Although the vast majority of the population of Mission lives well to the east of the Stave, over 50% of the northern land area of the municipality is west and north of that river; its extreme northwest corner is on the far side of upper Alouette Lake.

The eastern boundary of the municipality roughly coincides with the division between the Mission upland and the alluvial floodplain of Hatzic Prairie, which resembles much of the rest of the Fraser Valley Lowland.

The unincorporated communities from Hatzic eastwards through Dewdney and Nicomen Island to Deroche are part of the social and commercial matrix centred on Mission but have never joined the municipality, as is also the case with areas north of Hatzic and Dewdney such as McConnell Creek and Durieu; the local economy and societies are built on dairy, berry and corn farming as well as a large First Nations community at the Indian Reserves of the Leq' a: mel First Nation, formerly known as the Lakahahmen First Nation, on Nicomen Island and Deroche.

Soon afterwards, Harry Brown French, an American from New York, came to the city and founded the Mission Regional Chamber of Commerce on June 19, 1893.

"[6] Some of the early houses and commercial buildings were, in fact, specifically designed to be reminiscent of small towns in southern Ontario in order to encourage buyers.

Hailed at the time as a new metropolis, the fledgling town's location at the junction of the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline with a northward extension of the Burlington Northern Railroad brought name suggestions that included East Vancouver and North Seattle.

During the construction of the Ruskin Dam (completed 1931) the railway was rebuilt at a higher elevation so as to skirt the new Hayward Lake reservoir.

Up against the Maple Ridge boundary near the waterfront on the west side of the Stave, and halfway between the dam and the mills at Ruskin, was a large drive-in theatre for many years.

The building of the Highway 1 freeway on the south side of the Fraser in the early 1960s brought huge population growth and large shopping malls to formerly rural Abbotsford, Matsqui, Sumas and Langley; as a result Mission lost its "anchor", the main Eaton's department store in the Valley, and the town's Main Street businesses lost much of their business to the new shopping malls a few minutes away across the river.

Silverdale, 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of Mission on the east bank of the lower Stave River, was homesteaded in the 1880s by Italian immigrants.

Neighbouring Silverhill was founded by a Finnish Utopian sect who were superseded by Scandinavian and German settlers following a forest fire that virtually wiped out the Finns.

Throughout the Mission area before World War II, there was a large Japanese-Canadian population involved in berry farming, logging and milling and in the fishery on the river.

The berry industry, formerly the district's largest and most important, formed the heart of the town's annual summer party, the Strawberry Festival.

Mission's other major industry was logging, and the town's several mills were noted for being the world's largest suppliers of red cedar shakes and shingles.

This tree farm served as a model for silvicultural management on a larger scale throughout British Columbia as well as provided a unique income source for the municipality.

Nearby Eddy Match Co., between Mission and Hatzic, was the largest matchstick-making plant in the world until it closed in the 1960s; its only rival was in Hull, Quebec.

In more recent times one of these buildings was for a while converted into the province's largest marijuana grow-op, in a scandal involving one of the town's wealthiest families.

The northern part of the district, and the wilds of the Stave River basin to the north of it, are home to a few wilderness work camps for young offenders and low-risk convicts; these camps have over recent decades participated in the ongoing clearing of vast forests of flooded-out trees from the inundated areas of Stave Lake, opening the lake to water recreation and public exploration.

[1] Historically, forestry, hydroelectricity and agriculture were Mission's chief resource sectors and provided the basis for varied related retail and service activities.

Forest and wood related industries dominate the manufacturing sector, with an emphasis on redcedar shake and shingle mills.

Agriculture is mostly restricted to a narrow belt along the Fraser River, and the unincorporated Dewdney-Deroche district east of Mission contains the majority of the farms in the area.

Three days per week Via Rail's The Canadian provides eastbound flag stop service from Mission Harbour railway station.

[11] The community has a young population, with a median age of 36.4, according to the 2001 Canadian census,[12] The largest group is European Canadian, comprising approximately 74% of the population, but even within that Mission's ethnic makeup is very complex, with, in addition to British settlers, large numbers of Germans and Dutch, but also Finns, Norwegians and other Scandinavians, Italians, Hungarians, Poles, anglicized French-Canadians and others.

The Peckquaylis Indian Reserve, which is the former St. Mary's Residential School and its grounds, is a centre for services and governments of the Sto:lo communities in the area to the east.

Many issei, or first generation immigrants, included prospective farmers and "picture brides", or women who communicated with suitors through the mail for the purpose of marriage.

Mission is home to world-class mountain bike trails as well as plenty of backcountry hiking opportunities that lie within the District Limits.

Jessica Russell was a young Canadian girl who disappeared from a Vancouver suburb on the morning of May 4, 2000, and was found dead the next day after she was kidnapped and murdered by a 20 year old man whose name was David Trott as he ostensibly took her to school.