River, south-central British Columbia, Can.
Rising in the Rocky Mountains near Yellowhead Pass, it flows northwest and south nearly to the U.S. border. It then turns west through the Coast Mountains in a spectacular canyon to empty into the Strait of Georgia south of Vancouver ; it is 850 mi (1,368 km) long. The Cariboo gold rush, which began in 1858, took place in the Fraser River basin; lumbering is now the main industry.