Sumas Lake

Sumas Lake (Halq’eméyle: Semá:th Lake, Nooksack: Semáts Xácho7, (Level Place Lake)) was a shallow freshwater lake surrounded by extensive wetlands that once existed in eastern Fraser Lowland, located on the south side of the Sumas River between the foothills of Sumas Mountain (not to be confused with the same-named American mountain) and Vedder Mountain. It disappeared after being artificially drained for flood control and land reclamation from 1920 to 1924, leaving behind a low-lying flatland known as the Sumas Prairie, which is nowadays drained by the Saar Creek (a lower tributary of the Sumas River) and the namesaked Sumas Drainage Canal.

The traditional territory of the Semá:th people (Sumas First Nation), a band of the Sto:lo Nation, the lake lay midway between the present-day Canadian cities of Chilliwack and Abbotsford, British Columbia, and extended past the Canada–United States border into the territory east of Sumas, Whatcom County, Washington, necessitating a British Columbia Electric Railway trestle (which remains today as a dyke) across it from Huntingdon to the foot of Vedder Mountain.

The lake used to support sturgeon, trout, salmon, grizzly bears and geese, and its wetland habitat was a destination for migrating birds and a breeding ground for both fish and waterfowl. Flocks of white-fronted goose as well as whistling swan and Hutchins geese also used the lake. Its partially sandy banks also provided for sturgeon spawning grounds. The lake supplied food to the Sumas Band, and their life ways were intimately connected to it. In the late 1800s, the lake drew the attention of various naturalists within the growing European population engaged in the work of cataloging the flora and fauna that they encountered where they settled.