Chilliwack

History

The archeological record shows evidence of Stó:lō people in the Fraser Valley, or S'ólh Téméxw, 10,000 years ago. Permanent structures in the Chilliwack area date from around 5,000 years ago. It is estimated that at the time of the first contact with Europeans, there were as many as 40,000 people living within Stó:lō territory. In the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of gold miners transited the area en route to the goldfields of the upper Fraser River. By the mid-1860s, settlers had established farms around Codville's Landing, Miller's Landing, Minto Landing, Sumas Landing, and Chilliwack Landing along the Fraser River. On April 26, 1873, the "Corporation of the Township of Chilliwack" (note the variant spelling) became the third municipality incorporated by the Province of British Columbia. The town centre at the time was concentrated at Chilliwack Landing along the Fraser River. Steamboats were the main mode of transportation, carrying goods and passengers between Chilliwack and New Westminster. After the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1885, many residents began to cross the Fraser River at Minto Landing to ride the train from Harrison Mills. In 1881, with little room for expansion and the threat of floods constantly looming, the town centre was moved south to "Five Corners" at the junction of the New Westminster-Yale Wagon Road, Wellington Avenue and Young Road. This subdivision was initially named "Centreville", but later was renamed "Chilliwack", as it was more commonly referred to by locals in 1887. The area would experience catastrophic flooding in 1894, 1935, 1948 and 2022. On April 21, 1891, Richard Plunkett Cooke, George de Wolf, and Walter E. Graveley established the Chilliwack Railway Company. On February 23, 1908, the area…

Geography

Chilliwack is located in the Upper Fraser Valley, east of Vancouver on the Trans-Canada Highway. The city is bounded on the north by the Fraser River, and on the south by the Canada-United States border. Chilliwack is surrounded by tall mountain peaks, such as Mount Cheam and Slesse Mountain, and large rivers (the Fraser and Vedder). The Chilliwack Batholith forms much of the North Cascades in southwestern British Columbia, Canada and the U.S. state of Washington. The geological structure is primarily named after the City of Chilliwack, where it is the most notable geological feature. The Chilliwack Batholith is part of the Pemberton Volcanic Belt and is the largest mass of exposed intrusive rock in the Cascade Volcanic Arc. The age of the Chilliwack batholith ranges from 26 to 29 million years old. In 2013, Maclean's reported that, with an average annual temperature of , Chilliwack is the warmest city in Canada. The climate is typical oceanic (Köppen: Cfb) but with some influence of the land mass being some distance from the sea, similar to Orléans, France (although the former has a precipitation more than twice as long and with a tendency towards the Mediterranean pattern). Chilliwack's mild climate with limited extremes provides excellent growing conditions for a wide variety of crops and agricultural products. In fact, when averaged from 1981 to 2010, Chilliwack had one of the warmest mean temperatures for any city in Canada. The highest temperature recorded within the city of Chilliwack is on June 28, 2021, which was set during the 2021 Western North America Heat wave, beating the old mark of recorded on July 21, 2006. The lowest recorded temperature was on December 27, 1968. }}

Most-observed species

• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  12,651
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  10,885
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  10,771
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  10,378
• Song Sparrow

  Melospiza melodia (A.Wilson, 1810) · Aves
  10,105
• Spotted Towhee

  Pipilo maculatus Swainson, 1827 · Aves
  9,144
• Dark-eyed Junco

  Junco hyemalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  8,603
• Bald Eagle

  Haliaeetus leucocephalus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  8,552

Most recent

• M 2.56 — 2026-05-29
  7 km ENE of Ferndale, Washington
• M 2.54 — 2026-05-07
  4 km WSW of Concrete, Washington
• M 2.7 — 2026-04-27
  5 km N of Anacortes, Washington
• M 2.5 — 2026-04-12
  3 km WSW of Concrete, Washington
• M 2.7 — 2026-01-26
  12 km WSW of Anacortes, Washington
• M 2.94 — 2025-12-15
  4 km WSW of Concrete, Washington