British Columbia Coast

Howe Sound, along British Columbia's southwestern coast.

The British Columbia Coast is Canada's western continental coastlines.

In a sense excluding the urban Lower Mainland area adjacent to the Canada – United States border, which is considered "The Coast," the British Columbia Coast refers to one of British Columbia's three main regions, the others being the Lower Mainland and The Interior.

The aerial distance from Victoria on the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Stewart, British Columbia on the Alaska border at the head of the Portland Canal is 965 km in length . However, because of its many deep inlets and complicated island shorelines—and 40,000 islands of varying sizes, including Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii)—the total length of the British Columbia Coast is over 27,000 km, making up about 13% of the Canadian coastline at 202,080 km.

The British Columbia Coast is a temperate rain forest, within the Pacific temperate rain forest region. The coastline's geography is most comparable to that of Norway and its heavily-indented coastline of fjords.

Contents

Major inlets

See also: Fjords of Canada

The great fjords of the British Columbia Coast rival those of Norway in length and depth but have even higher mountain scenery with a more alpine flavour. Many of the mountains offshore are much larger than those along the Norwegian coast, many large enough to have major fjords of their own, as well as their own mountain ranges. This is also of course even more true of the very large islands farther offshore, Vancouver Island and Graham and Moresby Islands in the Queen Charlottes, which together form the Insular Mountains, distinct from the Coast Mountains of the mainland.

Here are the most important fjords, inlets, straits and sounds, including those which are important in some way for reasons other than their size, listed south to north:

The many fjord-like waterways between the coast and the islands, and within the archipelago, cannot be fully listed, and there are many more others which are not so much fjord-like as flooded valleys between what had been mountain peaks many thousands of years ago, when the shoreline was lower.

Major waterways

The waterway route through these islands between Vancouver and Prince Rupert, and between Seattle, Washington, and Alaska, is known as the Inside Passage. It has played a role in U.S.-Canada relations more than once, from the Klondike Gold Rush to the Salmon War of the 1990s.

Major and important waterways are:

On Vancouver Island

Major islands

The above list ends at the northern Strait of Georgia, the last several forming a group known as the northern Gulf Islands. The southern Gulf Islands are as follows:

The Gulf Islands continue southeast across the Haro Straits as the San Juan Islands.

The islands of Howe Sound are classed among the southern Gulf Islands, but they adjoin the mainland rather than Vancouver Island and are usually considered separately. They are:

The islands of the Fraser River estuary are:

History

Research from the 1990s has indicated that the Ice Age-era coastline of the British Columbia Coast lower by about 100 metres. The effect of the waterlevel on the coastline was such that the Queen Charlotte Strait, which is between Haida Gwaii and the northern end of Vancouver Island, was a coastal plain, as were all the straits inland from it, except for those that were mountain valleys. Underwater archaeology has shown the presence of permanent human habitation and other activity at the 100 metre contour, and the Ice Age existence of such a coastal plain has put a new light on Ice Age populations in North America as well as on the strong likelihood of this area having been the major migration route from (and perhaps to) Asia.

The heavy indentation and mild climate of the British Columbia Coast have led to inevitable comparisons with the geography's predisposition to encouraging increased human settlement and movement as well as cultural foment and population growth in the Aegean, the Irish Sea/Hebrides and in the Danish Archipelago and adjoining Scandinavian coasts. The natural fecundity of the environment—rich in seafood, game and greenery—combined with the ease of travel (by water) is seen in all cases (British Columbia, Denmark, Greece) to have generated a dynamic and gifted civilization. And there are comparisons to be made between the artistic and political and social level of the Pacific Northwest Peoples and those of pre-Conversion pagan Scandinavia, Ireland and Archaic-Era Greece.

Fishery

See also: List of canneries in British Columbia

The fishery of the Pacific Northwest Coast is legendary, especially for its many salmon runs and the cultures that built on top of them throughout the region. Salmon runs have greatly diminished since pre-Contact years and the adventu of commercial canning and, ultimately, depletion of stocks by high-seas fishing. Inroads by salmon farming are held to jeopardize the remaining wild stocks.

Other commercial fisheries include halibut, herring and herring roe, sea urchin and other specialty sushis, hake, haddock, cod, crab and shellfish.

Shipping, ferries, and sailing

Scheduled Passenger Services operating on the British Columbia Coast are dominated by BC Ferries and Alaska State Ferries.

BC Ferries, a privately-managed Crown Corporation, operates major daily sailings between the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island via three routes: Horseshoe Bay to Departure Bay, Tsawwassen, British Columbia to Swartz Bay, British Columbia, and Duke Point, British Columbia to Tsawwassen.

Dozens of smaller ferries ply lesser routes between the Gulf Islands and the mainland or Vancouver Island as well as on various lakes in the Interior where no bridges exist. Other runs connect Horseshoe Bay to the Sunshine Coast and Bowen Island and the lower Sunshine Coast to the Powell River section of that coast farther northwest. From there a ferry operates to Comox.

BC Ferries also operates a sailing from Prince Rupert to Masset on Haida Gwaii as well as a major Inside Passage routing from Port Hardy on northern Vancouver Island to Prince Rupert and, in summer season, from Port Hardy to Bella Coola via several smaller coastal communities in between.

Alaska State Ferries operates regular sailings from Bellingham, Washington to Ketchikan, Wrangell, Sitka, Juneau, Skagway, Haines and lesser ports-of-call in the Alaska Panhandle. Alaska State Ferries also operates a vessel from Prince Rupert to Ketchikan and other Panhandle ports.

Other scheduled passenger services are run by various small shipping and water-taxi companies.

Non-scheduled passenger services include all major cruise lines and various small luxury craft harters, as well as shuttles to and from the various coastal resorts.

The Port of Vancouver is the largest commercial shipping port the in Pacific Northwest and Canada and is the largest on the West Coast of North America by metric tons of total cargo with 76.5 million metric tons1 and is the fifth largest port in North America overall.2

Coastal communities

 Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (June 2008)

Resorts and fishing lodges

 Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (June 2008)

Coastal First Nations

Nations of the Alaska Panhandle and Georgia Strait-Puget Sound are included as they are part of the same cultural and historical ecumene.

 Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (June 2008)

Parks and preserves

See also: List of British Columbia Provincial Parks
  • Puget Sound-Strait of Juan de Fuca
Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (June 2008)

See also

References

  1. ^ "World Port Rankings - 2005" - Port Industry Statistics - American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) - Updated May 1, 2007 - (Microsoft Excel *.XLS document)
  2. ^ "North American Port Container Traffic - 2006" - Port Industry Statistics - American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) - Updated May 14, 2007 - (Adobe Acrobat *.PDF document)

External links

v • d • e
Flag of British Columbia Historical geographic regions of British Columbia
British Columbia Coast
British Columbia Interior

Wikipedia content modification information:

  • This page was last modified on 7 January 2009, at 18:20.

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