It is very interesting story of how Fraser River Estuary Jetties were built out into the Gulf of Georgia, to withstand wave and tidal erosion and try to train a river to go where we humans wanted it to go . It is more interesting if the structures were built more than 100 years ago and are still here today and standing up to all that nature can throw at the sunken mattresses . !00+ years ago the construction methods depended on steam driven dredges and clam shovels and lots of hard labour to complete the projects . Why did we want to build them any way ?

In many cases it was to protect Fir and Cedar logs from those nasty”wood gobbling Ship Worms”,” Teredos” . Ship worms are just that , they love to munch their way through the underwater planking , keels, forfoots and stems of wooden ships. They some how stay just about 1 inch away from going all the way into the ships galley or hold , now that’s good news ! The bad news is that the jetty bulkheads in the old days were mostly constructed of first growth Douglas Fir planks and Fir Pilings , now if there was any tidal salt water around, it was desert time for the Teredos . It took about 2 years for Doug Fir untreated dolphins, a dolphin is a single log driven into the river or sea bottom and a group of dolphins cabled together is a Piling , ya got that straight, for the salt water log boom tie-up or jetty structures to disappear completely .

Jetty building and steam driven Pile driving was a great industry to be employed in during the early days , but at last some solutions to the soft wood chomping Teredoes were found . The Teredoes did not like creosoted timbers , copper and some imported hardwoods like Iron Bark , the outside layer of some Gum Trees , that stuff kind of filled down their teeth .

How about the old jetties , well they are still here today , granet sitting on top of a ancient buried mattress of alder logs . You can visit the Iona Park in Richmond to look for ancient clues to the building of 1913 Iona Jetty , most of the structure is covered in sand but the 1913 old jetty is still there , but it takes a eagles eye to recognize it .

Got any Teredo or Jetty stories to share ?

Terry Slack

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