Arm (geography)

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Shuswap Lake in British Columbia with its three arms ShuswapArms.png
Shuswap Lake in British Columbia with its three arms

In geography, an arm is a narrow extension, inlet, or smaller reach, of water flowing out from a much larger body of water, such as an ocean, a sea, or a lake. Although different geographically, a sound or bay may also be called an arm.

Both the tributary and distributary of a river are sometimes called an "arm". By extension, a canal arm is a subsidiary branch of a canal or inland waterway. A number of place names are derived from this term, such as Salmon Arm, Indian Arm and Alice Arm.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal</span> Canal in Greater Manchester, England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendover Arm Canal</span>

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Portland Inlet is an inlet of the Pacific Ocean on the north coast of British Columbia, Canada, approximately 55 km (34 mi) north of Prince Rupert. It joins Chatham Sound opposite the Dixon Entrance. It is 4 km (2.5 mi) long and as much as 13 km (8.1 mi) wide. It drains the Portland Canal, Nass Bay, and Khutzeymateen Inlet, among others, and is the site of Pearse Island and Somerville Island. Other major sidewaters of the inlet are Observatory Inlet and its east arm, Alice Arm.

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Observatory Inlet is an inlet on the North Coast of British Columbia. It is a northward extension of Portland Inlet, other branches of which include the Portland Canal. The entrance of Observatory Inlet, from Portland Inlet, lies between Ramsden Point and Nass Point. Ramsden Point also marks, to the west, the entrance of Portland Canal. Observatory Inlet was named by George Vancouver in 1793, because he set up his observatory on the shore of the inlet, at Salmon Cove, in order to calibrate his chronometers. His two vessels, HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham, stayed in Salmon Cove from July 23 to August 17, 1793. During this time a boat surveying expedition under Vancouver himself explored Behm Canal. Vancouver also named three headlands at the entrance of Observatory Inlet: Maskelyne Point, for Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal, Wales Point, for William Wales, the mathematical master who sailed with James Cook, and Ramsden Point, after the famed mathematical instrument-maker Jesse Ramsden.

The Kitsault River is a river on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada, located at the head of Alice Arm, which is the east arm of Observatory Inlet, which is itself an arm of Portland Inlet. Located at the mouth of the river are the localities of Alice Arm, Kitsault and Gits'oohl, a community of the Nisga'a people which was the Gitzault Indian Reserve No. 24 prior to the Nisga'a Treaty.

Hastings Arm is a fjord on the North Coast of British Columbia, which is the northwest arm of Observatory Inlet, one of the two main branchings of Portland Inlet, the other being the better-known Portland Canal, which forms part of the Canada–United States border. Hastings Arm is approximately 30 km (19 mi) in length from the divergence of Observatory Inlet near the former smelting town of Anyox, where a 25 km (16 mi) east arm, Alice Arm, branches off towards its head at the mouth of the Kitsault River. This divergence is approximately 50 km (31 mi) from the mouth of Observatory Inlet itself, near Nass Bay, which is the outer part of the estuary of the Nass River. At the head of Hastings Arm is the mouth of the Kshwan River, and the Nisga'a village-site of Kswan.