Burke Mountain, located mostly within Northeast Coquitlam, sprawls to the north of Port Coquitlam. The Widgeon Valley, once known as Silver Valley, lies off Burke’s northeast shoulder. The included map roughly pinpoints these two regions.

Burke and Widgeon – A History (Volume One) chronicles the history that unfolded within the boundaries of Northeast Coquitlam as well as beyond its borders to include the Widgeon (Silver) Valley area. For the purposes of this book, the Burke area’s western boundary runs along the Coquitlam River, although one section of Volume One also does cover the logging operations of Sigurd Hage on Eagle Mountain, west of that river. The southern extent of the area covered by this book runs along the northern boundary of Port Coquitlam where it borders with Northeast Coquitlam. The Pitt River forms the book coverage’s eastern limit. The Widgeon area, also chronicled in this volume, is situated north of Grant Narrows, where Pitt Lake begins to flow into the river of its name. The Pitt Lake Boat Launch is generally opposite the Widgeon Valley, albeit slightly to the southeast. The popular Widgeon Falls is about the northern extremity of the area covered by Volume One of this history book.

Today, where once scattered homes and acreages nestled throughout Burke’s lower slopes, sprawling new residential sub-divisions have sprung up, forever changing the lower face of Burke. The majority of Burke Mountain located above those recent residential developments is now protected by virtue of its inclusion within Pinecone-Burke Provincial Park when the park was formed in 1995. By contrast, the Widgeon Valley, once dotted with homesteaders’ cabins and fence lines a century ago, has now mostly returned to its natural state, also being protected as part of that same provincial park and the Metro Vancouver’s Widgeon Marsh Regional Park Reserve.