News

The Canadian Heritage Rivers System is pleased to announce the nomination of the Kaniatarowanenneh / Upper St. Lawrence River as a Canadian Heritage River. This milestone recognizes one of Canada’s most culturally significant waterways and reflects years of community dedication and partnership.

The North Saskatchewan River (NSR) has recently earned recognition as a Canadian Heritage River, acknowledging its deep cultural, historical, and ecological significance. Beyond its legacy, the river’s current health is vital as it continues to sustain the communities and ecosystems that depend on it.

The Grand River and its tributaries flow through both rural and urban communities, often serving as their heart. These rivers draw people to their shores for recreation, picnicking, and enjoying nature. In 2025, new plaques recognizing the Canadian Heritage River designation of the Grand River were installed at popular gathering places along its tributaries, the Speed and Eramosa rivers.

Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park is located along the beautiful shores of the Mattawa River, a Canadian Heritage River with a rich history of trade, travel, and exploration. Since the 1960s, Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park has continued to add to this rich history of exploration and recreation by offering an access to campers, paddlers, and anglers to enjoy everything the Mattawa River has to offer. In June 2025, everything changed for the park.

The Fraser River is a river shaped by motion. The motion of water, sediment, people, fish, watercraft, and stories. Flowing from the Rocky Mountains to the Salish Sea, it connects glaciers to tidal flats, salmon to forests, and communities across generations. Its designation as a Canadian Heritage River recognizes its deep cultural, economic, ecological, and historical significance, and for Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC), the Fraser is also a living classroom.

Across the Canadian Heritage Rivers System, many ways of knowing flow together just as the waters do. These rivers carry stories from the land, plants, animals, and diverse peoples who have lived alongside them since time immemorial. We take care of the rivers, and they take care of us. As we consider how best to monitor and celebrate our rivers, braiding perspectives offers a powerful way to honour the many knowledge holders and caretakers who help these waterways thrive.

Climate change is the Cowichan River’s biggest threat. Warmer, drier summers have led to increasingly low flows, dangerously warm-water temperatures, and fish kills — including the loss of an estimated 85,000 juvenile steelhead during a 2023 drought. But there’s optimism on the horizon.

For many people, Canadian Heritage Rivers are summer places: canoe routes, fishing holes, swimming spots, and picnic pullouts. But for me—and for a surprising number of Canadians—they become something entirely different in winter. They turn into corridors of quiet, frozen cathedrals, and, in a few special places, gateways to some of the most remarkable ice climbing terrain in the world.

At five hundred and one kilometres in length, Missinaibi River’s size and location – entirely within Missinaibi Provincial Park, in a remote and rugged corner of Northeastern Ontario – presented a challenge for its river steward, Ontario Parks: How do you collect new life science information for the river with limited staff and resources? The community science app, iNaturalist, can help with that!

Netley-Libau Marsh is the largest freshwater coastal wetland in North America and forms an expansive delta where the Red River meets Lake Winnipeg. Over the last century, Netley-Libau Marsh has lost more than 10,000 acres of vegetation, reducing habitat quality and ecological functions in this critical wetland ecosystem. The Netley-Libau Marsh Restoration Project is an interdisciplinary partnership among many different organizations working towards a shared goal. The first step in restoring ecological functions in Netley-Libau Marsh is to reverse the loss of vegetation that has occurred over the last century.