Exchamsiks River Provincial Park is 45 acres (18 ha) at the mouth of the Exchamsiks River, on the north bank of the Skeena River, about 42 miles (68 km) east of Prince Rupert and 31 miles (50 km) southwest of Terrace, British Columbia. The site lies at the edge of the Kitimat Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The Skeena rises on the Spatsizi Plateau near the Klappan River, a tributary of the Stikine. It flows about 350 miles (570 km) to Chatham Sound and drains roughly 13.4 million acres (5.4 million ha), the second-largest watershed in British Columbia. The lower valley is a glacier-scoured trough filled with thick deposits of gravel, glacial drift and alluvium. Like other coastal fjords, it was once a marine inlet. Where the gradient flattens, the river drops its sediment and builds bars and floodplain islands that shift with each flood. Tributaries from the north include the Exchamsiks, Exstew and Kasiks rivers, while the Gitnadoix enters from the south. The park was established in 1956 to protect one of the last known unlogged old-growth Sitka spruce ecosystems along the highway corridor north of the Skeena.

The lower Exchamsiks valley contains many Tsimshian archaeological sites, and the land is part of the asserted traditional territory of the Ginaxangiik lineages of the Allied Tsimshian Tribes. The Tsimshian migrated to the lower Skeena, while the Gitxsan occupy the upper river. The Gitnadoix watershed was home to the Gitnadoix First Nation, whose main village stood at the river’s confluence with the Skeena. Today eight Lax Kw’alaams reserves lie in the watershed, marking important fishery and homeplace sites. Salmon have sustained these communities for generations, and the river’s health remains central to life along its banks. For years the park was the only camping along Highway 16, also known as the Yellowhead Highway, between Terrace and Prince Rupert.

Today the park is a day-use area with picnic facilities, a boat launch and access to the river for anglers, canoeists and kayakers. Its day-use areas are open from May 15 to October 1, and camping is prohibited. The campground closed permanently in 2002, when the province shut low-use parks to save money. Across the river, the Skeena River Ecological Reserve, established in 1975, protects seven unlogged floodplain islands, three large and four small, for research on black cottonwood succession. It is reached by boat. The park’s Sitka spruce-salmonberry forest belongs to a red-listed plant community. The adjacent Exchamsiks River Protected Area offers a short interpretive trail through old growth. To the south, Gitnadoiks River Provincial Park, about 142,580 acres (57,700 ha), forms part of a wildlife corridor linking Douglas Channel with the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary. Read more here and here. Explore more of Exchamsiks River and Skeena River here: