The 2024 river cleanup paddle event happened on one of the warmest, most colourful October days that we’ve had here in a long time. Kids included, we had a gang of 17 paddlers come out to the Mabel lake valley for this event and spent the day picking up trash along the Middle Shuswap river corridor, from Wilsey dam/Shuswap Falls down to the Proctor Farm.
We first spent an hour scouring the shoreline near the Mabel Lake Community hall, including the roadway and put-in. We even had a chance to paddle upstream into the Shuswap Falls canyon for some eddy turns and front ferry practice before heading downstream. Although the river was fairly clean, it still took us most of the day to make our way 12km downstream to the take-out, as we spent a lot of time walking the gravel bars looking for trash and wrestling with the odd bit of stubborn garbage (such as buried tires).
We’re happy to report that the total garbage collected this year didn’t even fill half a pickup-load. While it would be great not to see ANY garbage along/in the river, this is a marked improvement from the first 10 years of river cleanups where we would fill a pickup truck box full each year.
We saw the usual annual garbage (fishing detritus and beer cans), plus the old stuff that’s been in the river for decades (such as tires, metal, etc.) – reminding us that not too long ago the river was routinely used as the local dump. The bald eagles were out again in full force to join the spawning salmon. Unfortunately there were very few Chinook to be found, and almost no sockeye (we saw 1). Curiously, the Kokanee salmon were the most abundant we’ve seen in 12 years of river cleanups.
A special ‘thank you’ to all folks who volunteered their time to pick up trash, and help shuttle vehicles – and the Proctor Family for the river access permission.
Next fall 2025 we will be turning our attention again to the section starting at the Cherryville Rec site and ending at Wilsey Dam/Shuswap falls. We hope you join us! Even non-paddlers can contribute to this effort as we spend a good deal of time cleaning up the rec site before we begin paddling. We also have plans for 2025 to support a cleanup effort on the Lower Shuswap River, near Kingfisher BC.
If you want to get involved, please send us a quick email so we can respond to you with dates and details in 2025.