Brackendale is a small community in the

Canadian province Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Canada, Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North Amer ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

just north of Squamish town centre, but still within the District of Squamish. It is located near the confluence of the

Squamish River The Squamish River is a short but very large river in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Its drainage basin is in size. The total length of the Squamish River is approximately . Course The Squamish River drains a complex of basins in the ...

and the

Cheakamus River The Cheakamus River (pron. CHEEK-a-mus) is a tributary of the Squamish River, beginning at the terminus of McBride Glacier on Mount Sir Richard in Garibaldi Provincial Park upstream from Cheakamus Lake on the southeastern outskirts of the res ...

. It is intersected primarily by Government Road and Depot Road. The CN railway (formerly

BC Rail The British Columbia Railway Company , commonly known as BC Rail, is a railway in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Chartered as a private company in 1912 as the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE), it was acquired by the provincial ...

) traverses it north–south. It includes the remarkable "Eagle Run" area, the wintering home of thousands of

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 ...

Climate

The

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

of Brackendale is dry in the summertime and mild and damp in the winter. The coastal maritime climate is moderated by nearby

Howe Sound Howe Sound (, ) is a roughly triangular sound (geography), sound, that joins a network of fjords situated immediately northwest of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2021. Geography Howe Sound ...

, but outflow winds from the

British Columbia Interior The British Columbia Interior, popularly referred to as the BC Interior or simply the Interior, is a geographic region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. While the exact boundaries are variously defined, the British Columbia Interior ...

via the Whistler Valley and the many large ice caps in the

Pacific Ranges The Pacific Ranges are the southernmost subdivision of the Coast Mountains portion of the Pacific Cordillera. Located entirely within British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada, they run northwest from the lower stretches of the Fraser River to B ...

are so fierce that winds of this type are sometimes known as squamish winds.

History

Brackendale was named for Thomas Hirst Bracken, Brackendale's first postmaster, who also operated a general store and the Bracken Arms Hotel. When the hotel burned down he returned to England and died there. Brackendale is served by two schools in the Sea to Sky School District (#48); Brackendale Elementary School and Don Ross Middle School. It is the location of the Squamish airport (CYSE), with a runway long enough to handle light planes and helicopters. The Brackendale Art Gallery, owned by artists Thor and Dorte Froslev, is a major cultural institution in the region, featuring local artists and visiting exhibitions. The couple put the aging building up for sale in 2015, but as of 2018, no interested parties had stepped forward to purchase it. Some have argued that the building should be purchased by the district and made public.

External links

Brackendale Art GalleryBrackendale Eagles Provincial Park

References

{{BritishColumbia Populated places in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Squamish, British Columbia