Douglas Channel is one of the principal

inlets An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In marine geogra ...

of the British Columbia Coast. Its official length from the head of

Kitimat Arm Kitimat is a district municipality in the North Coast region of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine regional government. The Kitimat Valley is part of the most populous urban distri ...

, where the aluminum smelter town of

Kitimat Kitimat is a district municipality in the North Coast region of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine regional government. The Kitimat Valley is part of the most populous urban distr ...

Wright Sound Wright Sound is a waterway on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada. Wright Sound is south of Prince Rupert and lies at the southern opening of Grenville Channel and between Gil, Gribbell and Pitt Islands. The small town of Hartley Bay s ...

, on the

Inside Passage The Inside Passage (french: Passage Intérieur) 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 southeaste ...

ferry route, is . The actual length of the

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Förden and East Jutland Fjorde, Germany, ...

's waterway includes waters between there and the open waters of the

Hecate Strait , image = HecateStrait(PittIsland).JPG , image_size = 260px , alt = , caption = Hecate Strait and Pitt Island , image_bathymetry = Loc-QCS-Hecate-Dixon.png , alt_bathymetry = , caption ...

outside the coastal archipelago, comprising another for in total.

Geography

The

Kitimat River The Kitimat River is a river in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It originates in the Kitimat Ranges, near the sources of the Dala River, Kemano River, Atna River, and Clore River. It flows in a curve north, then west, then south, emptyi ...

flows into the Kitimat Arm portion of Douglas Channel. The channel is named in honour of

Sir James Douglas James Douglas may refer to: Scottish noblemen Lords of Angus * James Douglas, 3rd Earl of Angus (1426–1446), Scottish nobleman * James Douglas, Earl of Angus (1671–1692), son of the 2nd Marquess of Douglas Lords of Douglas * James Douglas, ...

, the first governor of the

Colony of British Columbia The Colony of British Columbia refers to one of two colonies of British North America, located on the Pacific coast of modern-day Canada: *Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866) *Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871) See also *History of Br ...

. A major side-inlet, the

Gardner Canal The Gardner Canal is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. Technically a side-inlet of the larger Douglas Channel, the Gardner Canal is still in length in its own right; total length of the waterways converging on the Douglas ...

, is in length, and is accessed from the Kitimat Arm of Douglas Channel via Devastation Channel (), which is on the east side of

Hawkesbury Island Hawkesbury Island is an island in British Columbia, Canada. It is located in Douglas Channel, one of the major fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords ...

. South of Hawkesbury is Varney Passage (), which has a sidechannel, Ursula Passage (). Total waterway length of the

dominated by Douglas Channel is therefore, not counting smaller side-inlets, , longer than

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

Sognefjord The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, en, Sogn Fjord), nicknamed the King of the Fjords ( no, Fjordenes konge), is the largest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the smal ...

() and rivalling

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

Scoresby Sound Scoresby Sound (Danish: ''Scoresby Sund'', Greenlandic: ''Kangertittivaq'') is a large fjord system of the Greenland Sea on the eastern coast of Greenland. It has a tree-like structure, with a main body approximately 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 ...

's total of .

Industry

Douglas Channel is a busy shipping artery because of the

methanol Methanol (also called methyl alcohol and wood spirit, amongst other names) is an organic chemical and the simplest aliphatic alcohol, with the formula C H3 O H (a methyl group linked to a hydroxyl group, often abbreviated as MeOH). It is a ...

import terminal (formerly methanol production and export) and the

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...

smelter at Kitimat, as

bauxite Bauxite is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)) and diaspore (α-AlO ...

must be shipped in and smelted aluminum shipped out. Recently announced (2005) plans will see a major expansion of the port of Kitimat as a container and bulk resources port, augmenting the port capacity of the British Columbia's North Coast currently a monopoly of the city of nearby Prince Rupert. The methanol production and export plant closed in 2006. Douglas Channel will be subject due to new sensitive ship traffic when the

LNG Canada LNG Canada is a large industrial energy project that will build and operate a terminal for the liquefaction, storage, and loading of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the port of Kitimat, British Columbia, Canada. It will export LNG produced by the ...

natural gas storage and liquefaction terminal will be completed and operational, which is estimated to be in 2025. The project, led by an

liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the vol ...

(LNG) subsidiary of

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...

and several Asian partners and finally approved on October 1, 2018, will see large

LNG carrier An LNG carrier is a tank ship designed for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG). History The first LNG carrier '' Methane Pioneer'' () carrying , classed by Bureau Veritas, left the Calcasieu River on the Louisiana Gulf coast on 25 January ...

ships loading liquefied natural gas at the future Kitimat LNG terminal, to carry it to export destinations, mainly in Asia. The

is important for being the location of the

Kemano Kemano was a settlement situated 75 km (47 mi) southeast of Kitimat in the province of British Columbia in Canada. It was built to service a hydroelectric power station, built to provide energy for Alcan to smelt aluminum from its ore. ...

Generating Station of the

Nechako Diversion Nechako may refer to: *Nechako River in British Columbia *Nechako Plateau *Nechako Country *Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako, British Columbia *Nechako Reservoir * Nechako Diversion * Nechako, British Columbia, a neighbourhood in Kitimat, Britis ...

, which was built to supply power for

. The head of the Gardner Canal, also, is the mouth of the

Kitlope River The Kitlope River is a river in the Kitimat Ranges in the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada, flowing north for ,Length measured using Google Maps path tool, BCGNIS coordinates, topographic maps, anTopoQuest into the head of the Gardner Canal ...

, a major wildlife and wilderness preserve and area of outstanding natural beauty and harsh weather.

References

Fjords of British Columbia North Coast of British Columbia Channels of British Columbia {{BritishColumbiaCoast-geo-stub