LibGuides UFV: Sumas Prairie: Failed Dikes, Flooded Farmland: Sumas Prairie Drainage

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Articles, Books, Videos & E-Resources

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Warning

"The dikes generally do not meet current provincial standards and none fully meet or exceed the standards. The reasons for this are twofold: 1) recent research and numerical flood modelling have resulted in more accurate but also higher design flood levels; and, 2) structural and geotechnical design criteria have become more stringent over time. Upgrading the dikes to meet the updated standards is costly, particularly where major land acquisitions would be required." from the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Lower Mainland Dike Assessment, 2015.

Resources

Relationship between agricultural land use and surface water quality using a GIS: Sumas River Watershed, Abbotsford, B.C.
Includes description of Sumas River and drainage system and discusses Nooksack and Fraser river flooding.
The Mosquitoes of the lower Fraser Valley, British Columbia, and their control
Discusses diking around Sumas Prairie.
Final Report Sumas Relief Commission, 1928
Final report Sumas Relief Commission, 1928: Hearings into relief from charges for diking to protect Sumas Prairies farmland.
2021-2026 Strategic Plan
The 2021-2026 Strategic Plan will guide the Fraser Basin Council. As we approach the close of our first 25 years of service, the plan also helps us keep an eye on the horizon to prepare for the next 25 years — which will bring sustainability challenges and opportunities.

Selected Library Resources

Sumas Dyking Act : a few facts in connection with the above act : by the settlers and owners of land in Matsqui Prairie.
Call Number: E-book
Sumas Lake reclamation project [videorecording]
Call Number: GB 906 S86 2014 DVD
In the 1920s a 30,000 acre lake which occupied most of the land between Sumas Prairie and Yarrow was drained and reclaimed for agriculture. This film shows the borders of the old lake and the ongoing process that is needed to keep the land drained.
The late quaternary geomorphic history of the Sumas Valley by Cameron, Valerie J.
Call Number: GB 568.15 C36 1989
To reconstruct the geomorphic evolution of the Sumas Valley in Late Quaternary time... and to address whether the Fraser River could have flowed through the valley and discharged into Bellingham Bay.
Before We Lost the Lake by Chad Reimer
Call Number: FC 3845 S865 R45 2018
"For thousands of years, the broad expanse between Sumas and Vedder Mountains east of Vancouver lay under water, forming the bed of Sumas Lake. As recently as a century ago, the lake's shores stood four miles across and six miles long. During yearly high water, the lake spilled onto the surrounding prairies; during high flood years, it reached from Chilliwack into Washington State. Then, through the 1920s, a network of dykes, canals, dams and pumphouses was erected and the lake drained - "reclaimed" in the words of projects supporters. A new landscape was created, a seemingly "natural" prairie carved up into productive farmland. Today, few people are aware that Sumas Lake ever existed..."
Land beneath the lake by Foulds, K.
Call Number: FC 3849 S859 L36 1991
Drainage, land reclamation.
Fraser Basin 5 year action plan, 1999-2004 by Fraser Basin Council
Call Number: TC 427 F7 F68 1999
Early history of the Fraser Valley, 1808-1885 by Gibbard, John Edgar
Call Number: FC 3845 F73 G53
Thesis discusses draining and diking Sumas Lake. Also available online.
Creating a Modern Countryside by James Murton
Call Number: HD 319 B7 M87 2007
As most arable, accessible land in British Columbia was already being farmed by 1919, the state had to undertake environmental engineering projects on a scale not yet attempted in the province. Creating a Modern Countryside examines how this process unfolded, identifies its successes and failures, and demonstrates how the human-environment relationship of the early twentieth century shaped the province as it is today.
Sumas Lake reclamation by Perry, Thomas E.
Call Number: FC 3849 S859 P47
Sumas Prarie BC history
Economic and institutional aspects of adjustment to floods in the lower Fraser Valley by Sewell, W. R. Derrick.
Call Number: HD 1676 C32 B757
Thesis
A history of the Sumas drainage, dyking, and development district by Sinclair, F. N. (Frederick Nigel)
Call Number: HD 1683 C32 B78
History of Sumas Lake and area drainage by Chief Engineer F.N. Sinclair.