Kitimat is a district municipality in the

North Coast North Coast or Northcoast may refer to : Antigua and Barbuda * Major Division of North Coast, a census division in Saint John Parish Australia *New South Wales North Coast, a region Canada *The British Columbia Coast, primarily the communiti ...

region of

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. It is a member municipality of the

Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine The Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine is a local government administration in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. As of the 2016 Canadian census, it had a population of 37,367 living on a land area of . Its administrative offices are in ...

regional government. The Kitimat Valley is part of the most populous urban district in northwest British Columbia, which includes

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 ...

to the north along the Skeena River Valley. The city was planned and built by the Aluminum Company of Canada ( Alcan) during the 1950s. Its post office was approved on June 6, 1952. Kitimat's municipal area is . It is located on tidewater in one of the few wide, flat valleys on the coast of British Columbia. The 2016 census recorded 8,131 citizens. The District of Kitimat Development Services situates the port of Kitimat as an integral part of the Northwest Corridor connecting North America to the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Rim.

History

"Kitimat" in the

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 ...

language refers to the

Haisla Haisla may refer to: * Haisla people, an indigenous people living in Kitamaat, British Columbia, Canada. * Haisla language, their northern Wakashan language. * Haisla Nation The Haisla Nation is the Indian Act-mandated band government which nominall ...

First Nation as the "People of the Snow". Before 1950 the Kitimat township was a small fishing village at the head of the Kitimat Arm of the

Douglas Channel Douglas Channel is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. Its official length from the head of Kitimat Arm, where the aluminum smelter town of Kitimat to Wright Sound, on the Inside Passage ferry route, is . The actual length o ...

, a deepwater

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 ...

. The municipal town of Kitimat came into existence in 1951 after the Provincial Government of British Columbia invited Alcan to develop hydroelectric facilities to support one of the most power-intensive of all industries—the aluminum smelting industry. The company built a dam, tunnel, powerhouse,

transmission line In electrical engineering, a transmission line is a specialized cable or other structure designed to conduct electromagnetic waves in a contained manner. The term applies when the conductors are long enough that the wave nature of the transmis ...

, a deep-sea terminal and

smelter Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including Silver mining#Ore processing, silver, iron-making, iron, copper extracti ...

. The company also designed, laid out and assisted with the initial construction of the city. At the time, the combined development was considered "the most expensive project ever attempted by private industry." Alcan employed the services of city planner

Clarence Stein Clarence Samuel Stein (June 19, 1882 – February 7, 1975) was an American urban planner, architect, and writer, a major proponent of the garden city movement in the United States. Biography Stein was born in Rochester, New York into an upwardly ...

in order to ensure the community design facilitated an environment that would attract and retain workers, although Alcan intended it to not be a

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

. Today, Kitimat benefits from the quality of planning resulting from the Garden City design concept. Stein's design kept industry well separated from the community with large areas for expansion. He also created looped streets surrounding an urban city centre mall and linked by over of walkways connecting to all areas of the community. The substantial greenspace areas and future expansion concepts designed by Stein have been upheld to this day by the city planners, thereby resulting in a low-density settlement pattern interspersed with forested patches. Also, the Alcan-based city origin and land provenance remain documented in the form of restrictive covenants registered on title.

Economy

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 has ...

producer Rio Tinto is the main employer in the municipality. Local government, schools, small manufacturing and service/retail are secondary contributors. Secondary core activities include engineering, import of petrochemical products (methanol and condensate), and metal fabrication. Approximately $5 billion in manufacturing investment is anticipated in the 2010–2015 period with a further $5 billion-plus in the investigative stage over the next decade. Anticipated investment includes an approximately $2 billion modernization to the Rio Tinto Alcan facilities and $3 billion in the Kitimat liquefied natural gas export development on Haisla Industrial Land at Bish Creek. The export facility would see

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

piped in from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (particularly from shale gas developments such as the

Montney Montney is an unincorporated locality located in British Columbia about north of Fort St. John, near Beatton Provincial Park. It lies at an elevation of , along the BC Rail tracks. The settlement gives the name to the Montney Formation, a gas ...

and

Horn River The Horn River is a river in the Northwest Territories of Canada. It is a major tributary of the Mackenzie River. The river gives the name to the Horn River Formation, a shale deposit of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. The Horn River ...

) and shipped to Asian markets. The LNG Canada project, a joint venture between Shell and affiliates of Mitsubishi Corporation, Korea Gas Corporation and

PetroChina PetroChina Company Limited () is a Chinese oil and gas company and is the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), headquartered in Dongcheng District, Beijing. The company is currently Asia's largest oil and gas pr ...

would, if permitted, begin construction in 2015 of a gas pipeline from northeastern BC and a LNG export terminal with an expected lifespan of 30 years. The terminal, located on the Douglas Channel near the aluminum refinery, would be able to accommodate two LNG vessels at a time. Annual volume would be 24 million tonnes. In July 2014 the ''Financial Post'' reported that Apache Corp. will "completely exit" the Kitimat LNG mega-project planned for B.C.'s West Coast. The U.S.

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as sho ...

Jana Partners LLC has pressured Houston-based Apache to sell its 50% stake in the BC shale gas plays. Pending energy projects that have identified Kitimat as a strategic gateway include Pacific Northern Gas' Pacific Trail Pipeline (federal and provincial environmental assessments issued) and the

Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines were a project to build a twin pipeline from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia. The eastbound pipeline would have imported natural gas condensate and the westbound pipeline would have exporte ...

(currently being reviewed by the

National Energy Board The National Energy Board was an independent economic regulatory agency created in 1959 by the Government of Canada to oversee "international and inter-provincial aspects of the oil, gas and electric utility industries". Its head office was located ...

). Additional investigations into clean energy developments include a Kitimat port development project featuring break-bulk port facilities and consideration of the best uses for the former Eurocan Wharf. In addition, the decommissioning of the former Eurocan

pulp Pulp may refer to: * Pulp (fruit), the inner flesh of fruit Engineering * Dissolving pulp, highly purified cellulose used in fibre and film manufacture * Pulp (paper), the fibrous material used to make paper * Molded pulp, a packaging material * ...

and paper facilities or a slimmed down operation are still under consideration. There is also renewed interest in mineral development potential in the Kitimat area. The neighbouring community of

is also in advanced stages of approval for a number of clean energy projects along with the associated infrastructure for linking those projects to the provincial electrical grid. Air services for the community are provided through Northwest Regional Airport, with connections to Prince George,

Smithers Smithers is a surname of English origin. It derives from the Middle English term "smyther", referring to a metalsmith, and is thus related to the common occupational surname Smith. The name Smither is related. People *Alan Smithers (born 1938), ...

, and

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

Kemano hydroelectric project

In the 1920s, the provincial government of

extensively evaluated the province's hydroelectric generating potential. In the late 1940s, the Canadian Government sought to tap the untapped resources of northwest British Columbia. All this led to the identification of the Eutsuk/ Ootsa/ Nechako River drainage basin as a potential site for a sizable reservoir. The potential of this vast system of rivers and lakes prompted British Columbia to invite Alcan to conduct a detailed investigation of the area. Alcan was searching for a site for a large

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 has ...

, an activity requiring vast amounts of electricity. Alcan concluded that the area was more than adequate to generate the required electricity, and decided to build a smelter there. The timing was right because the post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

boom saw a rising demand for aluminum. Between 1951 and 1954, after signing the agreement with the British Columbia government for land and water rights, Alcan undertook the Kitimat– Kemano Project, one of the most ambitious Canadian engineering projects of the 20th century. The project required not only building the Kenney Dam to reverse the Nechako River, but also boring a tunnel under Mt. Dubose, within the Coast Range, to the large hydroelectric Kemano Generating Station built under Mt. Dubose. Electricity from Kemano is transported across mountains via a custom built twin circuit transmission line. After

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 tore away transmission towers, a catenary system was built. In three years, 6,000 construction workers built the dam, tunnel, powerhouse, transmission line, smelter, and town. The town of Kitimat was carved out of

old-growth forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...

. The company invested over CA$500 million (equivalent to CA$3.3 billion) and employed over 35,000 workers over the five years required to build the Kenney Dam, the hydropower plant under Mt. Dubose at Kemano, a 250,000 tpy aluminum smelter, a year-round deepwater port, a townsite designed for a population of 50,000, and a paved highway to the outside world. As a result of this project other companies saw the potential of the area, resulting in further industrial development in the Kitimat valley.

LNG Canada terminal project

On 1 October 2018,

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 Yo ...

and its Asia partners gave formal approval to an estimated $40 billion investment into the construction of a new liquified natural gas port terminal project named LNG Canada, coupled with the construction by a subsidiary of TransCanada of a gas pipeline, known as the Coastal GasLink Pipeline, linking this terminal to the

, British Columbia, natural gas field. If and when completed, LNG Canada should become the first Canadian

LNG 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 volu ...

export ocean terminal, which will compete with other LNG terminals in the US, either existing or planned on the West (

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

), Gulf (

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

) and Atlantic coasts (

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

). This new terminal to be built in the port of Kitimat will be connected to the

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 ...

via the existing

. This development will add 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 LNG Canada terminal project will see large LNG carrier ships loading liquefied natural gas at the future Kitimat LNG terminal, and sailing along the

to carry it to export destinations, mainly in Asia.

Directions

Kitimat is located south of Terrace on Highway 37. Prince Rupert is northwest, and Prince George is to the east.

Climate

Kitimat has an

oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ( ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

Cfb) with mild summers and cold, snowy winters(much warmer than inland)with significant snowfall averaging 128 inches (325 cm) each year. The rainiest season is fall, with the wettest month October having 320 mm of rainfall. There is also a significant drying trend in summer.

Cloud cover Cloud cover (also known as cloudiness, cloudage, or cloud amount) refers to the fraction of the sky obscured by clouds on average when observed from a particular location. Okta is the usual unit for measurement of the cloud cover. The cloud co ...

is significant, especially in winter, and less than 30% of possible sunshine occurs each year.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Kitimat had a population of 8,236 living in 3,604 of its 4,381 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 8,131. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Ethnicity

Religion

According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Kitimat included: *

Irreligion Irreligion or nonreligion is the absence or rejection of religion, or indifference to it. Irreligion takes many forms, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as atheism and agnosticism, secular humanism and a ...

(4,220 persons or 51.4%) *

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

(3,690 persons or 44.9%) *

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

(110 persons or 1.3%) *

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

(45 persons or 0.5%) *

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

(35 persons or 0.4%) *

Sikhism Sikhism (), also known as Sikhi ( pa, ਸਿੱਖੀ ', , from pa, ਸਿੱਖ, lit=disciple', 'seeker', or 'learner, translit=Sikh, label=none),''Sikhism'' (commonly known as ''Sikhī'') originated from the word ''Sikh'', which comes fro ...

(20 persons or 0.2%) * Indigenous Spirituality (10 persons or 0.1%) *Other (75 persons or 0.9%)

Controversies

The Alcan project was not free from controversy. Politicians, aboriginal groups, farmers and residents of the

Nechako Lakes The Nechako Lakes is an informal term for group of lakes in Northern British Columbia, Canada on the Nechako Plateau. Major lakes in the group are Babine Lake, Francois Lake, Ootsa Lake, Trembleur Lake, Takla Lake and Stuart Lake. "Nechako Lak ...

District opposed the contractual release of provincial resources with the profits going to a private firm. Many individuals and groups protested the flooding caused by the creation of the new reservoir, with the destruction of homesteads, villages, burial grounds, millions of board feet of prime timber, and the disruption of prime fish habitat on the Nechako River. In the late 1980s, the company began work on the Kemano Completion Project which would have doubled the generating capacity of the Kemano plant. After Alcan had already bored a second tunnel through the mountain and extended the generating station within the mountain, the provincial government of the day called a halt to the project for a variety of reasons. Having invested over $500 million into the project, Alcan took the provincial government to court. This controversy was settled when Alcan and the provincial government signed the 1997 KCP agreement. Most of the first decade of the twenty-first century saw the District of Kitimat in court with the Provincial Government over the electricity rights granted to Alcan and its obligations to the Province and to the District. Rio Tinto Alcan plans to increase the output of its Kitimat smelter from 250,000 MT/Yr to 400,000 MT/Yr and initially committed $300 million to this effort. Since late 2008, relations between Rio Tinto Alcan and the District appear to have become more cordial, with the two parties working to achieve modernization of the aluminum facilities. In December 2011, Rio Tinto Alcan announced its investment of $2.7 billion to complete the modernization of the smelter.

Media

Newspapers

* ''Kitimat Northern Sentinel''Kitimat Northern Sentinel
/ref>

Radio

* FM 92.1 –

CFNR-FM CFNR-FM is a Canadian radio station based in Terrace, British Columbia, owned and operated by Northern Native Broadcasting (Terrace). The station operates at 92.1 FM from the station headquarters in Terrace. The programming reflects and is broadc ...

, First Nations

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

classic rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, primar ...

(

) * FM 92.9 –

CJFW-FM CJFW-FM is a Canadian radio station, airing at 103.1 FM in Terrace, British Columbia. It is owned by Bell Media, broadcasting a country format to communities throughout northwestern B.C. The station began broadcasting in 1983 under Skeena Broad ...

-1,

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...

(repeats CJFW-FM, Terrace) * FM 97.7 –

CKTK-FM CKTK-FM is a Canadian radio station that broadcasts an adult hits format at 97.7 FM in Kitimat, British Columbia. The station is branded as ''Bounce 97.7''. CKTK is owned by Bell Media. The station originally began broadcasting in 1964 at 1230 ...

hot adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet ...

* FM 100.3 – CFKI-FM,

CBC Radio 2 CBC Music (formerly known as CBC FM, CBC Stereo and CBC Radio 2) is a Canadian FM radio network operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It used to concentrate on classical and jazz. In 2007 and 2008, the network transitioned towards a ...

(repeats CBU-FM,

) * FM 101.1 – CBUK-FM, CBC Radio One (repeats

CFPR CFPR is a Canadian radio station, airing at 860 AM in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. It is part of the CBC Radio One network. History CFPR first aired in 1936 on 580 AM, as a private CBC Radio affiliate owned by Northwest Broadcast & Service C ...

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 cavalr ...

) * FM 105.1 – CBUF-FM-5, Première Chaîne (repeats CBUF-FM, Vancouver)

Television

* Channel 3 –

CFTK-TV CFTK-TV ( analogue channel 3) is a television station in Terrace, British Columbia, Canada, airing CTV 2 programming. Owned and operated by Bell Media, it is part of the Great West Television system. CFTK-TV's studios are located on Lazelle Aven ...

, CTV 2 affiliate (Terrace) * DTBS cable channel 10

Notable people

* Benjamin Arthur - actor *

Mark Fitzpatrick Mark Fitzpatrick (born November 13, 1968) is a Canadians, Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender. He moved to Kitimat, British Columbia, where he started minor hockey, when he was ten years old. He won the Memorial Cup twice as a mem ...

- professional ice hockey goaltender * Wayne Kelly - Swimmer. 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. 5th - 4 x 200m freestyle relay. *

Jon Kelly Jon Kelly is a British audio engineer and record producer, who began his career as an engineer at Air London Studios. He has produced albums and singles for Chris Rea, the Damned, Kate Bush (where he co-produced with Bush on her third album '' ...

- Swimmer. 1988 Seoul Olympics. 7th 200m butterfly, 12th 400m Individual Medley. * Bill Leeb – musician and record producer * Alison Redford - lawyer, Canadian politician, Alberta Progressive Conservative Leader and MLA (2011 - 2014), first female Premier of Alberta *

Eden Robinson Eden Victoria Lena Robinson (born 19 January 1968) is an Indigenous Canadian author. She is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations.List of Panamax ports A Panamax port is a deepwater port that can accommodate a fully laden Panamax ship. With the completion of the Panama Canal expansion project in 2016, this list will need to be significantly revised due to larger "post panamax" ships transiting Pa ...

Kitlope Indian Reserve No. 16 Kitlope 16, properly the Kitlope Indian Reserve No. 16, is an Indian reserve on the British Columbia Coast, North Coast of British Columbia, to the south of Kitimat, British Columbia and at the mouth of the Kitlope River, which flows north into the ...

References

External links

www.kitimat.ca
* {{authority control Company towns in Canada District municipalities in British Columbia Populated places in the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine North Coast of British Columbia Populated places on the British Columbia Coast