Fraser Valley Eagle Festival

Yesterday, we decided to check out the 15th annual Eagle Festival at Harrison River. I browsed their website and was intrigued by the 2500 number count of eagles in the area. It said that they were feasting on salmon in the river and we have been meaning to see salmon for awhile too. When we missed the spawning salmon at Goldstream Park, I was bummed.

On the festival website, there is a stunning picture of the river with eagles all over. I was sort of expecting to see this. After seeing the real thing, I'm beginning to think that photo was photoshopped. Either that or we went at the wrong time. Maybe all the eagles came down to feed in the early morning?


It was a 1 hour 35 minute drive out to Harrison River. We checked out site 3: Squawkum Park and sites 4 and 9: Eagle Point Community Park and Sandpiper Golf Resort, respectively. We saw one eagle flying above the water at Squawkum Park but the site was mostly a salmon graveyard. Even in freezing temperatures, I could smell the dead fish. The next two sites were better but we still didn't see many eagles on the ground. To be fair, we didn't stay outside for more than 10 minutes at a time since it was ridiculously cold. It wasn't snowing and the ground was dry but it was like -3C and the wind chill made it worst.


We had a couple of close encounters with eagles coming down but it happened too fast and there was no chance we could have photographed them. At any one time, I only saw three eagles on the river. Up above though and a mile away, we saw many eagles soaring close to the mountain nearby. I managed to capture as many as fifteen eagles in one of my photographs.

I would have to say it was disappointing overall. The problem was our expectations were too high, we couldn't tolerate standing out in the cold for too long, and we headed out to the festival for the last two hours before closing. For us, it was not enjoyable. If we had gone earlier or dressed warmer, things may have been different. Would I go again? I'm not sure but if we ever do, we would definitely do things differently.