Mission Creek (British Columbia)
| Mission Creek (N'wha-kwi-sen) | |
| Riviere L'Anse du Sable | |
| Creek | |
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Mouth of Mission Creek
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| Country | Canada |
|---|---|
| State | British Columbia |
| District | Central Okanagan |
| City | Kelowna |
| Mouth | |
| - coordinates | 49°50′33″N 119°29′37″W / 49.84250°N 119.49361°WCoordinates: 49°50′33″N 119°29′37″W / 49.84250°N 119.49361°W |
| Length | 75 km (47 mi) |
| Basin | 200,000 km2 (77,220 sq mi) |
| Discharge | for Lake Okanagan |
| - average | 6.81 m3/s (240 cu ft/s) |
Mission Creek is a large creek in the Okanagan Region of British Columbia. Originally called N'wha-kwi-sen (smoothing stones), it was later mapped as L’Anse-au-Sable (Sandy River), the name Mission Creek was adopted in 1860 in honour of the Catholic Oblate Mission established by Father Pandosy and other settlers. The Creek rises in the Greystoke Mountain Range and runs west about 43 kilometres (27 mi) before emptying into Okanagan Lake south of Kelowna. Its watershed covers about 200,000 square kilometres (49,000,000 acres). Mission Creek was designated a BC Heritage River by the province in 1996.
Mission Creek is the main spawning channel of Kokanee. The landlocked salmon likely made their way into the Okanagan when a remnant of Glacial Lake Penticton was connected by streams to the Pacific Ocean.
The Mission Creek Greenway is a linear park extending along the creek from the shores of Okanagan Lake to Mission Creek Falls. Geological features along the trail are numerous and diverse, including; Layer Cake Hill, the Pinnacle, the White Lake Formation, hoodoos, exposures of ancient river systems and gigantic boulders dropped by the Fraser Glacier.
Mission Creek has been heavily modified through narrowing of the channel by the building of dikes for flood control from East Kelowna Bridge to the river mouth at Okanagan Lake. The Mission Creek channel has lost natural alluvial geomorphic processes (riffles, stream pools, and meanders), connection to the floodplain and wetlands, fish spawning and incubation habitats, diverse fish rearing habitats, diverse overwintering habitats, and fish refuge from high velocity water.
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