The Stewart–Cassiar Highway, also known as the Dease Lake Highway and the Stikine Highway as well as the Terrace–Kitimat Highway from Kitimat to Terrace, is the northwesternmost highway in the Canadian province of British Columbia. A scenic route through some of the province's most isolated areas, the highway first gained designation as British Columbia Highway 37 in 1975. At that time, its southern terminus was at the community of New Hazelton on the BC Highway 16. In 1979, with the completion of a new bridge, the highway's Yellowhead junction was relocated to a point on Highway 16 just south of the site of Kitwanga. Highway 37 was then extended south to Kitimat in 1986, using a stretch of road that was previously designated Highway 25. At the north end, the highway briefly stretches into Yukon, becoming Yukon Highway 37.
The Tahltan or Nahani are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group who live in northern British Columbia around Telegraph Creek, Dease Lake, and Iskut. The Tahltan constitute the fourth division of the Nahane.
Telegraph Creek is a small community located off Highway 37 in Northern British Columbia at the confluence of the Stikine River and Telegraph Creek. The only permanent settlement on the Stikine River, it is home to approximately 250 members of Tahltan First Nation and non-native residents. The town offers basic services, including Anglican and Catholic churches, a general store, a post office, a clinic with several nurses on-call around the clock, two Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers, and a K-9 school. Steep river banks and rocky gorges form the terraced nature of the geography.
Dease Lake is a small community located in the Cassiar Country of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It is located a few hours south of the Yukon border on Stewart–Cassiar Highway at the south end of the lake of the same name. Dease Lake is the last major centre before the Alaska Highway while driving north bound, and also the junction to Telegraph Creek and the Grand Canyon of the Stikine. Dease Lake Indian Reserve No. 9 is located nearby and is under the governance of the Tahltan First Nation band government.
John McLeod was a Scottish-born explorer of Canada, in his capacity as a fur trader with the North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company. He is remembered primarily for his explorations of several major rivers of the southwestern Northwest Territories, southern Yukon Territory, and northern British Columbia.
Iskut is a small, mostly Indigenous community in the Stikine Country of northwestern British Columbia. It is located on Highway 37, at the north end of Eddontenajon Lake just south of Dease Lake and the crossing of the Stikine River. The community of Eddontenajon used to be located nearby.
Todagin South Slope Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located on the west side of Todagin Creek to the east of Kinaskan Lake in the Stikine Country, to the south of the community of Dease Lake. Created in 2001, it contains c. 3557 ha.
The Interior Mountains or Northern Interior Mountains are the semi-official names for an expansive collection of mountain ranges that comprises much of the northern half of the Canadian province of British Columbia and a large area of southern Yukon.
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 is generally defined to include the 14 regional districts that do not have coastline along the Pacific Ocean or Salish Sea, and are not part of the Lower Mainland. Other boundaries may exclude parts of or even entire regional districts, or expand the definition to include the regional districts of Fraser Valley, Squamish–Lillooet, and Kitimat–Stikine.
Level Mountain is a large volcanic complex in the Northern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It is located 50 km (31 mi) north-northwest of Telegraph Creek and 60 km (37 mi) west of Dease Lake on the Nahlin Plateau. With a maximum elevation of 2,164 m (7,100 ft), it is the second-highest of four large complexes in an extensive north–south trending volcanic region. Much of the mountain is gently-sloping; when measured from its base, Level Mountain is about 1,100 m (3,600 ft) tall, slightly taller than its neighbour to the northwest, Heart Peaks. The lower, broader half of Level Mountain consists of a shield-like structure while its upper half has a more steep, jagged profile. Its broad summit is dominated by the Level Mountain Range, a small mountain range with prominent peaks cut by deep valleys. These valleys serve as a radial drainage for several small streams that flow from the mountain. Meszah Peak is the only named peak in the Level Mountain Range.
The Stikine Country, also referred to as the Stikine District or simply "the Stikine", is one of the historical geographic regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia, located inland from the central Alaska Panhandle and comprising the basin of the Stikine River and its tributaries. The term Stikine–Iskut is also fairly common to describe the area, and references the Iskut River, the Stikine's largest tributary and describable as its south fork.
The Cassiar Country, also referred to simply as the Cassiar, is a historical geographic region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The Cassiar is located in the northwest portion of British Columbia, just to the northeast of the Stikine Country, while to the south is the Omineca Country. The area is noted for the Cassiar gold rush of the 1870s, when Laketon became its unofficial capital. The ghost town of Cassiar is also located in the Cassiar region.
The Stikine Plateau is a plateau in northern British Columbia, Canada. It lies between the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains on the west and southwest and the Cassiar Mountains along its northeast, and between the Skeena Mountains on its south and southeast and the Jennings and Nakina Rivers on the north.
The Three Sisters Range is a subrange of the Stikine Ranges, located northwest of junction of the Stikine and McBride Rivers in northern British Columbia, Canada and to the southeast of the community of Dease Lake.
Dark Mountain, formerly also known as Black Mountain, is a mountain in the Tanzilla Plateau of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, located northeast of the settlement of Dease Lake, near Cry Lake.
The Tanzilla Plateau is a plateau in the Stikine Country of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It is a sub-plateau of the Stikine Plateau and is located east of the Tuya River, north of the Stikine River and surrounding Dease Lake; its eastern extremity verges on the Stikine Ranges of the Cassiar Mountains at Dark Mountain and Pyramid Mountain. The Spatsizi Plateau is to the southeast, the Klastline Plateau to the south, the Tahltan Highland to the west and southwest, and the Kawdy Plateau to the west and northwest. All are also sub-plateaus of the Stikine Plateau.
Fort Stikine was a fur trade post and fortification in what is now the Alaska Panhandle, at the site of the present-day of Wrangell, Alaska, United States. Originally built as the Redoubt San Dionisio or Redoubt Saint Dionysius in 1834, the site was transferred to the British-owned Hudson's Bay Company as part of a lease signed in the region in 1838, and renamed Fort Stikine when turned into a Hudson's Bay Company post in 1839. The post was closed and decommissioned by 1843 but the name remained for the large village of the Stikine people which had grown around it, becoming known as Shakesville in reference to its ruling Chief Shakes by the 1860s. With the Alaska Purchase of 1867, the fortification became occupied by the US Army and was renamed Fort Wrangel, a reference to Baron von Wrangel, who had been Governor of Russian America when the fort was founded. The site today is now part of the city of Wrangell.
The Cottonwood River is a tributary of the Dease River in the Cassiar Country of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Rising in the northern Stikine Ranges just east of Toozaza Peak, and just south of the origins of the Jennings and Little Rancheria River near the border with Yukon, it flows south along the east flank of the Tuya Range to meet the Dease just north of that river's source at Dease Lake, between the north end of that lake and McDame Creek and the former mining centre and community of McDame Post.
The Tuya River is a major tributary of the Stikine River in northwest part of the province of British Columbia, Canada. From its source at High Tuya Lake in Tuya Mountains Provincial Park just south of Ash Mountain, the highest peak of the Tuya Range, the Tuya River flows south about 200 km (120 mi) to meet the Stikine River in the Grand Canyon of the Stikine. The Tuya River's main tributary is the Little Tuya River. The Tuya River divides the Tanzilla Plateau on the east from the Kawdy Plateau, to the northwest, and the Nahlin Plateau, to the southwest. All three are considered sub-plateaus of the Stikine Plateau. The Tuya River's watershed covers 3,575 km2 (1,380 sq mi), and its mean annual discharge is estimated at 36.9 m3/s (1,300 cu ft/s). The mouth of the Tuya River is located about 24 km (15 mi) northeast of Telegraph Creek, British Columbia, about 67 km (42 mi) southwest of Dease Lake, British Columbia, and about 210 km (130 mi) east of Juneau, Alaska. The Tuya River's watershed's land cover is classified as 35.7% shrubland, 31.4% conifer forest, 14.0% mixed forest, 7.2% herbaceous, and small amounts of other cover.
The Stikine Region is an unincorporated area in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is the only area in the province that is not part of a regional district. The Stikine Region was left unincorporated following legislation that established the province's regional districts in 1968 and is not classified as a regional district. It contains no municipal governments which normally constitute the majority of seats on the boards of regional districts. There is only one local planning area, the Atlin Community Planning Area, which was combined in 2009 with the Atlin Community Improvement District to provide fire, landfill, water, streetlighting, sidewalks and advisory land use services. All other services not provided privately are administered directly by various provincial government ministries. The area around Dease Lake, formerly in the Stikine Region, is now within the boundaries of the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine following a boundary amendment in 2008.
