Princess Royal Island is the largest island on 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 ...

, Canada. It is located amongst the isolated inlets and islands east of

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 ...

on the

British Columbia Coast The British Columbia Coast, popularly referred to as the BC Coast or simply the Coast, is a geographic region of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia. As the entire western continental coastline of Canada ...

. At , it is the fourth largest island in British Columbia. It was named in 1788 by Captain Charles Duncan, after his ship .

Access and settlements

The island is located in an extremely remote area of British Columbia, north of

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 cit ...

and south 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 ...

. It is accessible only by boat or air. 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 ...

ferry and shipping lane runs along its eastern flank, in Princess Royal Channel separating it from the mainland. The island is uninhabited, but used to be home to the community of Surf Inlet, a gold-mining town at the inlet of the same name (though also known as Port Belmont or Belmont), and Butedale, a mining, cannery, fishing and logging town on the island's east coast. The nearest communities today are

Klemtu Klemtu is an unincorporated community on Swindle Island in the coastal fjords of British Columbia, Canada. It is located on Kitasoo Indian Reserve No. 1. Klemtu is the home of the Kitasoo tribe of Tsimshians, originally from Kitasu Bay, and ...

, on

Swindle Island Swindle Island is an island on the North Coast of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is located south of Princess Royal Island on the Inside Passage shipping route. The small First Nations community of Klemtu is located on its eastern ...

and

Hartley Bay Hartley Bay is a First Nations community on the coast of British Columbia. The village is located at the mouth of Douglas Channel, about north of Vancouver and south of Prince Rupert. It is an isolated village accessible only by air and wa ...

, on the mainland shore east of Gil Island.

Indigenous reserves

Indigenous reserves on or adjacent to Princess Royal Island are:

Hartley Bay Indian Band The Gitga'at First Nation is a Canadian First Nation, also known as the Hartley Bay First Nation. The members of the Gitga'at First Nation are often referred to as Gitka'a'ata. The population of Gitk’a’ata peoples living in Hartley Bay is ap ...

reserves: *Kahas Indian Reserve No. 7, on the west coast of Princess Royal at Barnard Harbour, 16.50 ha (40.8 acres) . *Kayel Indian Reserve No. 8, on the west shore of Princess Royal fronting on Campania Sound, 1.60 ha. (4.0 acres) at . *Lackzuswadda Indian Reserve No. 9, on an island at the entrance to Surf Inlet, on the southwest coast of Princess Royal, 2.20 ha. (5.4 acres) at .BC Names/GeoBC entry "Lackzuswadda 9 (Indian reserve)"
/ref>

Kitasoo/Xaixais First Nation The Kitasoo/Xaixais First Nation, also known as the Kitasoo/Xaixais Nation, is the band government of the First Nations people of Klemtu, British Columbia, Canada. The band comprises two ethnic groups who share an ancient alliance, the Kitasoo, ...

reserves: * Canoona 2, on Princess Royal Island, north shore of Graham Reach, 219.30 ha. *Dil-ma-sow 5, on Kent Islet southwest of the Princess Royal Islands, 1.90 ha. *Kinmakanksk 6, on the southwest shore of Princess Royal Island on Laredo Channel, 11.70 ha. *Lattkaloup 9, on Princess Royal Island at mouth of Fowles Creek, Laredo Inlet, 0.40. ha. *Saint Joe 10, on Princess Royal Island at outlet of Bloomfield Lake into Laredo Inlet, 0.50 ha. *Ulthakoush 11, at head of Laredo Inlet on Princess Royal Island, 2.40 ha.

History

Twelve of the 17 crew of U.S. Air Force 44-92075 were found alive here in 1950, during the first lost nuclear/ Broken Arrow episode of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. The plane itself flew north after the crew bailed out, crashing on Mount Kologet, east of the

Nass River The Nass River is a river in northern British Columbia, Canada. It flows from the Coast Mountains southwest to Nass Bay, a sidewater of Portland Inlet, which connects to the North Pacific Ocean via the Dixon Entrance. Nass Bay joins Portland I ...

to the northwest of Hazelton.

Geography

The island's northern tip is Trivett Point, its northwestern tip is Kingcome Point. The Canoona River drains the central part of the island, flowing east to the sea from Canoona Lake.

Ecology and environment

The island is classified by the

World Wildlife Fund The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the ...

as part of their system's Pacific temperate rain forest

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

. In the ecoregion system used by

Environment Canada Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC; )Environment and Climate Change Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of the Environment (). is the Ministry (government department), department ...

, the island is in the

Pacific Maritime Ecozone The Pacific Maritime Ecozone, as defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone, spanning a strip approximately 200 kilometres wide along the British Columbia Coast, then narrowing along the ...

. In the system of biogeoclimatic zones used by the British Columbia Ministry of Forests, the island is part of the Coastal Western Hemlock zone. Wildlife on Princess Royal Island includes

kermode bear The spirit bear, sometimes called the Kermode bear (''Ursus americanus kermodei''), is a subspecies of the American black bear and lives in the Central and North Coast regions of British Columbia, Canada. It is the official provincial mammal o ...

s, black bears,

grizzly bear The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America. In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horr ...

deer A deer (: deer) or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae (informally the deer family). Cervidae is divided into subfamilies Cervinae (which includes, among others, muntjac, elk (wapiti), red deer, and fallow deer) ...

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

and

fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

es, and nesting populations of

golden eagle The golden eagle (''Aquila chrysaetos'') is a bird of prey living in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most widely distributed species of eagle. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. They are one of the best-known bird of pr ...

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 ...

s, and the endangered marbled murrelet. Marine life around the island includes abundant

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

elephant seal Elephant seals or sea elephants are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus ''Mirounga''. Both species, the northern elephant seal (''M. angustirostris'') and the southern elephant seal (''M. leonina''), were hunted to the brink of ...

orca The orca (''Orcinus orca''), or killer whale, is a toothed whale and the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. The only extant species in the genus '' Orcinus'', it is recognizable by its black-and-white-patterned body. A cosmopol ...

s and

porpoise Porpoises () are small Oceanic dolphin, dolphin-like cetaceans classified under the family Phocoenidae. Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals and Beluga whale, belugas than to the Oceanic dolphi ...

s. Princess Royal Island is a core component of a regional preservationist campaign covering the North and Central Coast, which has been dubbed the

Great Bear Rainforest The Great Bear Rainforest is a temperate rain forest on the Pacific coast of British Columbia, comprising 6.4 million hectares. It is part of the larger Pacific temperate rainforest ecoregion, which is the largest coastal temperate rainforest i ...

by environmental groups.

References

External links

Princess Royal Island on BritishColumbia.com
{{Coord, 52, 55, N, 128, 50, W, display=title Islands of British Columbia Central Coast of British Columbia Uninhabited islands of British Columbia