The Regional District of Mount Waddington (RDMW) is a regional district in

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, for ...

. It takes in the lower Central Coast region centred on the

Queen Charlotte Strait , image = Canadian pilot, near Port Hardy BC.jpg , alt = , caption = A pilot boat plies Queen Charlotte Strait near Port Hardy , image_bathymetry = Locmap-QCS-Hecate-Dixon.png , alt_bathymetry = ...

coast of northern

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...

and the adjoining parts of mainland British Columbia. It has a total land area of 20,288.4 km² (7,833.4 sq mi) and a 2016 census population of 11,035 persons, most of which is in towns on Vancouver Island and adjoining islands. The administrative centre is in the

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an o ...

Port McNeill Port McNeill is a town in the North Island region of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada with a population of 2,356 (2021). Located on Vancouver Island's north-east shore on Queen Charlotte Strait, it was originally a base camp for logger ...

. Other

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...

include the

district municipality A district municipality is a designation for a class of municipalities found in several locations, including Canada, Lithuania, and South Africa. Canada British Columbia Under provincial law, municipalities in British Columbia are to be desi ...

Port Hardy Port Hardy is a district municipality in British Columbia, Canada located on the north-east end of Vancouver Island. Port Hardy has a population of 4,132 as of the last census (2016). It is the gateway to Cape Scott Provincial Park, the North ...

, the

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

Port Alice Port Alice is a village of approximately 739 (2021 census) located on Neroutsos Inlet, southwest of Port McNeill, on Vancouver Island, originally built by Whalen Pulp and Paper Mills of Vancouver. The community is known for its natural environm ...

, and the village of

Alert Bay Alert Bay is a village on Cormorant Island, near the town of Port McNeill on northeast Vancouver Island, in the Regional District of Mount Waddington, British Columbia, Canada. Demographics In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statis ...

Demographics

As a

census division Census divisions, in Canada and the United States, are areas delineated for the purposes of statistical analysis and presentation; they have no government in and of themselves. The census divisions of Canada are second-level census geographic uni ...

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 cultu ...

, the Regional District of Mount Waddington had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Municipalities

Geography

The region is named for

Mount Waddington Mount Waddington, once known as Mystery Mountain, is the highest peak in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. Although it is lower than Mount Fairweather and Mount Quincy Adams, which straddle the United States border between Ala ...

, which lies on its northeastern boundary and is the highest peak entirely within British Columbia (

Fairweather Mountain Mount Fairweather (officially gazetted as Fairweather Mountain in Canada but referred to as Mount Fairweather), is the highest mountain in the Canadian province of British Columbia, with an elevation of . It is located east of the Pacific Ocean ...

, on the

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 ...

boundary, is the highest). Also within the regional district is Mount Silverthrone, the highest volcano in

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 to ...

, located in the remote

Ha-Iltzuk Icefield The Ha-Iltzuk Icefield is an icefield in the central Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. It is the largest icefield in the Coast Mountains south of the Alaska Panhandle, with an area of . It is located on the west s ...

. The eastern land boundary of the regional district is largely the divide of the

Coast Mountains The Coast Mountains (french: La chaîne Côtière) are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the Coast of British Columbi ...

, inland from which is the

Chilcotin District The Chilcotin () region of British Columbia is usually known simply as "the Chilcotin", and also in speech commonly as "the Chilcotin Country" or simply Chilcotin. It is a plateau and mountain region in British Columbia on the inland lee of the Co ...

, which is part of the

Cariboo Regional District {{Infobox settlement , name = Cariboo , official_name = Cariboo Regional District , other_name = , native_name = , native_name_lang = , nickname = , sett ...

. The northern land boundary with the

Central Coast Regional District Central Coast Regional District is a regional district in British Columbia, Canada. It has a total land area of 24,559.5 km2 (9,482.5 sq mi). When it was created in 1968, it was known as the Ocean Falls Regional District, named for the then ...

follows a watershed boundary, separating streams that flow into Queen Charlotte Sound north of Cape Caution from those that flow into the Sound to the south or that flow into Queen Charlotte Strait. The RDMW is relatively underpopulated in comparison to other regional districts, due largely to the fact that most of its land area is rugged mountainscape or remote islands. Within its boundaries are the traditional territories of the Kwakwaka'wakw, who form a significant minority in the region and are the majority in many smaller communities. Band governments and reserve lands are not part of the governance system of the regional district, which is formed of the mayors of the towns and representatives from its electoral areas (though First Nations people living inside municipalities are eligible voters).

Sointula Sointula is an isolated village on Malcolm Island in British Columbia, Canada. Lying between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland, northeast of Port McNeill and not far from Alert Bay, the island is part of the historic and pres ...

, on

Malcolm Island Malcolm Island is an island in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located north of Haddington Island in the Queen Charlotte Strait near Vancouver Island. It has ferry access from the Vancouver Island community of Port McNeill. The islan ...

, is a historic

Finnish Canadian Finnish Canadians are Canadian citizens of Finnish ancestry or Finns who emigrated to and reside in Canada. In 2016, 143,645 Canadians claimed Finnish ancestry. Finns started coming to Canada in the early 1880s, and in much larger numbers in the ...

settlement which began life as a cooperative; a similar Danish experiment at

Cape Scott Cape Scott is a cape at the western side of the terminus of Dennistoun Glacier on the northern coast of Victoria Land in Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the ...

was a failure, although the Danish name Holberg remains in the area. Logging and fishing and associated transport and other services, in addition to tourism, are the mainstays of the economic life of the communities of the regional district.

References

Community Profile: Mount Waddington; Statistics Canada
;Specific

External links

* {{Subdivisions of British Columbia, region=yes

Mount Waddington Regional District The Regional District of Mount Waddington (RDMW) is a regional district in British Columbia. It takes in the lower British Columbia Coast, Central Coast region centred on the Queen Charlotte Strait coast of northern Vancouver Island and the adjo ...

Demographics

Municipalities

Geography

See also

References

External links