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Fraser River sockeye salmon have been the basis for a major commercial fishery shared by Canada and the United States, and an important cultural foundation for many aboriginal groups; they are also of huge ecological significance throughout the Fraser Basin. The potential for altered aquatic habitat and temperature regimes due to climate change is an important concern for Fraser River sockeye salmon. This paper characterizes the vulnerability of Fraser River sockeye salmon to future climate change using an approach that is novel on three counts. First, previous efforts to assess the vulnerability of salmon to climate change have largely focused on only part of the life cycle, whereas we consider climate vulnerability at all stages in the life cycle. Second, we use the available scientific literature to provide a basis for structuring and eliciting judgments from fisheries science and management experts who research and manage these systems. Third, we consider prospects for mitigating the effects of climate change on sockeye salmon. Tests showed that participants’ judgments differentiated in statistically significant ways among questions that varied in terms of life stages, spawning regions and climate scenarios. The consensus among participants was that Fraser River sockeye are most vulnerable to climate change during the egg and returning adult stages of the life cycle. A high temperature scenario was seen as imposing the greatest risk on sockeye stocks, particularly those that migrate to the upper reaches of the Fraser River system and spawn earlier in the summer. The inability to alter water temperature and the highly constrained nature of sockeye management, with competing gear types and sequential fisheries over a long distance, suggest the potential to mitigate adverse effects is limited. Fraser River sockeye already demonstrate a great deal of adaptive capacity in utilizing heterogeneous habitats in different river sub-basins. This adaptability points to the potential value of policies to make stocks more resilient to uncertain futures. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper summarizes the results of six seasons of archaeological fieldwork conducted at the Scowlitz site located at the confluence of the Harrison and Fraser Rivers in SW British Columbia, Canada. Research beginning in 1992 has revealed a complex sequence of site use beginning with a residential occupation about 3000 years ago. After some 1500 years the site became a cemetery, featuring some of the best preserved examples of the burial mound and cairn complex remaining on the Northwest Coast. Then, 1000 years ago, the site added seasonal use for resource processing while continuing as a cemetery. In the protohistoric and historical periods the site was used as a fishing camp and, still, as a cemetery. We discuss the implications of the Scowlitz site for understanding the development of complex hunting-fishing-gathering societies on the Northwest Coast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]