The Britannia Range is a small

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

of the

Coast Mountains The Coast Mountains () are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the British Columbia Coast, Coast of British Columbia sout ...

that runs along the eastern shore of

Howe Sound Howe Sound (, ) is a roughly triangular sound (geography), sound, that joins a network of fjords situated immediately northwest of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2021. Geography Howe Sound ...

just north of

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

, British Columbia, Canada. It is a subrange of the

Pacific Ranges The Pacific Ranges are the southernmost subdivision of the Coast Mountains portion of the Pacific Cordillera. Located entirely within British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada, they run northwest from the lower stretches of the Fraser River to B ...

and often considered part of the

North Shore Mountains The North Shore Mountains are a mountain range overlooking Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. Their southernmost peaks are visible from most areas in Vancouver and form a distinctive backdrop for the city. The steep southern slopes of the No ...

. The range is bounded by the

to the west, the Stawamus River to the north, Loch Lomond on the upper Seymour River to the east, and Deeks Lake to the south. However, some official maps extend the range further south of these boundaries and many local sources such as hiking guidebooks will often include all of the peaks along the Howe Sound between Deeks Lake and

Cypress Mountain Cypress Mountain is a ski area in West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, located in the southern section of Cypress Provincial Park, operated under a BC Parks Park Use Permit. The ski resort is a 30-minute drive north of downtown Vancouver, ...

as part of the range. The geology of the Britannia Range is different to the surrounding highly granitic North Shore Mountains due to the high prevalence of volcanic rock (such as at Watts Point volcanic centre) and sedimentary rock like sandstone and shale. The range's name was conferred by Captain Richards in 1859 after the 100-gun HMS ''Britannia'', which saw action at the Battle of St. Vincent, 1797 and the

Battle of Trafalgar The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval engagement that took place on 21 October 1805 between the Royal Navy and a combined fleet of the French Navy, French and Spanish Navy, Spanish navies during the War of the Third Coalition. As part of Na ...

, 1805. Mountains within the range allude to British royalty, Mount Hanover and Mount Windsor for the respective dynasties. This is the source of the name of the town

Britannia Beach Britannia Beach ( Sḵwx̱wú7mesh: Shisháyu7áy, ) is a small unincorporated community in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District located approximately 55 kilometres north of Vancouver, British Columbia on the Sea-to-Sky Highway on Howe Sou ...

. The tallest mountain in the Britannia Range is Sky Pilot Mountain, a horn-shaped summit prominently visible to southbound traffic on BC Highway 99 on the descent from Whistler to Squamish.

References

Sea-to-Sky Corridor North Shore Mountains {{BritishColumbiaSouthCoast-geo-stub

See also

References