Province British Columbia | ||
Silvermere Lake, locally called Hullah's Lake, is located on the west side of Silverdale, a rural neighbourhood of Mission, British Columbia, is a man made lake. It is visible from and adjacent to the Lougheed Highway, which follows a causeway on the lake's south side. The Stave delta, formerly an oxbow lake, was partly drained and dyked to form Silvermere Lake, part of a 1950s vintage real estate development; the oxbow's central island was transformed by the dredgings into a hill upon which private developer Ned Hullah's private estate was built. (Now Silvermere Island, though commonly known as Hullah's Island)
Map of Silvermere Lake, Mission, BC, Canada
The name Stave River was created by Hudson's Bay Company employees. The native name for the river is forgotten, although modern-day natives refer to it as Skayuks ("everyone died"), also the name given to one of three villages that were located in the delta marshlands of the lower reaches of the river at the time of non-native settlement (1870s onwards). The name is a reference to consequences of the successive smallpox plagues and other disease pandemics which destroyed the populations and cultures of the Fraser Valley.