, image = HecateStrait(PittIsland).JPG , image_size = 260px , alt = , caption = Hecate Strait and

Pitt Island Pitt Island is the second largest island in the Chatham Islands, Chatham Archipelago, New Zealand. It is called ''Rangiauria'' in Māori language, Māori and ''Rangiaotea'' in ''Moriori language, Moriori.Government of New Zealand, Dept. of Cons ...

, image_bathymetry = Loc-QCS-Hecate-Dixon.png , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = Hecate Strait as delineated by

BCGNIS The BC Geographical Names (formerly BC Geographical Names Information System or BCGNIS) is a geographic name web service and database for the Canadian province of British Columbia run by the Base Mapping and Geomatic Services Branch of the Integra ...

, along with Queen Charlotte Sound and

Dixon Entrance The Dixon Entrance (french: Entrée Dixon) 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 o ...

. Red dots indicate capes and points, gray text indicates island names. , location =

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 ...

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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 continen ...

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Daajing Giids (), known as Queen Charlotte from 1891–2022, is a village municipality in the Haida Gwaii archipelago (also known as the "Queen Charlotte Islands") in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is located on the southern end of Graham Is ...

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 He ...

, Sandspit,

Tlell Tlell is a small, unincorporated area on the east coast of Graham Island, which is part of Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) in British Columbia, Canada. History Besides Mexican Tom, who set up camp at Tlell in 1904, Eric Richa ...

Kitkatla The Kitkatla or Gitxaala are one of the 14 bands of the Tsimshian nation of the Canadian province of British Columbia, and inhabit a village, also called Kitkatla (sometimes called Laxklan), on Dolphin Island, a small island just by Porcher Isla ...

, 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 revitalizatio ...

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

strait A strait is an oceanic landform connecting two seas or two other large areas of water. The surface water generally flows at the same elevation on both sides and through the strait in either direction. Most commonly, it is a narrow ocean channe ...

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 Hecat ...

(formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) and the mainland of

, Canada. It merges with Queen Charlotte Sound to the south and

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

, the southern boundary of Hecate Strait is defined as a line running from the southernmost point of Price Island to Cape St James on

Kunghit Island Kunghit Island is an island in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is the southernmost island in the Haida Gwaii archipelago, located to the south of Moresby Island. The southernmost point of Kunghit Island, called Cape St James, is use ...

, the southernmost point of Haida Gwaii. The northern boundary is a line from Rose Point, the northeastern tip of

Graham Island Graham Island () is the largest island in the Haida Gwaii archipelago (previously known as the Queen Charlotte Islands), lying off the mainland coast of British Columbia, Canada. It is separated by the narrow Skidegate Channel from the other pri ...

, 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 Sir George Henry Richards (13 January 1820 –14 November 1896) was Hydrographer of the Royal Navy from 1863 to 1874. Biography Richards was born in Antony, Cornwall, the son of Captain G. S. Richards, and joined the Royal Navy in 1832. ...

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, and the ...

and including what is now Queen Charlotte Sound.

Flora and fauna

The strait once contained strong

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

and

halibut Halibut is the common name for three flatfish in the genera '' Hippoglossus'' and ''Reinhardtius'' from the family of right-eye flounders and, in some regions, and less commonly, other species of large flatfish. The word is derived from ''h ...

fisheries Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life; or more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a. fishing ground). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both ...

. Hecate Strait is one of the few locations in the world with species from the

glass sponge Hexactinellid sponges are sponges with a skeleton made of four- and/or six-pointed siliceous spicules, often referred to as glass sponges. They are usually classified along with other sponges in the phylum Porifera, but some researchers consider ...

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 Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound Glass Sponge Reefs Marine Protected Area (HS/QCS MPA) is a 2,410-square-kilometre marine protected area located in Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound off the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada. ...

was designated by the

Fisheries and Oceans Canada Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO; french: Pêches et Océans Canada, MPO), is a department of the Government of Canada that is responsible for developing and implementing policies and programs in support of Canada's economic, ecological and sc ...

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