Tow Hill, also known by its

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 ...

name Taaw Tldáaw, is a large isolated

volcanic plug A volcanic plug, also called a volcanic neck or lava neck, is a volcanic object created when magma hardens within a vent on an active volcano. When present, a plug can cause an extreme build-up of high gas pressure if rising volatile-charged mag ...

located east of

Masset Masset , formerly ''Massett'', is a village in Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, Canada. It is located on Masset Sound on the northern coast of Graham Island, the largest island in the archipelago, and is approximately west of mainland British Col ...

on the north end of the Naikoon Peninsula of northeast

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

, east of McIntyre Bay and near the mouth of the Hiellen River, which is the site of Hiellen, a now-abandoned Haida village and of the Hiellen Indian Reserve No. 2, on the site of that village. Formerly Tow Hill Provincial Park, it is now part of

Naikoon Provincial Park Naikoon Provincial Park is a provincial park on northeastern Graham Island in the Haida Gwaii archipelago, British Columbia, Canada. It is the ancestral home of the Gwak'rala'chala people, one of the many tribes that form the native group Haida. W ...

, which covers most of the northeastern flatland of Graham Island. Tow Hill is associated by the editors ''Canadian Mountain Encyclopedia'' with the

Queen Charlotte Mountains The Queen Charlotte Mountains are a mountain range comprising all mountains and small mountain ranges of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada. It is the northernmost subrange of the Insular Mountains. They are subdivided into the Queen Charlotte ...

which in turn form part of the

Insular Mountains , photo = Ghinde2.jpg , photo_caption = Golden Hinde, south aspect, August 2006. , country = Canada , region_type = Province , region = British Columbia , parent = Pacific Cordillera , range_coordinates = , a ...

, but it is not physically part of the range, and is separated from mountainous parts of Graham Island by expanses of forested flatland-marsh and is properly designated as being on the

Argonaut Plain The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, ''Argo'', ...

, one of the lowland areas of Haida Gwaii not in the Queen Charlotte Mountains. Tow Hill consists of faceted columnar-jointed

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

columns that solidified about two million years ago during 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 ...

epoch.

"This feature is an eroded volcanic plug - the most distinctive navigational landmark on the entire North Beach. Tow is derived from a Haida word that rhymes with "cow", and means place of food. Many legends about its origin and the significance of the blowhole at the base of the hill......"Dalzell, Kathleen E; ''Queen Charlotte Islands - Book 2: of places and names''; Prince Rupert: Cove Press, 1973

File:Looking Northeast from Tow Hill, Haida Gwaii.jpg, Looking Northeast from Tow Hill at North Beach File:Looking down from Tow Hill, Haida Gwaii.jpg, Looking down from Tow Hill File:Looking North from Tow Hill, Haida Gwaii.jpg, Looking North from Tow Hill; Alaska on the horizon File:Looking South from Tow Hill, Haida Gwaii.jpg, Looking South from Tow Hill

References

Volcanic plugs of British Columbia Mountains of British Columbia under 1000 metres Graham Island Pleistocene volcanoes {{BritishColumbia-geo-stub

See also

References