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 entire inlet in the Nisga'a language is ', with meaning "at the back of (someplace)". The upper end of the inlet was home to the Tsetsaut ( in Nisgaʼa), who after being decimated by war and disease were taken under the protection of the Laxsgiik (Eagle) chief of the Nisgaʼa, who holds the inlet's title in native law.
Despite its naming as a canal, the inlet is a fjord, a completely natural and not man-made geographic feature, and extends northward from the Portland Inlet at Pearse Island, British Columbia, to Stewart, British Columbia, and Hyder, Alaska. Observatory Inlet joins the Portland Canal at Ramsden Point, where both merge with Portland Inlet. Pearse Canal joins Portland Canal at the north end of Pearse Island.
Portland Canal was given its name by George Vancouver in 1793, in honour of William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland. a term used as forming the marine boundary in the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1825 but which was undefined at the time.
See also
- Granduc Mine