North Bentinck Arm is a short inlet about in length in the Central Coast 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 an arm of

Burke Channel Burke Channel is a channel in the Central Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, separating the south and east coasts of King Island from the mainland. It was first charted in 1792 by James Johnstone, one of George Vancouver's ...

and is linked via that waterway and Labouchere Channel to

Dean Channel Dean Channel is the upper end of one of the longest inlets of the British Columbia Coast, from its head at the mouth of the Kimsquit River. The Dean River, one of the main rivers of the Coast Mountains, enters Dean Channel about below the head o ...

, which is one of the largest inlets of the

BC Coast , settlement_type = List of regions of Canada, Region of British Columbia , image_skyline = , nickname = "The Coast" , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Provinces and ...

. North Bentinck Arm is historically significant as the location where North West Company explorer Alexander MacKenzie reached the waters of 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 contin ...

overland from

Lake Athabasca Lake Athabasca (; French: ''lac Athabasca''; from Woods Cree: , "herethere are plants one after another") is located in the north-west corner of Saskatchewan and the north-east corner of Alberta between 58° and 60° N in Canada. The lake ...

via the

Peace Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...

and Fraser Rivers, on 20 July 1793. Needing to find an open area to make an astronomical sighting, using the moons of the planet

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

to determine his longitude, he went by canoe with four

Nuxalk The Nuxalk people ( Nuxalk: ''Nuxalkmc''; pronounced )'','' also referred to as the Bella Coola, Bellacoola or Bilchula, are an Indigenous First Nation of the Pacific Northwest Coast, centred in the area in and around Bella Coola, British Co ...

natives the next day to Dean Channel, stopping at a site now part of

Sir Alexander Mackenzie Provincial Park Sir Alexander Mackenzie Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. Located at the mouth of Elcho Harbour on Dean Channel Dean Channel is the upper end of one of the longest inlets of the British Columbia Coast, from its h ...

. A boulder on the shoreline there is marked with "Alexander MacKenzie, from Canada by land 22d July 1793". By only a few weeks MacKenzie missed meeting James Johnstone, one of Captain George Vancouver's men, who also visited North Bentinck Arm that year.

Name origin

North and South Bentinck Arms were named by George Vancouver, as "Bentinck Arms", in 1793, after the House of Portland; the

Duke of Portland Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ranke ...

at the time was William Henry Cavendish Bentinck.BC Names entry "North Bentinck Arm"
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Indigenous territory

The inlet is the territory of the

Nuxalk Nation The Nuxalk Nation is the band government of the Nuxalk people of Bella Coola, British Columbia. It is a member of the Wuikinuxv-Kitasoo-Nuxalk Tribal Council, and until March 2008 was a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. ...

, whose main community adjoins the town of Bella Coola, which is at the head of the inlet. The Nuxalk are also known as the Bella Coola people.

References

Fjords of British Columbia History of British Columbia Central Coast of British Columbia Inlets of British Columbia {{canada-fjord-stub

Name origin

Indigenous territory

See also

References