Geography | |
---|---|
Location | Pacific Ocean |
Coordinates | 50°48′09″N128°46′46″W / 50.80250°N 128.77944°W |
Major islands | 5 |
Administration | |
Province | British Columbia |
The Scott Islands are a group of islands located off the northwestern point of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
The Scott Islands are located about 10 kilometres (6.4 miles) off of Cape Scott Provincial Park. The chain consists of Lanz Island, Cox Island, Sartine Island, Beresford Island, and Triangle Island, along with several smaller islets and rocks.
The Scott Islands are notable for their large Seabird populations, including Thick-billed murres, Tufted puffins, Marbled murrelets, and 55% of the world's breeding population of Cassin's auklets. [1] They are also notable for their large populations of Steller sea lions and Rockfish. Sea otters have recently re-colonized the islands. The islands are located in Usda zone 9b, the warmest usda zone in Canada.
Lanz and Cox islands are both protected by Lanz and Cox Islands Provincial Park, which is open to the public. Sartine, Triangle, and Beresford are all ecological reserves, which are closed to the public. The waters surrounding the islands are protected by Scott Islands Marine National Wildlife Area.
Galiano Island is one of the Southern Gulf Islands located between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Located on the west side of the Strait of Georgia, the island is bordered by Mayne Island to the southeast, Salt Spring Island to the west and Valdes Island to the northwest. Galiano is part of the Capital Regional District Electoral Area G, and has a permanent population of 1,396 inhabitants as of 2021.
Sechelt is a district municipality located on the lower Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. Approximately 50 km northwest of Vancouver, it is accessible from mainland British Columbia by a 40-minute ferry trip between Horseshoe Bay and Langdale, and a 25-minute drive from Langdale along Highway 101, also known as the Sunshine Coast Highway. The name Sechelt is derived from the she shashishalhem word shíshálh, the name of the First Nations people who first settled the area thousands of years ago.
Broughton Archipelago Provincial Park is the largest marine provincial park located in British Columbia, Canada. The park is located in the Queen Charlotte Strait around 30 kilometres (19 mi) east of Port McNeill, a town situated on Vancouver Island. In terms of its functions, the park offers tourism opportunities such as kayaking and whale watching, preserves a wide array of wildlife including many at-risk species, and has a long history of use by First Nation peoples.
Brackendale Eagles Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located on the Squamish River adjacent to Brackendale, a suburban neighbourhood of Squamish. It is notable for its bald eagle population during the winter months and is inaccessible to visitors.
Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park, originally Carmanah Pacific Provincial Park, is a remote wilderness park located inside traditional Ditidaht First Nation ancestral territory. The park covers a land area of 16,450 ha (63.5 sq mi) immediately adjacent to Pacific Rim National Park Reserve's West Coast Trail on the south-western, coastal terrain of Vancouver Island. The provincial park comprises the entire drainage of Carmanah Creek, and a good portion of the lower Walbran River drainage, both of which independently empty into the Pacific Ocean. The park is named after the Anglicized diitiid?aatx word kwaabaaduw7aa7tx, or Carmanah, meaning "as far up as a canoe can go" and John Thomas Walbran, a colonial explorer and ship's captain. Access to the park is by gravel logging road from Port Alberni, Lake Cowichan, or Port Renfrew.
Flores Island Marine Provincial Park, also known as Flores Island Provincial Park, is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located on the island of the same name in the central Clayoquot Sound region of the West Coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The park contains 7113 ha. and was created on July 13, 1995, as part of the Clayoqout Land-Use Decision. Gibson Marine Provincial Park, which was created in 1967, adjoins it to the southeast. Sulphur Passage Provincial Park is off the northeast coast of Flores Island, surrounding Obstruction Island.
Lanz and Cox Islands Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. It is located off Cape Scott on northern Vancouver Island.
MacMillan Provincial Park is a 301-hectare (740-acre) provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. Located 25 km (16 mi) west of Qualicum Beach and 16 km (9.9 mi) east of Port Alberni, the park straddles Highway 4 and the Island Rail Corridor in central Vancouver Island. It is nestled on the western shore of Cameron Lake, and protects the delta of the Cameron River. The park is home to a famous, 157-hectare (390-acre) stand of ancient Douglas fir, known as Cathedral Grove, which draws visitors from all over the world. The park provides the only highway-accessible protected old-growth Douglas-fir forest in British Columbia. In 2007 Cathedral Grove made the short list on CBC's competition Seven Wonders of Canada.
Mitlenatch Island Nature Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada encompassing Mitlenatch Island, a small islet in the northern Strait of Georgia within the Strathcona Regional District.
Mount Maxwell Provincial Park is a provincial park in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, Canada. It is located on Burgoyne Bay and the Sansum Narrows on the western shores of Saltspring Island.
Pink Mountain Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada.
Sooke Mountain Provincial Park is a Class B provincial park located at the southern end of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. The park was established on June 25, 1928, to protect local wildlife and preserve the scenic wilderness of the area. Sooke Mountain is now part of the larger Sea to Sea Green Blue Belt surrounding Greater Victoria.
Tantalus Provincial Park is a provincial park located in the Tantalus Range overlooking Squamish Valley in British Columbia, Canada. It was established on December 19, 1998 to protect a large area of pristine alpine wilderness.
SG̱ang Gwaay Llnagaay, commonly known by its English name Ninstints, is a village site of the Haida people and part of the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site on Haida Gwaii on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada.
The Pacific North Coast Integrated Management Area is one of five Large Ocean Management Areas (LOMAs), areas of high ecological, social and economic importance, that have been identified by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) as priority regions for marine planning as part of Canada’s Oceans Action Plan.
The Lucy Islands are a small archipelago off the North Coast of the province of British Columbia in Canada. The low-lying and heavily forested group, named after its largest island, Lucy Island, constitutes a provincially protected conservancy area that contains some of the North Coast's oldest archeological sites, a nationally significant seabird population, and a prominent 20th-century lighthouse.
Triangle Island is a small island, approximately 119 hectares in area, located off the northwestern tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. It is situated approximately 45 kilometres from Vancouver Island and 10 kilometres from Sartine Island, Triangle Island's nearest neighbour in the Scott Islands group. The island is notable for being the location of British Columbia's largest seabird colony, hosting such species as the Cassin's auklet and the tufted puffin. The Cassin's auklet population is the world's largest. The island is administratively a part of the Scott Islands Marine Wildlife Area and is more specifically home to the Anne Vallée Triangle Island Ecological Reserve, named after a researcher who frequented the island and died there in an accident in 1982. Visiting the island requires permits from the British Columbia Ministry of Environment, and it is usually frequented only by researchers. It is the westernmost and most remote island in British Columbia, save for Haida Gwaii, which is off the coast of northern British Columbia. The island takes its name from its triangular appearance on sea navigation charts.
Solander Island Ecological Reserve is a 7.7 ha protected area on an island 1.5 km (0.9 mi) west of Brooks Peninsula Provincial Park off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It was established in 1971. The reserve is closed to the public to protect the habitat of nesting seabirds.
Boreal woodland caribou(Rangifer tarandus caribou) are a species of caribou and subspecies of North American reindeer. Boreal woodland caribou are also known as southern mountain caribou, woodland caribou, and forest-dwelling caribou. Mountain caribou are uniquely adapted to live in old-growth forests. The mountain caribou diet consists of tree-dwelling lichens predominantly. They are unique in this aspect as in the far northern regions of their habitat zones, the snowpack is shallow enough that the boreal woodland caribou can paw through the snow to eat the ground-dwelling lichens. In the inland Pacific Northwest Rainforests of eastern British Columbia, where the snowpack can reach upwards of five meters, the mountain caribou rely predominantly on the tree-dwelling lichens such as Bryoria spp. and Alectoria spp., hanging above the snowpack. As a result, these mountain caribou are reliant upon the old growth forests, which have been logged for centuries and continue to dwindle.
Scott Islands Marine National Wildlife Area is a National Wildlife Area off the northwestern tip of Vancouver Island in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Covering an area of 11,570.65 km2 (4,467.45 sq mi), it is the second largest protected area in British Columbia after Offshore Pacific Seamounts and Vents Closure and is the largest national wildlife area in Canada.