Natural heritage

A Fraser River sturgeon measuring 13' 6', 905 lbs., caught in 1912 by Jim Burgess.

Delta Museum and Archives Society photo

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Anne Murray

British Columbia celebrates Heritage Week in February, with the theme “A Century of Conservation —Parks and Cultural Landscapes.”

Heritage is often associated with buildings such as old houses, churches or canneries, and these are important aspects of our community’s history. However, here at the mouth of B.C.’s greatest river, heritage should also include the natural environment, its biodiversity and unique geological attributes. This is our natural heritage. The landscape defines how our community grows, how we live and what we see in our daily comings and goings. Nature’s resources have sustained people living on the delta for millennia, and play an essential role in our collective future.

So what aspects of natural heritage can we celebrate in Delta?

For many families, the rich fishing resources of the Fraser River would be first on the list, and include not just Pacific salmon but also white sturgeon, surf smelt, Pacific herring, halibut, and eulachon, important fish for local First Nations and later settlers, yet now at risk.

John Lord, a 19th century naturalist, described the people of the Fraser fishing with rakes by moonlight for glittering shoals of eulachon, a vital source of oil. In the early 1900s, giant white sturgeon, five metres long and weighing over 400 kg, were pulled from the river. Fish attract other wildlife, and our natural heritage includes the loons, grebes, cormorants and mergansers that gather to feast on herring and smelt spawn, and the eagles, sea lions, porpoises, harbour seals, and orcas that follow the annual salmon runs.

We have a whole heritage around shellfish too. The intermingling of native and Asian shellfish, a consequence of a once thriving oyster industry, is a reflection of our mixed human cultures.

Our natural heritage includes coniferous trees that are among the tallest in the world. Giant Douglas fir were prized as roof beams and as masts for sailing ships, and are strong enough to support the one-tonne weight of an eagle nest. Western red cedar, the tree of life, was for millennia a mainstay of west coast First Nations and has found multiple uses to the present day.

Readers will be able to add much more to this inventory. Heritage Week is a time to celebrate, reflect and conserve.

Delta Museum and Archives’ newest exhibit is: Border, Bay and Beach: Always in the Headlines, about South Delta.

Anne Murray is the author of Tracing Our Past ~ A Heritage Guide to Boundary Bay and A Nature Guide to Boundary Bay, at local bookstores; see natureguidesbc.com.