, image = HecateStrait(PittIsland).JPG , image_size = 260px , alt = , caption = Hecate Strait and Pitt Island , image_bathymetry = Loc-QCS-Hecate-Dixon.png , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = Hecate Strait as delineated by BCGNIS, along with Queen Charlotte Sound and Dixon Entrance. Red dots indicate capes and points, gray text indicates island names. , location =

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

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Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

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Skidegate Skidegate ( hai, Hlg̱aagilda) is a Haida community in in British Columbia, Canada. It is located on the southeast coast of Graham Island, the largest island in the archipelago, and is approximately west of mainland British Columbia across ...

, Sandspit, Tlell, Kitkatla , pushpin_map = British Columbia , pushpin_label_position = , pushpin_map_alt = , pushpin_map_caption = , website = , reference = Hecate Strait (;

Haida language Haida (', ', ', ') is the language of the Haida people, spoken in the Haida Gwaii archipelago off the coast of Canada and on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska. An endangered language, Haida currently has 24 native speakers, though revitalizat ...

: ''K̲andaliig̲wii'', also ''siigaay'' which means simply "ocean") is a wide but shallow strait between

Haida Gwaii Haida Gwaii (; hai, X̱aaydag̱a Gwaay.yaay / , literally "Islands of the Haida people") is an archipelago located between off the northern Pacific coast of Canada. The islands are separated from the mainland to the east by the shallow Hec ...

(formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) and the mainland of

, Canada. It merges with Queen Charlotte Sound to the south and Dixon Entrance to the north. About wide at its southern end, Hecate Strait narrows in the north to about . It is about in length.

Definition

According to the BCGNIS, the southern boundary of Hecate Strait is defined as a line running from the southernmost point of

Price Island Price Island is an island on the coast of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is located at the southeastern end of Hecate Strait and the northeastern end of Queen Charlotte Sound. The southernmost point of Price Island, called Day Po ...

to Cape St James on Kunghit Island, the southernmost point of Haida Gwaii. The northern boundary is a line from Rose Point, the northeastern tip of Graham Island, to Hooper Point at the north end of Stephens Island off the mainland.

History

Hecate Strait, because it is so shallow, is especially susceptible to storms and violent weather. The Haida crossed the Hecate Strait to the mainland to plunder coastal villages to take slaves and booty. Only the Haida knew the real nature of the Strait's workings, and so could not be followed by the tribes of the mainland. Hecate Strait, therefore, was one of the main defenses of the Haida people from attack. Hecate Strait was named by Captain George Henry Richards in 1861 or 1862 after his surveying vessel, HMS ''Hecate''.

Geology

During the last ice age, the seafloor in this area was a wide coastal plain stretching south to the

Olympic Peninsula The Olympic Peninsula is a large arm of land in western Washington that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle, and contains Olympic National Park. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, an ...

and including what is now Queen Charlotte Sound.

Flora and fauna

The strait once contained strong

salmon Salmon () is the common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of ...

and halibut fisheries. Hecate Strait is one of the few locations in the world with species from the glass sponge class of fauna. Regions with these sponge are currently protected from damage by commercial fishing. The Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound Glass Sponge Reefs Marine Protected Area was designated by the Fisheries and Oceans Canada in February 2017. The MPA is located in the Northern Shelf bioregion of the Pacific Region, southeast of

, North and South of the entrance to the Douglas Channel. The MPA is composed of three individual areas known as the Northern Reef, the Central Reefs, and the Southern Reef. Together these three areas cover approximately 2,410 square kilometers. The four reef complexes in the Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound discontinuously cover an area of about 1,000 km², and are located in glacial troughs between 140 m and 240 m deep.

References

{{British Columbia hydrography Straits of British Columbia North Coast of British Columbia