Ecstall Watershed

(Image from DFO Atlas modified)

The human footprint

Port Essington, Prince Rupert's predecessor during the steamboat era has drawn its share of books (see reviews this site) and the more recent proposals to make it into a tourist mecca.

Big Falls has long been a BC Hydro station and Brown's Lake has become another hydro facility.

Still I was surprised how large the watershed is and how many tributaries are salmon bearing. The red lines on the above map are salmon streams.Coho make it up to near the headwaters of the upper Ecstall. I am unable to get recent returns but we know from the 1980s the Haysward was under logging pressure.

Hayward as typical logged watershed

The DFO literature says the lower river Spawning areas damaged by 1980's style logging. I don't have good numbers on the Pinks to see if they recovered yet.

By the late 1980s Interfor was moving into the upper watershed where coho are present to the slides below lake.

Like Big Falls Brown Lake and many others in this system the upper lakes could be developed as spawning areas because unused habitat available.

Here is a low resolution graphic of Hayward Creek

It's Hook is evident as are the clearcuts in the lower reaches.
Note the slides coming down the mountains, though it is impossible to guess from this image if they were logging induced.