Campsite on a sandbar in the heart of the pristine upper Goat River watershed. Photo: Jeremy Williams
Save the Upper Goat River Watershed
Help Protect this Ecological Jewel
You can find the crystal clear Goat River located between the Rocky Mountain Trench and Bowron Lake Provincial Park, just 175 kilometres southeast of Prince George. The upper Goat River watershed is one of the largest, undeveloped watershed in British Columbia encompassing 35,000 hectares in the Fraser River headwaters region. It is part of an important wildlife corridor that hosts populations of grizzly bears, mountain goats, fishers, wolverines and critically endangered mountain caribou.
The Goat River is a still wild, pristinely clean river that provides valuable habitat for chinook salmon and endangered bull trout. Historically unique, the upper Goat also boasts a goldrush trail that winds for 30 kilometres through old-growth forests of balsam and spruce.
The Goat River is located on the northern edge of Canada’s globally unique, inland rainforest, in an area that is imminently threatened by industrial logging. McBride Forest Industries has already constructed a one-kilometre road in the upper Goat watershed and has plans to extend the logging road directly into the river itself. Proposed road construction in the riverbed contravenes the federal Fisheries Act. Furthermore, road construction in the river and logging in the valley would also destroy valuable salmon habitat and degrade downstream water quality. Declared one of BC’s top five endangered rivers in 2003 by the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC, the upper Goat River watershed is an ecological jewel that must be protected for future generations of Canadians.
