The Gitnadoix River is a

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...

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 n ...

in the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

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

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 tot ...

. It originates in the

Kitimat Ranges , photo = Lax Kw'alaams.jpg , photo_size = 280px , photo_caption = Lax Kw'alaams backdropped by Mount McNeil , map = , map_image = BC-relief_Kitimatranges.png , map_caption = Kitimat Ranges ...

, and flows about north to the Skeena River, about west of

Terrace Terrace may refer to: Landforms and construction * Fluvial terrace, a natural, flat surface that borders and lies above the floodplain of a stream or river * Terrace, a street suffix * Terrace, the portion of a lot between the public sidewalk a ...

.Length measured using Google Maps path tool, BCGNIS coordinates, topographic maps, and ACME Mapper. The name "Gitnadoix" comes from a

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terr ...

word meaning "people of the swift water". The Gitnadoix River watershed was home to the Tsimshian Gitnadoix

First Nation Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

, whose main village was located at the confluence of the Gitnadoix and Skeena Rivers. Today there are eight Tsimshian

Lax-kw'alaams First Nation The Lax Kw'alaams Band is a First Nations government at Lax Kw'alaams, formerly Port Simpson, close to Prince Rupert in British Columbia, Canada. Member governments Treaty Process History Lax Kw'alaams derives from ''Laxłgu'alaams,'' which ...

Indian reserve In Canada, an Indian reserve (french: réserve indienne) is specified by the '' Indian Act'' as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." Ind ...

s in the Gitnadoix River watershed, which represent some of the important fishery and homeplace locations. Its

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, t ...

covers of mountainous, glaciated landscape, with peaks reaching heights of over . The entire watershed is contained within

Gitnadoiks River Provincial Park Gitnadoiks River Provincial Park (formerly Gitnadoix River Recreation Area) is a 58,000 hectare provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. It is centred on the Gitnadoix River, a tributary of the Skeena River in Northwestern British Columbia, 50 ...

and Gitnadoiks River Protected Area. The Gitnadoix River's watershed has never been subjected to any kind of industrial development. Its protected status prohibits forestry, mineral, and hydroelectric development. There are no residences in the watershed. A natural gas pipeline corridor passes through the watershed about above the river's confluence with the Skeena. The main recreational activity is sport fishing, mainly for salmon, steelhead, Dolly Varden trout, and cutthroat trout.

Course

The Gitnadoix River originates at an unnamed lake near Kadeen Mountain, south of Alastair Lake, in the Kitimat Ranges of the

Coast Mountains The Coast Mountains (french: La chaîne Côtière) 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 Coast of British Columbia ...

. The river flows north, through Alastair Lake, east of Alastair Peak. Exiting the lake the Gitnadoix River continues north to the Skeena River. The Gitnadoix River collects many tributary streams flowing from the high, glaciated mountains of the region. The largest tributaries are Kadeen Creek, Magar Creek, Dogtag Creek, and Clay Creek, which contribute a significant portion of the Gitnadoix's flow. The Gitnadoix River flows by the

s of Alastair 82, Alastair 81, Alastair 80, Tsemknawalqan 79, Iakwulgyiyaps 78, Psacelay 77, and at its mouth, Gitandoiks 76, and Gitandoiks 75, of the Tsimshian

Natural history

The Gitnadoix Valley was a

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, Ice ...

that, since the end of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

, has uplifted isostatically and filled with sediment. The floodplain that fills most of the valley bottom is about wide, through which the Gitnadoix meanders, often through multiple braided channels. The valley is U-shaped with steep sides, and

avalanche An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, such as a hill or mountain. Avalanches can be set off spontaneously, by such factors as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, animals, and earth ...

s annually sweep the slopes, often reaching the valley floor. The forests of the Gitnadoix watershed's valleys and slopes up to about are dominated by

western hemlock ''Tsuga heterophylla'', the western hemlock or western hemlock-spruce, is a species of hemlock native to the west coast of North America, with its northwestern limit on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and its southeastern limit in northern Sonoma ...

and

Sitka spruce ''Picea sitchensis'', the Sitka spruce, is a large, coniferous, evergreen tree growing to almost tall, with a trunk diameter at breast height that can exceed 5 m (16 ft). It is by far the largest species of spruce and the fifth-larg ...

, with some stands of

western red cedar ''Thuja plicata'' is an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae, native to western North America. Its common name is western redcedar (western red cedar in the UK), and it is also called Pacific redcedar, giant arborvitae, w ...

. At higher altitudes the forest shifts to

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 alpine vegetation. North of Alastair Lake the Gitnadoix Valley is swampy, with dispersed cottonwood and patchy conifer stands. The Gitnadoix River is an important salmon spawning stream. It supports many species of fish, including

sockeye salmon The sockeye salmon (''Oncorhynchus nerka''), also called red salmon, kokanee salmon, blueback salmon, or simply sockeye, is an anadromous species of salmon found in the Northern Pacific Ocean and rivers discharging into it. This species is a P ...

coho salmon The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". The scientific species name i ...

chum salmon The chum salmon (''Oncorhynchus keta''), also known as dog salmon or keta salmon, is a species of anadromous salmonid fish from the genus '' Oncorhynchus'' (Pacific salmon) native to the coastal rivers of the North Pacific and the Beringian A ...

Chinook salmon The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus ''Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ve ...

pink salmon Pink salmon or humpback salmon (''Oncorhynchus gorbuscha'') is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. It is the smallest and most abundant of the Pacific salmon. The scientific species name is based on the Russian common name for ...

steelhead trout Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and N ...

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coasta ...

cutthroat trout The cutthroat trout is a fish species of the family Salmonidae native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean, Rocky Mountains, and Great Basin in North America. As a member of the genus '' Oncorhynchus'', it is one of the Pacific tro ...

Dolly Varden trout The Dolly Varden trout (''Salvelinus malma'') is a species of salmonid fish native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. It belongs to the genus ''Salvelinus'', or true chars, which includes 51 recognized spec ...

mountain whitefish The mountain whitefish (''Prosopium williamsoni'') is one of the most widely distributed salmonid fish of western North America. It is found from the Mackenzie River drainage in Northwest Territories, Canada south through western Canada and t ...

bull trout The bull trout (''Salvelinus confluentus'') is a char of the family Salmonidae native to northwestern North America. Historically, ''S. confluentus'' has been known as the " Dolly Varden" (''S. malma''), but was reclassified as a separate specie ...

largescale sucker The largescale sucker (''Catostomus macrocheilus'') is a species of sucker, a type of freshwater fish, found in western North America. Description It has a rounded snout with a downturned mouth on its underside (as opposed to a mouth at end of t ...

peamouth chub ''Mylocheilus caurinus'', the peamouth, peamouth chub, redmouth sucker or northwestern dace, is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish from the family Cyprinidae, the carps and minnows, that is found in western North America. It is the only sp ...

three-spined stickleback The three-spined stickleback (''Gasterosteus aculeatus'') is a fish native to most inland and coastal waters north of 30°N. It has long been a subject of scientific study for many reasons. It shows great morphological variation throughout its ra ...

, and

prickly sculpin ''Cottus asper'' is a species of fish in the sculpin family known by the common name prickly sculpin. It is native to the river drainages of the Pacific Slope of North America from Seward, Alaska south to the Ventura River of Southern California ...

. Other wildlife living in the Gitnadoix's watershed include

moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult mal ...

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

otter Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine, with diets based on fish and invertebrates. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which also includes wea ...

mink Mink are dark-colored, semiaquatic, carnivorous mammals of the genera ''Neogale'' and '' Mustela'' and part of the family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels, otters, and ferrets. There are two extant species referred to as "mink": the A ...

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...

mountain goat The mountain goat (''Oreamnos americanus''), also known as the Rocky Mountain goat, is a hoofed mammal endemic to mountainous areas of western North America. A subalpine to alpine species, it is a sure-footed climber commonly seen on cliffs and ...

, a variety of waterfowl, shorebirds,

eagle Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...

hawk Hawks are bird of prey, birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. They are widely distributed and are found on all continents except Antarctica. * The subfamily Accipitrinae includes goshawks, sparrowhawks, sharp-shinned hawks and others. Th ...

hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics aro ...

swallow The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae, are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The ...

thrushes The thrushes are a passerine bird family, Turdidae, with a worldwide distribution. The family was once much larger before biologists reclassified the former subfamily Saxicolinae, which includes the chats and European robins, as Old World flycat ...

crow A crow is a bird of the genus ''Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifical ...

woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. ...

warbler Various Passeriformes (perching birds) are commonly referred to as warblers. They are not necessarily closely related to one another, but share some characteristics, such as being fairly small, vocal, and insectivorous. Sylvioid warblers Th ...

s, and sparrows.

Trumpeter swan The trumpeter swan (''Cygnus buccinator'') is a species of swan found in North America. The heaviest living bird native to North America, it is also the largest extant species of waterfowl, with a wingspan of 185 to 250 cm (6 ft 2 in to 8 ft 2 ...

s nest in the watershed, which is one of just three confirmed nesting sites in British Columbia.

References

{{Reflist North Coast Regional District Rivers of British Columbia Rivers of the Kitimat Ranges Rivers of the North Coast of British Columbia Skeena Country Tsimshian

Course

Natural history

See also

References