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Discovering Kwilakm
  • Discovering Kwilákm
  • About
  • Get Involved
  • Changing Climate
    • Hotter Ocean Temperatures
    • Changing Ocean Chemistry
    • Rising Sea Levels and Intensifying Winter Storms
    • When Seashore Temperatures Spike – Killer Heat Dome 2021
  • Terminal Creek
    • Where does Terminal Creek’s Water Come From?
    • Signal Crayfish
    • Terminal Creek Fish Hatchery
  • The Lagoon
    • The Tidal Inlet that became the Lagoon
    • Aquatic Plants
    • Chum Salmon
    • The Beaver
    • Canada Geese
    • Three-Spined Stickleback
  • Shores
    • Nearshore Forests
    • Beaches
    • The Terminal Creek Sand Flats
    • The Curious Clay Beds of Kwilákm
    • Blue Mussels
    • Clams
    • Purple Stars
    • Oysters in Kwilákm
  • Shallows
    • Eelgrass
    • Young Chum Salmon
    • Winter Bay Birds
    • Year-Round Bay Birds
  • Deeper Waters
    • Plankton
    • Northern Anchovy
    • Harbour Seal
    • Octopus
Conservancy logoBowen Island Conservancy
    • About
    • Get Involved
  • Discovering Kwilákm
    • About
    • Get Involved
  • Changing Climate
    • Hotter Ocean Temperatures
    • Changing Ocean Chemistry
    • Rising Sea Levels and Intensifying Winter Storms
    • When Seashore Temperatures Spike – Killer Heat Dome 2021
  • Terminal Creek
    • Where does Terminal Creek’s Water Come From?
    • Signal Crayfish
    • Terminal Creek Fish Hatchery
  • The Lagoon
    • The Tidal Inlet that became the Lagoon
    • Aquatic Plants
    • Chum Salmon
    • The Beaver
    • Canada Geese
    • Three-Spined Stickleback
  • Shores
    • Nearshore Forests
    • Beaches
    • The Terminal Creek Sand Flats
    • The Curious Clay Beds of Kwilákm
    • Blue Mussels
    • Clams
    • Purple Stars
    • Oysters in Kwilákm
  • Shallows
    • Eelgrass
    • Young Chum Salmon
    • Winter Bay Birds
    • Year-Round Bay Birds
  • Deeper Waters
    • Plankton
    • Northern Anchovy
    • Harbour Seal
    • Octopus

Photo: Len Gilday

The Lagoon

On this Page

  • Introduction
  • Map of the Lagoon
  • Explore Further
Discover Kwilakm » Story » The Lagoon » The Lagoon

The Lagoon was once a narrow inlet of the ocean where at low tide Terminal Creek flowed across tidal flats. At high tide, the inlet was filled by the ocean.

Construction of the Causeway in the 1920s dammed the flow of Terminal Creek, forming the freshwater/brackishwater lagoon.

Conditions in the Lagoon change with the seasons. In fall, winter and spring, heavy precipitation sends vast amounts of cold freshwater gushing over Bridal Veil Falls just upstream of the Lagoon. In these seasons, the Lagoon is full of cold oxygenated water that flows quickly into the Bay. Even when high tides allow seawater to flow into the Lagoon under the Causeway bridge, it is quickly flushed back into the bay by the strong freshwater flow from Terminal Creek.

Map: Will Hubsy

Lagoon Map

Click below to view features on the map.

The Lagoon
Terminal Creek
In winter, freshwater from Terminal Creek gushing out the Causeway spillway in winter flushes out any sea water that enters the Lagoon at high tide. Photo:Will Husby


In effect, in these seasons, the Lagoon is a small freshwater lake. Conditions at this time of year are excellent for juvenile salmon, stickleback, cutthroat trout, crayfish and a vast array of aquatic insects.

In summer, there is little to no rain and Terminal Creek becomes a trickle, releasing small amounts of cool, oxygenated freshwater into the Lagoon. Saltwater that flows into the lagoon from the Bay at high tide remains in the lagoon and mixes with the creek’s freshwater. As a result, in summer, the Lagoon is a brackish water lake whose waters drain leisurely into the Bay. Many aquatic creatures find it difficult to live in brackish water, however crayfish and some aquatic insects thrive in these mildly salty waters.

Juvenile salmon like these coho take advantage of the lagoon’s brackish water as a half-way house to adjust their physiology from being adapted to living in freshwater to being able to live in salt water, before they head out to sea. Photo:Will Husby


The year-round abundance of aquatic plants and small aquatic creatures attract mallard, swans, mergansers, grebes and Canada geese.

A pie-billed Grebe feasting on a small crayfish. Photo: Will Husby

More About The Lagoon

  • The Lagoon
  • The Tidal Inlet that became the Lagoon
  • Aquatic Plants
  • Chum Salmon
  • The Beaver
  • Canada Geese
  • Three-Spined Stickleback


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