Douglas Channel is one of the principal inlets (or fjords) of the

British Columbia Coast The British Columbia Coast, popularly referred to as the BC Coast or simply the Coast, is a geographic region of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia. As the entire western continental coastline of Canada ...

, into which the Kitimat River flows. The channel was named in honour of Sir James Douglas, the first governor of the

Colony of British Columbia The Colony of British Columbia refers to one of two colonies of British North America, located on the Pacific coast of modern-day Canada: * Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866) * Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871) See also * History of ...

. The official length, from the head of Kitimat Arm and the aluminum smelter town of Kitimat to Wright Sound (on the Inside Passage ferry route), is . The full length of the fjord's waterways includes waters between Kitimat and the open waters of the Hecate Strait, outside of the coastal

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

, stretching for another , reaching in-total.

Geography

A major side-inlet, the Gardner Canal, is in length, accessible from the Kitimat Arm of the Douglas Channel via Devastation Channel (), on the east side of Hawkesbury Island. South of Hawkesbury is Verney Passage (), which has a side-channel called Ursula Passage (). Total length of the

fjord In physical geography, a fjord (also spelled fiord in New Zealand English; ) is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Antarctica, the Arctic, and surrounding landmasses of the n ...

waterway dominated by Douglas Channel is therefore (not counting smaller side-inlets) roughly , considerably longer than

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

Sognefjord The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, ), nicknamed the King of the Fjords (), is the list of Norwegian fjords, longest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the small village ...

() or

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

Scoresby Sound Scoresby Sound (Danish: ''Scoresby Sund'', Greenlandic language, Greenlandic: ''Kangertittivaq'') is a large fjord system of the Greenland Sea on the eastern coast of Greenland. It has a tree-like structure, with a main body approximately

at , though not as long as nearby Dean Channel's total of .

Industry

Douglas Channel is a busy shipping artery because of the

methanol Methanol (also called methyl alcohol and wood spirit, amongst other names) is an organic chemical compound and the simplest aliphatic Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with the chemical formula (a methyl group linked to a hydroxyl group, often ab ...

import terminal (formerly methanol production and export) and the

aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

smelter at Kitimat, as

bauxite Bauxite () is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)), and diaspore (α-AlO(OH) ...

must be shipped in and smelted aluminum shipped out. Expansions of the Port of Kitimat have increased the port capacity of the British Columbia's North Coast and decreased the shipping monopoly of the nearby city, Prince Rupert. The methanol production and export plant closed in 2006. Douglas Channel will be subject to new sensitive ship traffic when the LNG Canada natural gas storage and liquefaction terminal is completed and operational, which is estimated to be in 2025. The project, led by an

liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

(LNG) subsidiary of

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company, headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...

and several Asian partners and finally approved on October 1, 2018, will see large

LNG carrier An LNG carrier is a tank ship designed for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG). Overview The first oceangoing liquified natural gas tanker in the world was '' Methane Pioneer'', which entered service in 1959 with a carrying capacity of ...

ships loading liquefied natural gas at the future Kitimat LNG terminal, to carry it to export destinations, mainly in Asia. The Gardner Canal is important for being the location of the Kemano Generating Station of the Nechako Diversion, which was built to supply power for Kitimat. The head of the Gardner Canal, also, is the mouth of the Kitlope River, a major wildlife and wilderness preserve and area of outstanding natural beauty and harsh weather.

References

Fjords of British Columbia North Coast of British Columbia Channels of British Columbia {{BritishColumbiaNorthCoast-geo-stub