Stewart is a district municipality at the head of the

Portland Canal Portland Canal is an arm of Portland Inlet, one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. It is approximately long. The Portland Canal forms part of the border between southeastern Alaska and British Columbia. The name of the enti ...

in northwestern

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 ...

, Canada, near the Alaskan panhandle. In 2021, it had a population of 517.

History

The Nisga'a, who live around the Nass River, called the head of Portland Canal , meaning "safe house" or "strong house", probably because it served them as a retreat from the harassment of the Haida and Tlingit from the outer coast. They travelled in the area seasonally to pick berries and hunt birds. It and the rest of the Portland Canal had previously been the domain of the Tsetsaut people, also called the Skam-a-Kounst Indians, or in Nisga'a, an Athapaskan people who became decimated by war and disease and were driven out of the Stewart area by either Haida or Nisga'a in 1856–57. The Portland Canal was first explored and named in July 1793 by Captain

George Vancouver Captain (Royal Navy), Captain George Vancouver (; 22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for leading the Vancouver Expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern West Coast of the Uni ...

in honour of

William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (14 April 173830 October 1809) was a British Whigs (British political party), Whig and then a Tories (British political party), Tory politician during the late Georgian era. He s ...

(1738–1808), Home Secretary from 1794 to 1801. Vancouver met two friendly native people at the current site of Stewart. The area around the Portland Canal was again explored in 1896 by Captain D.D. Gaillard of the

United States Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wo ...

(after whom the Gaillard Cut in the Panama Canal was later named). Two years after Gaillard's visit, the first prospectors and settlers arrived. Among them was D. J. Raine, for whom a creek and a mountain in the area are named. The Stewart brothers arrived in 1902. In 1905, Robert M. Stewart, the first postmaster, named the town Stewart.

Gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

and

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

mining dominated the early economy. Nearby Hyder,

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

, boomed with the discovery of rich silver veins in the upper Salmon River basin in 1917 and 1918. Hyder became an access and supply point for the mines, while Stewart served as the port for Canadian mining activity, which was centred on the town of Premier, which was accessed by a road from Hyder. Other mines in the area were the Jumbo, BC Silver, Red Cliff, and Porter-Idaho. More large camps were south of Stewart at Anyox and Maple Bay. Disney's '' Eight Below'', starring Paul Walker and Jason Biggs, was partially filmed here. The exterior shots from

John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, composer, and actor. Most commonly associated with horror film, horror, action film, action, and science fiction film, science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s, he is ...

's science fiction classic '' The Thing'' were filmed within Salmon Glacier.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), 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 culture. It is headquartered in ...

, Stewart had a population of 517 living in 256 of its 337 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 401. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Transportation

Stewart is accessible by highway from the British Columbia highway system, via Highway 37A, by boat through the

, or by air through Stewart Airport.

Location

West of Stewart is Hyder, Alaska, which is only from the town. Northwest of Stewart, and accessible only by way of Hyder, is Premier, British Columbia, notable for being in Canada, but accessible only through a portion of the United States that is accessible only from Canada. East of the town is Meziadin Junction, which is from the town. Also east is Kitwanga, British Columbia, which is located from the town, and Dease Lake, British Columbia, which is located north of Stewart. It is the northernmost point on Canada's Pacific coast.

Climate

Stewart has a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers, and cold ...

(''Dfb''), with about per year of precipitation, much of it as snow, and an average yearly temperature of , according to Environment Canada.

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 ...

�
Canadian Climate Normals 1981–2010
accessed 16 July 2014 Stewart is Canada's most northerly ice-free port. Due to its proximity to the ocean, the climate retains strong maritime influences, with winters being far milder than locations farther inland. With an average of 985 hours of annual sunshine, Stewart is one of the cloudiest places in the world.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control District municipalities in British Columbia Ghost towns in British Columbia Populated places in the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine Stewart Country