Porcher Island is an island in

Hecate Strait Hecate Strait (; Haida language: ''K̲andaliig̲wii'', also ''siigaay'' which means simply "ocean") is a wide but shallow strait between Haida Gwaii and the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It merges with Queen Charlotte Sound to the south a ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, Canada, near the mouth of the

Skeena River The Skeena River is the second-longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada (after the Fraser River). Since ancient times, the Skeena has been an important transportation artery, particularly for the Tsimshian and the Gitxsan—whose na ...

and southwest of the port city of

Prince Rupert Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, (17 December 1619 ( O.S.) 7 December 1619 (N.S.)– 29 November 1682 (O.S.) December 1682 (N.S) was an English-German army officer, admiral, scientist, and colonial governor. He first rose to ...

. The locality of Porcher Island is located near the island's northern tip at Humpback Bay, .

Stephens Stephens is a surname. It is a patronymic and is recorded in England from 1086. Notable people with the surname include: *Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883), Vice President of the Confederate States *Alison Stephens (1970–2010), British mandoli ...

and Prescott Islands are located off its northwestern tip.

Geography

With a land area of , Porcher Island is the eighth largest coastal island in

. The island's northern tip is southwest of the port city of

, and due south of the southernmost extension of the

Alaska Panhandle Southeast Alaska, often abbreviated to southeast or southeastern, and sometimes called the Alaska(n) panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, bordered to the east and north by the northern half of the Canadian provi ...

. The island is located within the Range 5 Coast Land District and the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District. Porcher Island is bounded on the north by Chatham Sound and the

estuary, by

to the west and by

Ogden Channel Ogden Channel is a strait on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada, located between Porcher Island (NW) and Pitt Island (SE). The channel complex is part of the Alexander terrane, and dates between the late silurian and early devonian. Cha ...

to the east. Metlakata Inlet and Kitkatla Channel separate Porcher's southern flank from the Goschen, Dolphin and Spicer Islands, near the entrance to Principe Channel. Porcher Island is nearly bisected from the south by Porcher Inlet, a long, narrow channel that intrudes into the island's interior, before emptying into a salt lagoon at the foot of the Spiller Range. Oval Bay, on the island's western edge, features a sandy beach, which is exposed to the ferocious southeast gales that regularly sweep through Hecate Strait. The interior of the island is hilly, Egeria Mountain, southeast of Porcher Inlet, is the tallest reaching to 2,915 feet, while the Bell Range dominates to the northwest.

History

Porcher Island, part of the territories of the

Gitxaala Nation The Gitxaała Nation is a First Nations government located in the village of Lach Klan (also called Kitkatla on Canadian maps), in the North Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provi ...

, is named after Edwin Augustus Porcher, RN (1821–1878), who served as Commander of HMS ''Sparrowhawk'' at Esquimalt Naval Base, Vancouver Island, from the spring of 1865 until he returned to England in the fall of 1868. While serving with the

North Pacific Squadron The Pacific Squadron of the United States Navy, established c. 1821 and disbanded in 1907, was a naval squadron stationed in the Pacific Ocean in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Developing from a small force protecting United States commerc ...

, Commander Porcher made four summertime voyages to the

North Coast of British Columbia The British Columbia Coast, popularly referred to as the BC Coast or simply the Coast, is a geographic region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. As the entire western continental coastline of Canada along the Pacific Ocean is in the pr ...

; in 1866, 1867 and twice in 1868. The route of the

Inside Passage The Inside Passage () 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 southeastern Alaska in the United St ...

that the ''Sparrowhawk'' took from Esquimalt to the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

trading post at

Fort Simpson Fort Simpson (Slavey language: ''Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́'' "place where rivers come together") is a village, the only one in the entire territory, in the Dehcho Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. The community is located on an ...

(the

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; ) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terrace and ...

village of

Lax Kw'alaams A lax is a salmon. LAX as an acronym most commonly refers to Los Angeles International Airport in Southern California, United States. LAX or Lax may also refer to: Places Within Los Angeles * Union Station (Los Angeles), Los Angeles' main tr ...

) would have passed close by the island in Chatham Sound that now bears the Commander's name. With the exception of a brief influx of homesteaders in the wake of Prince Rupert being chosen as the terminus of the

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway running from Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay) to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a Pacific coast port. East of Winnipeg the line continued as the National ...

in 1906, Porcher Island has always been sparsely populated. The island's relative isolation, combined with wet, cool summers and severe winters, has discouraged many of those who sought to make Porcher Island their permanent home. Nonetheless, three small settlements that were established during the 20th century still boast a few inhabitants today. These settlements are to be found at Hunts Inlet (formerly Jap Inlet) and at Humpback Bay, both on the island's northernmost tip, and at Oona River, which flows into Ogden Channel at the island's eastern edge. Hunts Inlet is a collection of older buildings grouped around a government dock, with the more recent addition of a number of vacation homes built by Prince Rupert residents. Humpback Bay is the site of the former Porcher Island Cannery, now derelict. The salmon cannery was originally built by the Chatham Sound Fishing and Packing Company in 1928, but operated for only four years before closing at the end of the 1932 salmon season. The site was later purchased by the Canadian Fishing Company and used as a summer

gillnet Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is ...

station until 1968, when gillnet operations were transferred to North Pacific Cannery. Humpback Bay continued to serve as a net storage facility until the 1980s, when the Crown lease was sold to private interests. With 30 or so permanent residents, Oona River currently has the largest population of the three surviving Porcher Island settlements. Situated at the northern end of Ogden Channel, Oona River was originally settled by Scandinavian immigrants in the years before and after the First World War. The village has long been a source of wooden boats for the B.C. salmon fishing industry. Scores of these sturdy, seaworthy vessels were hand-built from red and yellow cedar by early settlers and their descendants, and some can still be seen in use today. The Oona River Salmon Enhancement Project, first established some 25 years ago, continues to rebuild threatened coho salmon stocks in the Porcher Island area. The island, together with some of its surrounding area, (excluding

Kitkatla The Gitxaala (), or ''Gitlaxmoon'' are one of the 14 tribes of the Tsimshian people, located on the Northwest Coast of British Columbia, and inhabit the village of Lax Klan. 'Gitlaxmoon'' ("people of the saltwater")'' in recognition of their coas ...

(Laxklan), a

village, is situated on Dolphin Island) had a population of 37 in the

Canada 2006 Census The 2006 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population. Census day was May 16, 2006. The following census was the 2011 census. Canada's total population enumerated by the 2006 census was 31,612,897. This count was lower ...

, down 26% from the 2001 census.

Ecology

Porcher Island is part of the Hecate Lowland Ecosection, a once heavily glaciated band of narrow lowland rain forest and coastal archipelago that stretches from

Portland Inlet Portland Inlet is an inlet of the Pacific Ocean on the north coast of British Columbia, Canada, approximately north of Prince Rupert. It joins Chatham Sound opposite the Dixon Entrance. It is long and as much as wide. It drains the Portlan ...

in the north to

Queen Charlotte Strait Queen Charlotte Strait is a strait between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It connects Queen Charlotte Sound with Johnstone Strait and Discovery Passage and via them to the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound. It for ...

in the south. Hecate Lowland terrain is generally rough and rocky, with wide areas of muskeg wetland and bog forest. Tree species include

western red cedar ''Thuja plicata'' is a large evergreen coniferous tree in the family Cupressaceae, native to the Pacific Northwest of North America. Its common name is western redcedar in the U.S. or western red cedar in the UK, and it is also called pacific re ...

, yellow cedar,

mountain hemlock ''Tsuga mertensiana'', known as mountain hemlock, is a species of hemlock native to the west coast of North America, found between Southcentral Alaska and south-central California. Description ''Tsuga mertensiana'' is a large evergreen conifer ...

and

fir Firs are evergreen coniferous trees belonging to the genus ''Abies'' () in the family Pinaceae. There are approximately 48–65 extant species, found on mountains throughout much of North and Central America, Eurasia, and North Africa. The genu ...

Salal ''Gaultheria shallon'' is an evergreen shrub in the heather family (Ericaceae), native to western North America. Common names include salal (), shallon, or (mainly in Britain) gaultheria. Description ''Gaultheria shallon'' is tall, sprawli ...

ferns The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...

, and

skunk cabbage Skunk cabbage is a common name for several plants and may refer to: * the genus '' Lysichiton'' ** Asian skunk cabbage, '' Lysichiton camtschatcensis'', grows in eastern Asia ** Western skunk cabbage, '' Lysichiton americanus'', grows in western N ...

are commonly found undergrowth. Lowland climate in the Porcher Island region is dominated by frontal flows from

Dixon Entrance The Dixon Entrance () is a strait about long and wide in the Pacific Ocean at the Canada–United States border, between the U.S. state of Alaska and the province of British Columbia in Canada. The Dixon Entrance is part of the Inside Passage sh ...

, resulting in frequent wind storms and heavy rainfall. Waterfowl are found in abundance throughout the protected inlets and estuaries that notch Porcher Island's 100 mile coastline. Species include

Merganser ''Mergus'' is the genus of the typical mergansers ( ) fish-eating ducks in the subfamily Anatinae. The genus name is a Latin word used by Pliny the Elder and other Roman authors to refer to an unspecified waterbird. The common merganser (''Mer ...

Surfbird The surfbird (''Calidris virgata'') is a small stocky wader in the family Scolopacidae. It was once considered to be allied to the turnstones, and placed in the monotypic genus ''Aphriza'', but is now placed in the genus ''Calidris''. This bird ...

Marbled Murrelet The marbled murrelet (''Brachyramphus marmoratus'') is a small seabird from the North Pacific. It is a member of the family Alcidae, which includes auklets, guillemots, murres and puffins. It nests in old-growth forests or on the ground at hig ...

, Glaucous-winged gull, Northwest heron,

Red-Throated Loon The red-throated loon (North America) or red-throated diver (Britain and Ireland) (''Gavia stellata'') is a migratory aquatic bird found in the northern hemisphere. The most widely distributed member of the loon or diver family, it breeds prim ...

Rhinoceros auklet The rhinoceros auklet (''Cerorhinca monocerata'') is a seabird and a close relative of the puffins. It is the only extant species of the genus ''Cerorhinca''. Given its close relationship with the puffins, the common name rhinoceros puffin has b ...

Greater white-fronted goose The greater white-fronted goose (''Anser albifrons'') is a species of goose, closely related to the smaller lesser white-fronted goose (''A. erythropus''). The greater white-fronted goose is Bird migration, migratory, breeding in northern Cana ...

and

Northern bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...

. Both Chatham Sound and Kitkatla Channel afford a profusion of breeding and nesting habitat for a wide variety of seabirds, and are essential components of the Pacific coast migratory flyway.

External links

A history of Porcher Island Cannery

References

{{Reflist *Blyth, Gladys Young. ''Salmon Canneries, North Pacific Coast'', Oolichan Books, Lantzville, B.C., 1991. *''British Columbia Magazine'', Volume 45, Number 2, Summer 2003, pp. 11–19. *Smith, Dwight L. (ed) ''A Tour of Duty of the Pacific Northwest'': E. A. Porcher and H.M.S. Sparrowhawk, 1865–1868, University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks, Alaska, 2000 Islands of British Columbia North Coast Regional District North Coast of British Columbia Unincorporated settlements in British Columbia Range 5 Coast Land District