Centuries of human use leaves Surrey Bend almost unchanged.
More than 7,000 years ago the place known as Surrey Bend had risen above the level of the river to support a wide ranged of plants and animals, and its history is closely tied with that of the native people. Archaeological clues show that it was in the territory of the Katzie Nation, and that it would have been a veritable storehouse of fish, waterfowl and edible plants. A site near the mouth of the major stream that bisects Surrey Bend has been registered with the B.C. Heritage Conservation Branch.
It was likely a small Katzie community, probably busiest when runs of coho and chum salmon were entering the stream. "The Katzie People definitely want to see Surrey Bend preserved as it is, as a park," says Rick Bailey, environmental representative for the band, "as long as the private owners are fairly compensated.
"Such natural areas are important for the rearing of young salmon and for wildlife, and so little of the Lower Fraser foreshore has been left undeveloped."
Bailey says the Bend lands were once part of the blacktailed deer migration route. They crossed the Fraser from the Mary Hill area on the north side, swimming to Douglas Island and on to Surrey Bend. "Any deer still surviving at Surrey Bend should be left undisturbed now," he says.
The creek would have been rich in salmon, and the marshly land rich in bog cranberries, blueberries, salmonberries, salal, saskatoons, marsh arrow root and more. There were deer, bear, beaver, raccoon and even elk for aboriginal hunters.
The first significant settlement by Europeans was Fort Langley, built only 15 km upstream of Surrey Bend in 1827. There is evidence of some selective logging in the area as early as the 1870s, but the skid-trails soon returned to nature.
In 1891 a railway line was built along the southern edge of the Bend, eventually becoming part of the CNR system running east up the Fraser Valley from Port Mann.
Scottish settlers moved into the area, all of which they called Tynehead after their home territory. Go up the escarpment from Surrey Bend, cross the freeway, and you're into Tynehead Regional Park. The boggy, grassy meadows were used for little more than cattle grazing.
A major drainage ditch was built west across the Bend, from the end of 176th Street, in the 1930s, but it isn't likely any crops were grown.
Over the thousands of years, the major changes have been in the size of the trees, the height of the successive natural levees built up by the silt-laden river, and the increasing thickness of the underlying layers of moss.
Surrey Bend is a fascinating slice of human and natural history that yet can be preserved as a living classroom, a pool of plant and animal diversity, and a thing of beauty.
