The Stave River is a tributary of the Fraser, joining it at the boundary between the municipalities of Maple Ridge and Mission, about east of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in the Central Fraser Valley region. Blocked since the 1920s by two dams built by the BC Electric Railway at Stave Falls and one at Ruskin, the only free-flowing parts of the Stave today are the between Ruskin Dam and the Fraser and the from its source in Garibaldi Provincial Park to the head of Stave Lake. Prior to power development the total length of the river was c. . History The name Stave River was conferred in about 1828 by Hudson's Bay Company employees at Fort Langley, as the forests lining its banks were preferred for the production of staves used in the making of barrels for the export of fish. Terrain The lower Stave valley comprises over half the surface territory of the District of Mission although it remains mostly forested mountainside. The terrain of the lower valley is gentle though hilly, with dense oldgrowth and dense deciduous second growth in some areas. Marginal farms, mostly pastures carved out of the forests, can be found in the Silverhill, Silverdale and Stave Gardens areas. The Stave delta, formerly an oxbow lake, has been partly drained and dyked to form Silvermere Lake, part of a 1950s vintage real estate development; the oxbow's central island was transformed by the dredgings into a hill upon which the developer's private estate was built. It is now a Royal Canadian Mounted Police training facility. The waters of the lower Stave are semi-tidal, as the tidal bore on the Fraser River ends farther upstream at Mission City. During the spring freshet of the Fraser the volume and force of that river's flow blocks the Stave, causing it to back up and forming a lake between the Fraser and Ruskin Dam. North of Stave Lake the Stave's valley is intensely mountainous, containing some of the most rugged terrain in the province and also some of its highest rainfalls; access is extremely difficult. Overlooking Stave Lake at its north end are Mount Judge Howay, elevation , and Mount Robie Reid, elevation , and nearby are Robertson Peak at and many other summits. The upper Stave basin forms the southeastern part of Garibaldi Provincial Park, and adjoining it on its southeast is the Judge Howay Provincial Recreation Area -