World,” and the name “Chilliwack” itself is an anglicization of Ts’elxwéyeqw (Ch-ihl-kway-uhk), most commonly translated as “going back upstream, as far as you can go in a canoe” — a description of this exact river. In Ts’elxwéyeqw oral history, the people’s main headquarters was at Chilliwack Lake (Sx̱ótsaqel), “sacred lake,” at the head of the valley, before communities gradually moved downriver over many generations; the Elder Bob Joe told the historian Oliver Wells that the headquarters moved downriver under four brothers who governed the people, Wililéq, Th’eláchiyatel, Yexwéylem, and Siyámches. Just above Vedder Crossing stood Qoqoláxel, “Watery Eaves,” named for a famous longhouse whose inverted-gable, V-shaped roof collected rainwater that could be drawn by pulling a rope attached to a raisable plank.

Since Time Immemorial, the landscape itself has carried these stories. Slesse Mountain (Selísi), “fang,” is said to have been shaped by Xexá:ls, the Transformers, ancestral beings who travelled the land making things right. Chilliwack Lake is home, in Stó:lō teaching, to S’o:lmexw, spiritual beings known as the Water Babies. These accounts survive as sxwōxwiyám, teaching stories of the distant past, and sqwélqwel, true personal and family histories — the two oral traditions that carried this history for thousands of years before written language ever arrived here.

About 9,000 Years Ago, human beings were already here, not long after the ice had gone. Archaeological evidence places people in the Fraser Canyon at this depth of time, at the Milliken site near Yale, the nearest long archaeological sequence to this valley — the ancestors of the Stó:lō, including the Ts’elxwéyeqw. No sequence that long has yet been excavated in the valley itself, where logging, railways, roads, landslides, and the shifting river have erased many sites from the valley floor.

About 4,800 to 4,500 Years Ago, people were living in a pithouse (sqémél) at Iy’oythel, recorded as site DgRk-10, on a river terrace at the base of Mount McGuire, near Allison Pool, where the river runs through a bedrock canyon whose deep pools made it an ideal place to fish for salmon. Bob Joe gave its name as “the opposite side, both sides (of the rock wall).” It’s the earliest dated house in the valley, and a red chert biface found in it, made from local stone, resembles tools made between 5,500 and 3,500 years ago.

About 4,800 Years Ago, while people lived at Iy’oythel, debris flows off the slopes of the Upper Bench built the Tamihi Bench across the valley floor and dammed the river, backing up a lake about 165 metres above sea level roughly halfway to Slesse Creek; wood buried in the flows dates to about 4,800 years ago. The landscape has been comparatively stable ever since, and the only moraines left by the glacier growth of the past few thousand years lie below the Depot and Redoubt glaciers, in the far southeast of the watershed.

About 2,800 to 2,000 Years Ago, a larger house stood at Iy’oythel. A ground slate knife from it, of a kind used to process salmon, marks a change in fish-processing technology after about 3,000 years ago, and a little obsidian in deposits of this age came from beyond the region — evidence that these communities were never isolated, and that this valley was linked to a much wider world long before any map of it existed.

Colonial Settlement

1782, decades before any settler physically arrived in the valley, European contact had already begun affecting it — smallpox, introduced from a distance, swept through Stó:lō communities, the first of several epidemics noted in the ethnographic record compiled for the U.S. National Park Service.

1790s, according to oral traditions recorded by the linguist Brent Galloway, the Ts’elxwéyeqw began to mix with Upriver Halkomelem speakers and adopt Halq’eméylem, the language they speak today, in place of an older language closer to Nooksack, which one speaker called Ch’élexwoqwem; the ethnographer Allan Smith found the evidence suggestive but “not fully convincing.”

About 1800, a terrible smallpox outbreak ravaged the region, reportedly killing about three-quarters of the people.

1808, the first direct European presence in the wider region arrived. Simon Fraser became the first European to travel most of the river that now bears his name, passing through Ts’elxwéyeqw territory on June 30.

1827, the Hudson’s Bay Company established Fort Langley downstream, opening the fur trade that would eventually draw settlers this far up the valley.

1828, in December, a party from Fort Langley, with the clerk François Annance, travelled up the Fraser and into the Chilliwack River, the first recorded European visit to the valley. They turned back after about 16 kilometres, having seen canoes cached along the river but no people.

1830s, a “fever” epidemic struck in 1830. In the account of the anthropologist Wilson Duff, followed by the ethnographer Allan Smith, this was also the decade, or later, when the Ts’elxwéyeqw left their canyon homeland above Vedder Crossing for the Fraser lowland, once the river had changed course, the lowland bog had filled in, and Fort Langley offered protection from raiders. The archaeologist Gordon Mohs argued instead that the lowland had been Ts’elxwéyeqw land long before contact, a view the Elder Bob Joe’s testimony supports.

1846, Fort Langley sent men to set up a salmon fishery on the Chilliwack.

1855, the Hudson’s Bay Company cut the first recorded European trail up the Chilliwack River — not from nothing, but as an improvement to an existing Indigenous trail that had already connected nine villages between Vedder Crossing and Chilliwack Lake for generations. It was one strand of an old network: trails ran up and down the Fraser and over the mountains to the Nooksack and Skagit valleys, often along the ridgetops, partly because they were safer from raiders.

1857 to 1862, British and American commissions surveyed and marked the 49th parallel, and the Chilliwack River was their road to the boundary in this part of the Cascades; both set up base camps at Chilliwack Lake. On October 10, 1858, Michael Brown, a soldier of the U.S. Army escort, drowned in the lake and was buried beside Depot Creek. In July 1859, the British commission’s secretary, Charles Wilson, rode up the valley past a fire that “extended right across the valley & up the mountains.”

1858, everything changed. The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush brought an estimated 30,000 gold seekers flooding through the Lower Mainland to the river’s banks between Hope and Lillooet, many of them by boat up the Fraser past Fort Langley and some overland on the Whatcom Trail, which reached the Skagit by way of this valley. The rush led to the founding of the Colony of British Columbia that same year.

1859, on November 3, James Bertrand married Mary Ann (O-See-Ah-Mee-Ah) Soowhalie in Chilliwack, making his one of the earliest settler families bound directly into the Stó:lō community through marriage.

1860s, when the gold rush subsided, many who’d come for gold stayed to farm. Jonathon Reece, John Lawrence, William Teague, and brothers Isaac and James Kipp pre-empted land on Chilliwack Prairie, and in 1863 James Bertrand and Reuben Nowell pre-empted land in what’s now the eastern part of downtown Chilliwack. Around the same years, Volkert Vedder — born in Schenectady, New York in 1808, and a California gold-seeker himself back in 1851 — settled with his sons Adam and Albert on the south side of Chilliwack, below Majuba Hill, the first colonial settler to pre-empt Crown land in what became Yarrow; his name would eventually attach itself to Vedder Crossing, Vedder Road, Vedder Canal, and the Vedder River itself. Accounts of the family’s dates differ: the province’s place-names record puts the Vedders in the Hope district around 1860 and Adam near Chilliwack in 1870. Nearby, A.C. Wells, Adam Vedder, and Jane Evans became the first known farmers at what would become Sardis, a name chosen by Mrs. Vedder after the ancient city in present-day Turkey.

1862, smallpox struck the Stó:lō again.

1870, the Ts’elxwéyeqw lived mainly on reserves established near Vedder Crossing, among them Th’ewá:li (Soowahlie), which straddles the Sweltzer River.

1873, Chilliwack became a formal municipality. On April 26, the Township of “Chilliwhack” was incorporated, the third-oldest municipality in British Columbia.

1875, the valley’s own geography quite literally began to rearrange itself. After heavy rains, a logjam diverted part of the Chilliwack River into two smaller channels, Vedder Creek and Luckakuck Creek.

1876, the Indian Act formally restructured Stó:lō governance. The once unified, territory-based Ts’elxwéyeqw people were divided into seven distinct band communities — Shxwhá:y, Th’ewá:li, Ch’íyáqtel, Sxwoyehálá, Sq’ewqéyl, Áthelets, and Yeqwyeqwí:ws — the same seven communities that are the seven Ts’elxwéyeqw First Nations today.

1882, a second, deliberately engineered logjam pushed more of the river’s water west, the same way.

1885, the family of William Prest, born in Yorkshire in 1844, and Mary “Tata” Benn of what is now Sqwá (Skwah) First Nation, another settler family bound into the Stó:lō community by marriage, pre-empted 177 acres (71.6 hectares) on Little Mountain. They gave land there to the Anglican Church as a graveyard in honour of their daughter Susan, who was buried there, and Prest Road — still a major Chilliwack route today — carries their name.

1892, local farmers took T’xwelátse, the stone figure of the first man of the Ts’elxwéyeqw, and sold him to a museum in Sumas, Washington; he later spent about a century at the Burke Museum in Seattle.

1894, a major freshet — compounding the devastating Fraser Valley flood of that same year — made the river’s new course permanent. That diverted channel is why, to this day, the river is called the Chilliwack River above Vedder Crossing and the Vedder River below it. In Halq’eméylem, the course from Vedder Crossing to the old Sumas Lake was called Lhewálmel, which the linguist Brent Galloway translates as “wanting to run away” and Oliver Wells recorded as “river that changed its course.”

Twentieth Century

1908, the City of Chilliwack was incorporated separately from the township.

1910s, prospectors began working the valley’s high country for gold, silver, and copper, a search that lasted into the 1960s and opened lode mines such as the Red Mountain Mine on Border Peak. On the lower river, placer dredges worked the gravels between Vedder Crossing and Tamihi Creek until fisheries habitat legislation ended river dredging in the 1960s.

1920 to 1924, the Vedder Canal was engineered specifically to drain Sumas Lake, transforming it into what is now Sumas Prairie — one of the most significant feats of land engineering in the valley’s history. Excavation began in September 1920, and by 1924 the lake was gone.

1920s, logging, which had begun in the valley early in the century, grew into a considerable railroad logging operation. From the mid-1920s to 1928, Campbell River Timber ran logging trains on 12 miles (19 kilometres) of track between Vedder Crossing and Tamihi Mountain, now Mount McGuire.

1927, climbers made the first ascent of Slesse Mountain.

1932 to 1933, B & K Logging pushed a railway up the side of Mount McGuire in seven switchbacks, worked by two Climax locomotives. Through the 1930s, railways and roads opened much of the valley floor, most of the old-growth forest on the valley bottom and the lower and middle slopes was cut, and large logging camps stood at Tolmie Flats, on the Tamihi Bench, and at Bowdenville, opposite Slesse Creek.

1936, the name Vedder River was officially adopted for the river below Vedder Crossing. In the same decade, control structures cut off the river’s old lower channel, which still runs north to the Fraser and was renamed Chilliwack Creek.

1938, a rail accident sparked a massive fire that destroyed the logging railroad entirely, forcing a permanent shift to truck-based logging.

1942, Camp Chilliwack was established near Vedder Crossing, until then sparsely populated. Most accounts date it to February 15, though one says 1941. It would become CFB Chilliwack, a major Canadian Army training facility and the home of Canada’s military engineers, operating for over half a century. That same year, rifle ranges were built along the road to Chilliwack Lake.

1942, on December 20, a Canadian Pacific Air Lines Lockheed Super Electra, flying south from Whitehorse by way of Prince George, crashed in the Cheam Range, the valley’s northern wall, killing all 13 people aboard. Searchers didn’t find it until August 1943, and the party that cut a trail up the Foley Creek valley to reach it named Airplane Creek.

1945, on June 1, a B-24 Liberator bomber, KK241, took off from Abbotsford on a training flight with eleven Royal Air Force airmen training at No. 5 Operational Training Unit and flew into Welch Peak, in one of the worst military training accidents in Canada during the Second World War. The terrain made it impossible to bring the crew home, and they were buried in a mass grave between Welch Peak and The Still.

1954, from July 30 to August 7, the rowing events of the British Empire and Commonwealth Games were held on the Vedder Canal.

1956, the valley became the site of one of the deadliest air disasters in Canadian history. On December 9, Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, en route from Vancouver to Calgary, reported an engine fire and turned back — but never arrived. All 62 people aboard, including five professional Canadian football players, were killed when the aircraft struck Mount Slesse. With one of its four engines shut down after a fire warning, the Canadair North Star had flown into severe icing and turbulence and hit the third peak of Slesse. It was the deadliest airline crash in Canada to that date, and it remains the sixth-deadliest air disaster in Canadian history.

1957, in May, five months after the crash, mountaineer Elfrida Pigou and two fellow climbers, Geoffrey Walker and David Cathcart, discovered the wreckage high on Slesse’s remote slopes, at about 2,300 metres. The wreckage and the victims’ remains were left on the mountain, below which the Slesse Memorial Trail now passes a memorial plaque to the victims and leads toward a “Propeller Cairn” holding part of one of the aircraft’s propellers. The scale of the search revealed the need for a dedicated, trained rescue organization — leading directly to the formation of the Chilliwack Emergency Rescue Corps, the direct ancestor of today’s Chilliwack Search and Rescue.

1961, Chilliwack River Park was established as a Class ‘A’ Provincial Park — a modest 26-hectare beginning to a much larger protected system to come.

1963, Slesse’s reputation among climbers grew alongside its history. Its Northeast Buttress route was pioneered that year by legendary mountaineer Fred Beckey with Steve Marts and Eric Bjornstad — later included in Fifty Classic Climbs of North America, cementing Slesse’s status as a genuine bucket-list ascent worldwide.

1966, the local historian Oliver Wells, who recorded the memories of Elders such as Bob Joe, compiled a map of the territory as it stood in 1858, showing its villages and fifteen trails linking the valley to the Fraser, the Nooksack, and the Skagit.

1970s, after the Provincial Emergency Program was formed, the Chilliwack Emergency Rescue Corps was revitalized as Chilliwack Volunteer Rescue, and a few years later it became Chilliwack Search and Rescue.

1971, a visiting company of British military engineers, 50 Field Squadron of the Royal Engineers, built two bridges, named Victoria and Invicta, and a beach and park at the south end of Chilliwack Lake for the people of Chilliwack. That year it was officially named Sapper Park — a name still in use today — and a monument was raised there.

1973, Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park was officially established at the head of the valley, initially protecting 160 hectares around the lake’s north end. Created by Order in Council on July 24, it began with a 100-site campground, a small day-use area, and a boat launch.

1974, on July 4, the park was enlarged for the first time.

1975, in December, slides and mudflows struck throughout the valley, and flood-protection works on the Vedder River followed.

1980, on January 1, the Township of Chilliwhack and the City of Chilliwack merged into the District of Chilliwack.

1980, on March 27, the Chilliwack River Ecological Reserve was established, setting aside 86 hectares of floodplain forest at the head of Chilliwack Lake, along the boundary of North Cascades National Park. Ecological reserves are the most strictly protected areas in British Columbia.

1981, the federal Chilliwack River Hatchery opened beside the lower reach of Slesse Creek.

1986, on December 10, the 3-hectare Katherine Tye (Vedder Crossing) Ecological Reserve was established to protect a population of Austin’s phantom orchid.

1989 to 1990, floods set three clay slides moving in the middle valley, at Slesse Park, Upper Tolmie, and Willow Run, and they went on delivering silt to the river every year between November and March.

1994, archaeologists documented the Flight 810 crash site on Slesse. It’s recorded as an archaeological burial site, the only historic one in the watershed, protected under BC’s Heritage Conservation Act.

1997, on January 27, a large slump at the Slesse Park slide overtopped its berm and temporarily blocked the river, and the community formed the Chilliwack River Action Committee to stabilize the slides.

1997, the Stó:lō Nation carried out the first archaeological inventory of the whole watershed. Before then, only 13 sites had been recorded, 85 percent of them in the valley’s lowest quarter. The survey recorded 24 more and found sites at every elevation, including the first ever recorded above 1,500 metres here, along with toolstone brought from far afield: Hozameen chert from the upper Skagit and volcanic glass from Mount Rahm in the Silver Creek watershed. As the title of its report put it, people used this valley “from plain to peak.”

1997, on July 23, the Park Amendment Act enlarged Chilliwack Lake Park to about 9,258 hectares, after the province accepted the recommendations of the 1996 Lower Mainland Protected Areas Strategy. The park had expanded dramatically, by then formally incorporating the backcountry areas around Lindeman, Greendrop, Flora, and Radium Lakes — the same trails guided hikers walk today. The same strategy led to Liumchen Ecological Reserve, which protects 2,300 hectares of the upper Liumchen Creek basin.

1999, the Stó:lō Nation and Antiquus Archaeological Consultants carried out the first systematic excavation in the valley, at Iy’oythel. The excavators later concluded that its houses and fish knives support Ts’elxwéyeqw oral history of the place as a settlement and fishing place that grew between 4,800 and 2,000 years ago.

1999, on July 16, the District of Chilliwack became the City of Chilliwack once more.

The Modern Valley

2000, the management plan (PDF) for the park and the Chilliwack River Ecological Reserve called for direct consultation with the Stó:lō and Nlaka’pamux First Nations on cultural features and archaeological sites, and for managing discovered features in keeping with established conservation policies and Stó:lō and Nlaka’pamux tradition — a formal, ongoing acknowledgment that this land was never simply “discovered.” It also placed the park within a transboundary complex of more than a million hectares of protected land, from the Mount Baker Wilderness and North Cascades National Park in Washington to the Skagit Valley and E.C. Manning parks in British Columbia.

2001, Ts’elxwéyeqw and Stó:lō history, always carried by the people themselves, reached a wide public in print with A Stó:lō-Coast Salish Historical Atlas, by Keith Carlson, David Schaepe, Albert McHalsie, and others.

2006, in October, T’xwelátse, the stone figure taken in 1892, came home after 114 years away.

2013, in January, the Chiefs and Councils of the seven Ts’elxwéyeqw First Nations gathered at Stehiyaq, the Nations’ property at Centre Creek in the valley, to renew their connection with their ancestral lands.

2015, on September 26, a new memorial to the eleven airmen of Liberator KK241 was dedicated in the valley, built around an engine recovered from the crash site that summer. It replaced a 1983 Air Cadet cairn beside Airplane Creek, which cadets had found face down in the creek in 2013.

2018, Being Ts’elxwéyeqw: First Peoples’ Voices and History from the Chilliwack-Fraser Valley, edited by David Schaepe and produced by the Ts’elxwéyeqw themselves, gathered the voices and personal histories of Elders — a direct continuation of sxwōxwiyám and sqwélqwel oral tradition into the written record.

2021, in October, the province introduced legislation to rename the park Sx̱ótsaqel/Chilliwack Lake Park, pairing the lake’s Halq’eméylem name with its English one, and the new name took effect that year.

2021, in November, a series of atmospheric rivers struck southwestern British Columbia. Sumas Lake re-formed on its old bed, and on December 1, the regional district ordered properties on Chilliwack Lake Road evacuated as the river ate into its banks.

2025, in December, another atmospheric river brought evacuation orders to parts of the valley and washed out forest roads; the Foley Creek Forest Service Road has been closed at kilometre 0 by a washout since December 16.

Today, the valley lives at the intersection of all of this history — glacial sediment still exposed in its riverbanks, Ts’elxwéyeqw stewardship actively practiced and increasingly recognized, a settler river-naming quirk still visible on every road sign, a mountainside memorial to 62 lives lost, and a provincial park system built on land logged, farmed, and diverted for over 160 years. It’s not a simple history, and it isn’t finished being written.

This historical overview is compiled and maintained on ChilliwackRiverValley.com, for anyone who visits this valley and wants to understand it in as much depth as possible — the kind of context that turns a hike or a retreat here into a genuinely meaningful and educational experience, one that reaches across space and time rather than stopping at the trailhead.

Much of this history — particularly Ts’elxwéyeqw and Stó:lō history — has been carried for thousands of years primarily through oral tradition, not written record, and continues to be told and refined by the people who hold it. Because of that, this page is meant to be a living document, not a finished one. If you notice an error, know a detail we’ve missed, or have a correction or addition to offer — especially from Ts’elxwéyeqw or Stó:lō knowledge-holders — please email us. We’ll always take the time to listen and update this page accordingly.