This place is a paradox. On one hand, squatter residents (entitled to the land or not, depending on your viewpoint) don’t really fancy a lot of people wandering the creaky boardwalks that make this marshy island near the mouth of the Fraser River habitable. On the other hand, they’re anxious to promote their efforts to save the history and ecology of this particularly pristine pocket of the Fraser River basin. So they’ve posted a Web site (www.finnslough.com) that tells the unusual Finn Slough story and includes a map.There, you can read about an absentee landowner who’s trying to reclaim the island and surrounding habitat for conventional develop-ment, and the political and legal efforts of residents and supporters to keep this undisturbed wetland, filled with wildlife, just as it is. Named for Finnish fishermen who settled here in the i88os, and occupied over the years by fishers of various backgrounds, Finn Slough remains a beguiling tumbledown settlement in an unspeakably beautiful set-ting. Depending on the tides and seasons, you’ll see fishing boats listing in the estuary mud, bobbing among the old wharves and river reeds, or being repaired in the sheds along the dike.
To get there, take Highway 99 to Richmond, and travel all the way south on No. 4 Road until you reach the river. Cross a wooden foot-bridge, and (unless the tide has played havoc with this Louisiana-style bayou) you’ll find yourself quietly ambling among wooden shacks. Some are floating houses, others are built on scows or stilts; most are decorated with humble and playful fixtures, artifacts of river industries, and plants and flowers.
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