Douglas Channel is one of the principal inlets of the

British Columbia Coast , settlement_type = Region of British Columbia , image_skyline = , nickname = "The Coast" , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = British ...

. Its official length from the head of Kitimat Arm, where the aluminum smelter town of Kitimat to Wright Sound, on the

Inside Passage The Inside Passage (french: Passage Intérieur) is a coastal route for ships and boats along a network of passages which weave through the islands on the Pacific Northwest coast of the North American Fjordland. The route extends from southeaste ...

ferry route, is . The actual length of the

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Icela ...

's waterway includes waters between there and the open waters of the

Hecate Strait , image = HecateStrait(PittIsland).JPG , image_size = 260px , alt = , caption = Hecate Strait and Pitt Island , image_bathymetry = Loc-QCS-Hecate-Dixon.png , alt_bathymetry = , captio ...

outside the coastal archipelago, comprising another for in total.

Geography

The Kitimat River flows into the Kitimat Arm portion of Douglas Channel. The channel is named in honour of Sir James Douglas, the first governor of the Colony of British Columbia. A major side-inlet, the Gardner Canal, is in length, and is accessed from the Kitimat Arm of Douglas Channel via

Devastation Channel Devastation Channel is a channel in the North Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It lies between Hawkesbury Island and the mainland. It was named in 1863 by Captain Daniel Pender after the H.M. paddle-sloop ''Devastation''. I ...

(), which is on the east side of

Hawkesbury Island Hawkesbury Island is an island in British Columbia, Canada. It is located in Douglas Channel, one of the major fjords of the British Columbia Coast. Hawkesbury is long and ranges in width from to . It covers an area of . Hawkesbury Island ...

. South of Hawkesbury is Varney Passage (), which has a sidechannel, Ursula Passage (). Total waterway length of the

dominated by Douglas Channel is therefore, not counting smaller side-inlets, , longer than

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

Sognefjord The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, en, Sogn Fjord), nicknamed the King of the Fjords ( no, Fjordenes konge), is the largest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the sm ...

() and rivalling

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is ...

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

Industry

Douglas Channel is a busy shipping artery because of the methanol import terminal (formerly methanol production and export) and the

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It h ...

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 (Al(OH)3), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)) and diaspore (α-AlO(O ...

must be shipped in and smelted aluminum shipped out. Recently announced (2005) plans will see a major expansion of the port of Kitimat as a container and bulk resources port, augmenting the port capacity of the British Columbia's North Coast currently a monopoly of the city of nearby

Prince Rupert Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, (17 December 1619 (O.S.) / 27 December (N.S.) – 29 November 1682 (O.S.)) was an English army officer, admiral, scientist and colonial governor. He first came to prominence as a Royalist cava ...

. The methanol production and export plant closed in 2006. Douglas Channel will be subject due to new sensitive ship traffic when the LNG Canada natural gas storage and liquefaction terminal will be 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 down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the v ...

(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). History The first LNG carrier '' Methane Pioneer'' () carrying , classed by Bureau Veritas, left the Calcasieu River on the Louisiana Gulf coast on 25 Januar ...

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 Nechako may refer to: * Nechako River in British Columbia * Nechako Plateau * Nechako Country * Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako, British Columbia * Nechako Reservoir * Nechako Diversion * Nechako, British Columbia, a neighbourhood in Kitimat, ...

, 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 {{BritishColumbiaCoast-geo-stub