On the coast of the Salish Sea, the great Cascadian river, the Ouregon, runs backward with the tide — and with more than tides. In the image below you can see a tug pulling what is actually over 2 kilometres of wood — an entire coastal forest — into the city to be milled and turned into more city. The tide goes upriver with it, and so do 30,000,000 salmon (in a good year) and sometimes close to none. The river gained its name because it was an obsidian and fish grease (oolichan or ouregon) trade root for 8,000 years.

Along came a young scot, who hired some mountain men and took a canoe down to the coast over 200 years ago. It was wildly crazy, even insane, but now the river bears his name, not its own. His name is Simon Fraser, the river is called the Fraser, although, as you can see, it is hardly Scottish, and he stands as a record of why you should not be a European in a canoe in a big river like this.

That’s right, as you can see from the bronzed state of his frock-coated self in New Westminster, he lost his arms on the way.