BC Whitewater has adapted the
Liquid Lore database, painstakingly compiled over ten years of whitewater exploration by Steve Arns, into a province-wide inventory of whitewater reaches. You can check it out by clicking "Rivers" in the top menu. This database is user updateable and will ultimately, as we continue to build features, support real time user reports about wood, access updates, and levels. At this point, only approved users are able to add or edit reaches. Please contact us if you'd like to help us grow this inventory!
We recognize that many paddling clubs and independent authors in BC have published regional guidebooks over the years.
Our intention is not to supplant them. We believe that print guidebooks are an invaluable resource and we'd encourage our membership to support regional guidebooks whenever possible. We would be happy to partner with any guidebook authors and direct river users to those guidebooks.
This inventory is meant to serve two main purposes. First and foremost, we need this inventory to be able to advocate for our rivers. Whether it's fighting a dam proposal or campaigning for continued access, it's critical that we're able to say, whitewater paddlers use this river -- and we can prove it. It also facilitates engagement when provincial agencies are easily able to see what reaches, gauges, and roads our community uses. Second, we maintain it as a service for our membership. People come from all over the world to paddle in BC and we believe that complementing available information sources with a comprehensive inventory will help people make the most of their time paddling here, and in so doing, will encourage them to support the work we're doing to protect the whitewater community's interests.