Skeena
Skeena is a mapped river in the YearMaps hydrographic index. River courses organise settlement, agriculture and frontier-making more durably than any political boundary, and this reach is indexed against the dams, lakes and cities within its catchment.
- Feature Class
- River
- Coordinates
- 55.79°, -127.96°
About Skeena
The Skeena River is the second-longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada (after the Fraser River). Since ancient times, the Skeena has been an important transportation artery, particularly for the Tsimshian and the Gitxsan—whose names mean "inside the River of Mist", and "people of the River of Mist", respectively. The river and its basin sustain a wide variety of fish, wildlife, and vegetation, and communities native to the area depend on the health of the river. The Tsimshian migrated to the Lower Skeena River, and the Gitxsan occupy territory of the Upper Skeena.
During the Omineca Gold Rush, steamboat services ran from the sea to Hazelton, which was the jumping-off point for the trails to the goldfields. The Hudson's Bay Company established a major trading post north of the Skeena at what became called Port Simpson, British Columbia (Lax Kw'alaams), where nine tribes of the Tsimshian nation settled about 1834. Other tribes live elsewhere in BC, and descendants of one group in Metlakatla, Alaska.
Encyclopedic summary adapted from Wikipedia: Skeena River (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Skeena in Depth
Geography
The Skeena originates south of the Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Provincial Park in north western British Columbia, forming a divide with the Klappan River, a tributary of the Stikine River. It flows for 570 kilometres (350 miles) before it empties into Chatham Sound, Telegraph Passage and Ogden Channel, east of the Dixon Entrance, all part of the Pacific Ocean. The Skeena drains 54,400 square kilometres (21,000 square miles) of land with a mean annual discharge of 1,760 cubic metres per second (62,000 cu ft/s).
The Skeena River originates at the southern end of Spatsizi Plateau, in a valley between Mount Gunanoot and Mount Thule, south of the Stikine River watershed. The abandoned track of BC Rail's Dease Lake Extension runs along the river in its upper course.
History
The Skeena River watershed is the ancient homeland of the Tsimshian, Gitxsan, and Wet'suwet'en people.
During the 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic thousands of indigenous people were evicted from large semi-permanent camps near Victoria and forced to return to their homelands, spreading smallpox throughout the Pacific Northwest coast. Groups of Tsimshian thus brought smallpox from Victoria to the Fort Simpson area, whence it spread widely starting in June 1862. Through the summer indigenous people arrived regularly at the fort to trade, contributing to the spread of smallpox throughout the Northern Coast, up the Skeena River and the Nass River into the British Columbia interior, devastating the Wetʼsuwetʼen and other interior First Nations.
Sections adapted from Wikipedia: Skeena River (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Skeena: Key Facts
| Length | 579 km |
|---|---|
| Average discharge | 2,157 m³/s |
| Drainage basin | 54,400 km² |
| Mouth | Chatham Sound |
| Tributaries | Sustut River, Babine River, Bulkley River, Kitseguecla River, Zymoetz River, Kispiox River, Kitwanga River, Kitsumkalum River |
Facts from Wikidata Q2291822 (CC0).
Major River Dossiers
Hand-written studies of the great river systems of history.
Connected Reaches
Nearby watercourses in the same drainage network.
Water Bodies in the Catchment
Settlements Along the Reach
Hydraulic Infrastructure Nearby
Surrounding Terrain
Skeena: Quick Answers
- Where is Skeena?
- Skeena is located in Canada, at 55.7908° N, 127.9595° W.
- Are there dams on the Skeena?
- No dam on the Skeena is recorded in the YearMaps dam index, which covers major structures only.