Looks like the Coquihalla will be closed for the winter.

Huh? It's not ruined because there are so many of us now, it's ruined because the lake was drained 100 years ago under a system of oppression.

Historically, Indigenous people have done a far better job of coexisting with nature and managing their use of resources than Euro-western societies have.

Yes, but IMO primarily due to the fact that their population density has been low relative to the carrying capacity of the land, not due to any unique relationship with the land.  

With increased technology comes increased population density and individual impact, regardless of ethnicity or history of “coexistence with nature”. 

When I mentioned things being “ruined” I was speaking in the general destruction of life sustaining ecological systems due to human consumption, not the draining of this specific lake. My bad if that didn’t fit the context.

Posted by: tashi

Yes, but IMO primarily due to the fact that their population density has been low relative to the carrying capacity of the land, not due to any unique relationship with the land.  

With increased technology comes increased population density and individual impact, regardless of ethnicity or history of “coexistence with nature”. 

When I mentioned things being “ruined” I was speaking in the general destruction of life sustaining ecological systems due to human consumption, not the draining of this specific lake. My bad if that didn’t fit the context.

Ahhh - ok, thanks, that makes way more sense. 

Agree on the population density/carrying capacity thing to a degree, but at the same time disagree on the rebuttal of coexistence with nature and their relationship with the land. Indigenous culture is rooted in the idea of taking only what you need and making sure you leave more than enough for the future, aka Seven Generations. If you look at fishing and aquaculture systems in the PNW, they were designed to ensure the future health of aquatic species such as salmon. These concepts are their culture, their spirituality and their identity. Indigenous people have a completely different way of looking at the world that we exist in and it is largely antithetical to the Westerm/Capitalist way of doing things. Indigenous peoples in NA got mocked and derided for being backwards, uneducated savages, but they know far more about living with nature than we do and were/are far more advanced than we give them credit for.

Posted by: syncro

A few of considerations in terms of letting the lake come back. The first is that the bio-diversity of Sumas Lake was incredible before it was drained. Letting things go back to the way they were would be a new environmental benefit. In terms of the lake area, a good portion of that land is covered by dairy and poultry farms, operations that don't need or rely on fertile land. In terms of who's going to pay out the farmers, nobody paid out the Indigenous people that lived and survived on the lake. They got told to f-off and get lost. There is probably some sort of compromise that can be made that allows some of the lake to come back and reduces the loss of farmland that is actually used for crops.

There was a link on the previous page that got into some of the history of Sumas Lake. There's also a great book that goes into detail about the lake before it was drained.

https://alllitup.ca/Blog/2019/Before-We-Lost-the-Lake-The-Untold-Story-of-the-Sumas-Lake-and-the-Sema-th

https://globalnews.ca/news/8385289/sumas-lake-reflection-first-nations/

I had no idea, makes total sense the Fraser valley was a lake/ marshland. Quite the destruction of an incredible ecosystem.

what about all the other shit that got closed/washed away/ destroyed  where people were killed, in the rush to point fingers don't forget mom-nature dropping 11 mutherfucking inches rain in  2days, not mm, not cm, mutherfuckinginches

My old boss was telling me about his time at Henderson lake where 18 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. Literally one of the wettest places on earth. Cool place actually.

Posted by: XXX_er

what about all the other shit that got closed/washed away/ destroyed  where people were killed, in the rush to point fingers don't forget mom-nature dropping 11 mutherfucking inches rain in  2days, not mm, not cm, mutherfuckinginches

I dunno, it sounds like getting hit by 279.4mm of rain would be worse.

Posted by: Adam-West

My old boss was telling me about his time at Henderson lake where 18 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. Literally one of the wettest places on earth. Cool place actually.

I remember people talking about places like Ocean Falls (and some areas around it) being wet, but Henderson Lake gets about twice as much rain.  It's the wettest place in North America.

Seymour Falls gets 4 meters of rain a year. And I think Jordan River gets a lot of rain too.

Perhaps it’s already been mentioned but I think all the recent snow fall that had some thinking we were going to have an early ski season was very much a contributing factor. As the storm came in the warm air that came with it had temps hitting 15 to 17 degrees. Certainly a recipe for disaster.

a rain/ snow event this time of year can be especialy bad cuz it all comes down instead of staying in the alpine, there was a oct 31 event  up here a few years ago that washed out the powerline, wet snow/ ice on roofs flooded a bunch of basements and collapsed at least one house so everyone was shoveling their roof

CP are saying they expect the railline between Kamloops and Vancouver to reopen by next week, good news for the overall supply chain.

Posted by: Kenny

CP are saying they expect the railline between Kamloops and Vancouver to reopen by next week, good news for the overall supply chain.

I read somewhere that CN and CP share lines thru the Fraser Canyon. There are raillines on both side of the canyon and one is used for North bound traffic and one for South bound traffic.

If that's still the case, then all the traffic will be one-way unless they alternate flow on one line.

Unless, of course, they've got both line open, which would be seriously impressive considering the destruction that happened...

So the Duffy will be open this winter only to passenger vehicles, nothing larger than a cube van.

I think that's temporary while it's restricted to essential travel, but it wouldn't be a bad thing if they made it permanent (and require actual snow tires, not just M+S). The Duffey in winter is sketchy at the best of times.

S2S backcountry skiing is going to be even more of a gong show than usual if people can't get to the Coq or the Duffey.