Silvermere Lake (Canada) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Silvermere Lake |
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 Silvermere Lake
Location in British Columbia
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| Location | Silverdale, Mission, British Columbia, Canada |
| Coordinates | 49°11′00″N 122°24′00″W / 49.18333°N 122.40000°W |
| Type | man-made lake |
Silvermere Lake, also known as Hullah's Lake, is a special lake located in Silverdale. Silverdale is a rural area that is part of Mission, British Columbia, in Canada. This lake is man-made, meaning it was created by people, not by nature.
You can easily see Silvermere Lake from the Lougheed Highway. The highway actually follows a raised road, called a causeway, along the lake's southern edge. Before the lake was built, this area was a low-lying, wet grassland. Water from the Silverdale and Silverhill areas used to flow across it. This water then joined the Stave River. Old aerial photos from the 1950s show what the land looked like before the lake.
How Silvermere Lake Was Created
Silvermere Lake was formed by building large walls of earth called dikes. These dikes were built both near the highway and at the lake's northern end, near Hayward Road. Workers used a method of dumping and pushing raw gravel to build these dikes. The gravel came from the northern part of what is now known as "the Island."
Most of the lake's bottom was not dug out. However, some areas were dredged, which means digging up the bottom. This was done in front of the houses on the south side to make the water deeper. Dredging also happened at the north end to create more land for building. The digging at the north end created a deep spot, once up to 30 feet deep.
All of this work was part of a real estate project from the 1950s. A man named Norman William (Ned) Hullah's led this development. He built his own large home on a natural hill on the west side of the lake.
The Island at Silvermere Lake
The natural hill where Ned Hullah's built his home is now known locally as "the Island." Before this, it was called Hullah's Island. The ownership of this island is divided. One part belongs to Indigenous Reserves (I.R.) on the west side. The other part is private land on the east side.
The private land also includes the lake bottom in front of the houses along the shore. This goes up to the high-water mark of the Fraser River from 1896. A section of the lake south of the highway was recently given to Ducks Unlimited, a group that works to conserve wetlands.
The Stave River and Its History
The Stave River is connected to Silvermere Lake's original drainage. The name "Stave River" was given by employees of the Hudson's Bay Company. The original Indigenous name for the river is no longer remembered.
However, today, Indigenous people sometimes call the river Skayuks. This name means "everyone died." It is also the name of one of three villages that were located in the marshy areas near the river's mouth. These villages existed when non-Indigenous settlers first arrived in the 1870s. The name "Skayuks" refers to the sad impact of diseases like smallpox that greatly reduced the populations and changed the cultures of the Fraser Valley communities.
