British Columbia Coast - Overview

The coast of BC is not only physically magnificent and challenging; it also has a fascinating history of human occupation beginning with the first nations and the later incursions by Russian, Spanish and British explorers and traders and ultimately by extensive European settlements in the late 19^th century and continuing throughout the 20^th. With over 965 km. of coast (as a crow flies), 25,000 km. of coast if we follow every inlet and the perimeter of every one of its 40,000 islands, this coast stretches 5,000 km. farther than all the other coasts of Canada – combined. We could spend the rest of our lives in a different BC anchorage every night and never cover them all.

This summer we’ll make a little dent and share some locations with our readers. It is a sad fact that British Columbians, with these incredible treasures on their doorstep, are essentially land-bound animals. If they explored more of their mountains and rivers we might rationalize that they are too busy to explore the coast. Unfortunately, apart from an occasional ferry trip to Victoria or Nanaimo or the once-in-a-lifetime trip to Alberta’s Banff or Jasper, the majority never experience these natural wonders. In a sense that’s OK because it keeps them un-crowded for the few of us who love going off life’s beaten track.

To expand this introduction a bit we’ll use the following excerpt from Wikipedia for the rest of this post. We have left in the active links in case you want to explore further – at your fingertips. But ultimately you might want to just get out there and do it!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The British Columbia Coast is one of Canada's two continental coastlines; the other being the coastline from the Beaufort Sea of the Arctic Ocean via the Northwest Passage and Hudson Bay to the Ungava Peninsula and Labrador and the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Bay of Fundy to the international border of New Brunswick and Maine at Passamaquoddy Bay.

The British Columbia Coast is a temperate rain forest, within the Pacific temperate rain forest region.

In a sense excluding the urban Lower Mainland area adjacent to the American border, which is considered "The Coast," the British Columbia Coast refers to one of BC's three main regions, the others being the Lower Mainland and The Interior. In the Interior, "down on the Coast" generally refers, however, to being in the Lower Mainland or Greater Victoria, while "out on the Coast" could mean in Prince Rupert or Port Hardy, on the North Coast and northern Vancouver Island respectively, which are only some of the vast coastal region's many distinct subareas.

Although fully totalling 965 km in aerial-distance length from Victoria on the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Stewart, British Columbia on the Alaska border at the head of the Portland Canal, its aerial length is usually considered as the 840 km that from the 49th Parallel in the Straight of Georgia to 54'40", which is the southern limit of the Alaska Panhandle (see Oregon boundary dispute).

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 (now properly known as Haida Gwaii, Land of the Haida), the total length of the British Columbia Coast is 25,000 km - much longer than the entire rest of the Canadian coastline at 20,000, even including the island of Newfoundland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. This is known as the coastline paradox

The coastline's geography is most comparable to that of Norway and its heavily-indented coastline of fjords. The inland straits, the Strait of Georgia in particular, share coastal affinities with the semi-inland waters of Oslofjord and its shoreline archipelago and similarly with the waters around Trondheimsfjord farther north. North from there the mainland coast resembles the great fjords of Geirangerfjord, Hardangerfjord, Sognefjord and the rest of the western and northern Norwegian coastline.

Contents [hide] 1 Major inlets 2 Major waterways 3 Major islands 4 History 5 Fishery 6 Shipping, ferries, and sailing 7 Coastal communities 8 Resorts and fishing lodges 9 Coastal First Nations 10 Provincial and Federal Parks and Preserves 11 Environmental issues 11.1 Environmental hotspots 12 See also