This St Mungo Interpretive Site is being preserved following its more recent era of being a cannery

The site involves the following partners:

 

• Katzie
• Kwantlen
• Kwekwitlem
• Musqueam
• Semiahmoo
• Tsawwassen
• Tsleil-Waututh

 

 

ya:ýəstəl Working Together
You may be familiar with this area as the banks of the Fraser River, below the Alex Fraser Bridge in present-day Delta. In our community, this place has always been known as sǝwqeqsan, one of our many village and burial sites. Our oral histories connect us to this village and are reflected in archaeological evidence of settlement and gathering going back at least 8,000 years, a time when this was the mouth of the Fraser River. This location was ideal for fishing, hunting, and trading, a vision later shared by settlers who established canneries in the 1890s.

Today, with the development of the South Fraser Perimeter Road adjacent to and overtop of a portion of sewqweqsən, and through the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure’s Gateway Project, this area is undergoing a transformation. Not only are we preserving and protecting what remains of this vital past, we are also creating a new place of learning- x”tatǝllǝm – to welcome, inform and engage new visitors who will share in its stewardship.

Since 1896 these fisheries later fueled regional growth, drawing settlers who built canneries throughout the region on what were village sites and cemeteries. Here, sǝwqweqsǝn became the location of two salmon canneries: the St. Mungo Cannery and Glenrose Cannery.

Presently, the site, via a circular trail, provides river lookouts where one can take the time to read about the evolution of this site via a number of panels along the way.