Fraser
Valley Airports Attractions Abbotsford
International Airshow
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Mighty
Fraser Country at a Glance As
a European, my first visit to Mighty Fraser Country
from Vancouver was almost a supernatural
experience. If it were not for the spectacular
mountains in the distance, I could have sworn I was
back in the Garden of England. The same rolling,
verdant countryside, the same peaceful fields of
cattle, and raspberries galore! No wonder
Abbotsford is acclaimed as the "Raspberry Capital
of the World". To see the thriving, bustling region
today, it's hard to believe that it was avoided by
the earliest settlers, who, despite the rich soil
made fertile by thousands of years of river
deposits, found it too swampy to farm. There was
also no way to get any produce to market, even were
it to be grown. It
was the railway that put Abbotsford on the map-
literally- when a train station was built there,
named after Henry Abbot, a Canadian Pacific Railway
superintendent for the Pacific Region. Expansion of
the area was aided by a program of dyke building
and swamp draining from the 1890's through to the
20th century. The low-lying land was still
vulnerable to flooding by the nearby Fraser River,
as the following item by Air Highways
Editor
Jerry Bird attests: "On my first trip to
Abbotsford, the night was pitch black, as we bumped
from side to side in back of an army truck; a group
of high school students on leave, caught up in the
excitement of the Fraser River flood. We saw little
of the landscape, only mounds of sandbags. My next
view was decades later, as a visitor from Calgary
on a project for the Cargill company. Heading down
Mt. Lehman Road at sunrise in a rental car,
white-capped mountains ringed the horizon, and
nature served up its very best picture postcard
vista. I thought I'd arrived in paradise.
Since
then I've had many occasions to enjoy the pleasures
of Mighty Fraser Country and the hospitality of the
friendly people who populate this area. It never
ceases to amaze and impress. Incorporated on
January 1,1995, Abbotsford is British Columbia's
newest city, formed by the amalgamation of the
former districts of Matsqui and Abbotsford. It's
location in the heart of the Fraser Valley makes it
an ideal starting point for a circular tour of the
area. Tretheway House at 2313 Ware Street in
Clearbrook, a former farmhouse built in the 1920's,
now houses the MSA ( Matsqui- Sumas- Abbotsford)
museum and archives, where you can explore the
history of the local natives and settlers.The
nearby town of Clayburn is a living monument to the
local clay mining and brick making industry that
thrived there from the turn of the century into the
1960's. Golden
Ears Provincial Park: Just north of Maple Ridge,
Golden Ears offers much to the avid hiker,
horseback rider or water sports enthusiast. Legend
has it that the mineral springs at Harrison Hot
Springs, at the southern tip of Harrison Lake, were
discovered when a latter-day gold miner fell from
his canoe to find the water pleasantly and
strangely warm. Today a popular resort, helicopter
rides into the nearby Coast Mountains and the towns
sandy beach are as big attractions as the health
spa. Sasquatch
Provincial Park: If you decide to venture
northwards into the park, be sure to take a camera
with you. Even if you don't manage to get that
once-in-a-lifetime snap of a certain huge and
ape-like creature, you may be lucky enough to spot
a bald eagle or a great blue heron. At Hope, you
can pan for gold, in a good deal more comfort than
the early gold rushers. Chilliwack: 'Westwards now,
towards you pass by spectacular Bridal Veil Falls,
a name evoked by a 25 metre curtain of water
cascading down a sheer cliff. Chilliwack offers
such diverse attractions ranging in theme from the
botanical to the military. There are ten themed
gardens as well as three aviaries at Minter Gardens
and an impressive collection of memorabilia dating
from the 16th century at the Canadian Military
Engineering Museum at Vedder Crossing. Arriving
back at Abbotsford, if it's August you may be lucky
enough to catch the annual Abbotsford International
Airshow, the largest Airshow in North America,
which draws a quarter of a million
visitors. |