The Mighty Fraser River in Drought Conditions

The summer of 2023 saw unprecedented hot dry weather and associated wildfires in British Columbia, a direct consequence of the ever-deepening global climate warming that disproportionately affects northerly latitudes first. Despite the onset of cooler weather, which did help dampen the wildfires, the drought continued well into the fall such that our mountaintops were still unprecedently and completely clear of snow at the beginning of November, and the streams, creeks and rivers were all at record lows. Nowhere was this as starkly evident as at the confluence of the Fraser and Nechako Rivers in the city of Prince George where most of the kilometre-wide confluence of the two major rivers was laid bare. A walk around this confluence also provided rare footage of the historically famous railway bridge that dates back nearly 110 years to 1914. At the end of this video is a link to the previous record low at the rivers confluence five years earlier in October 2018. As can be seen, there is less water yet in 2023.