The Adams River Salmon Society

Signs of Ancient Ways

Evidence of human habitation along the Adams River goes back many centuries. Here archeologists have found hundred of cache pits which were used to store dried salmon and other foods. The largest concentration of cache pits is at the canyon-365 in total-indicating this was a key fishing location.

Numerous pithouse remains have also been found. Pithouses, which were excavations covered with poles and sod, were used as winter dwellings. Most are individual habitations but two collections of excavations, one just north of Gold Creek and one on the south side of the Adams River mouth, represent large villages. While usually round, a large number of pithouses along the Adams River were rectangular. Archeologists think these were built by the Shuswap people up to 700 years ago but one rectangular house at Adams Lake discovered in 1891 was carbon-dated to about 1,500 years ago.

Watch rock faces and canyon walls for rock paintings known as pictographs. The true meaning of these native art forms is lost in time but they are an indication of the importance of the Adams river for native people.

A small rapid just north of Gold Creek marks the remains of a dam built here in 1907 which was to greatly affect the river's salmon. The dam was constructed to control the river's water flow. During its twenty years of operation, the dam had disastrous effects on salmon in this river system. Sudden surges of rushing water were released at the dam to flush logs downstream The logs scoured the river bottom, destroying nests and burying salmon eggs under rubble and silt, greatly reducing the run of salmon coming to the lower Adams. In addition, the salmon which spawned in the upper reaches of the Adams River at the north end of Adams Lake were unable to get over the dam. This, in conjunction with the 1913 Fraser River canyon slide, virtually wiped out the upper Adams River run of sockeye. The dam was removed around 1940, allowing the lower Adams River to return to its former glory. The upper Adams River is also rebuilding.