Hey,we swim in there....feb 17

Daytons Bridge

Hope river winds its way, beginning at the eastern side of the Rosedale down to Chilliwack and runs into the Fraser at Wellington Avenue, forming Fairfield Island.....Actually the river is artesian and pops out of the ground and it is really only close to being an Island.....nevertheless someone thought it was close enough and called it Fairfield Island....That's a pretty good name anyway it is a nice area and most of it has been reserved for farmland and open spaces....Taking a trip out there is still a pleasant experience, it is Chilliwack rural, well kept, and healthy looking...........Camp Slough joins Hope river at Dayton's bridge.....a few miles east ofChilliwack.......it is artesian as well and begins in the same area as Hope River, the upper part was connected by a spillway to the Fraser 35 years ago.....and a flow is let through on occasion, if at all......I am not sure of how, why or when this is done...at first it was built to clean the creek out...but there has been problems with the success of that and the Salmon Fisheries are involved.
The first time I ever saw Dayton's I was with mum and dad...I guess they were on one of many Sunday drives that we went on ...this time it was out to Fairfield Island.....Daytons, woah....this is a neat place ......after seeing the kids swimming in the clear water and the many fish that were around the bridge, I made sure it was one of my haunts when I was old enough to ride my bike out there....We used to swim at Dayton's... we could start in April..the water was cold but we did it anyway if it was sunny out...the creek warmed very quickly if the weather was cooperative.... it was much the same as it is now...what a great place to play around ...a bunch of 12 year olds on a Saturday adventure...There is a run of pike minnows (squaw fish) that run in June...as soon as the rivers starts backing up from the Fraser freshet.......at night time they are thick under and below the bridge...it was a great place to learn to fly-fish....there were lots of em in the big pool where the creeks meet...I think that still that still happens but to a far less degree. I had a buddy.....Terry Valjean..... who liked to fish as much as I did.....we went fishing on our own often....catching fish off and around that bridge ....The area on top side of the bridge was made into a huge swimming area in the late 60s...it worked well for a few years ...hundreds would go there (We took our family there often)...it was huge...then the Municipal Government found out it wasn't healthy and shut it down....It just grew back to its old self then..... Dayton's is still a pretty place ......as can be seen by these recent pictures.....the top side where all the grass is was where the swimming pool was.....imagine all that area was clean water .....with diving boards and people swimming and picnicking.....cars parked all about......so.......the pool came and went.....it looks much the same as when we were kids now....except there was a room size pool to swim in just above the bridge.....
One time, not in swimming season...on of the boys threw a bottle in the bridge pool.....hey cool...about 5 of us pick up stones and started to have a gay old time throwing rocks at it as the thing bobs back towards us.........HEY.... it dawned on us...WE SWIM IN THERE....duh....doody do......O man ....how stupid can we get....lucky....we did not hit the bottle....Kids