Banks Island, British Columbia
| Banks Island | ||
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| Waters | Hecate Street | |
| Geographical location | 53 ° 24 ′ N , 130 ° 8 ′ W | |
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| length | 72 km | |
| width | 18 km | |
| surface | 1 005 km² | |
| Highest elevation | 536 m | |
Banks Island ( Haida Ḵaa'al ) is an island on the coast of the Canadian province of British Columbia . It is located south of Prince Rupert and east of the Hecate Strait across from the Haida Gwaii archipelago . The larger islands to the east of Banks Island across the Principe Channel are Pitt Island and McCauley Island. In the southeast is the small island group Estevan Group , behind it the Caamaño Sund .
Banks Island is 45 miles long and between 6 miles and 11 miles wide. It has an area of 1,053.6 km². The highest point reaches 655 m. The island is in the North Coast Regional District .
Banks Island was named in 1788 by Charles Duncan, captain of the Princess Royal slup used in the fur trade , in honor of Joseph Banks , who was then President of the Royal Society and who accompanied James Cook on his voyages of discovery from 1768–1771. Banks was instrumental in promoting British fur trade trips to the Pacific Northwest , like the Duncan's trip.
history
In late August 1787, British fur traders James Colnett and Charles Duncan came to Banks Island. They anchored with their two ships Prince of Wales and Princess Royal at the southwest end of Banks Island in Calamity Bay (which they called Port Ball). The ships stayed there for eleven weeks for repairs. During this time there were a number of first-time encounters between the British and some of the previously uncontacted Kitkatla Tsimshian . Because of the different conceptions of property rights, conflicts arose between the British and Tsimshian. When the Tsimshian tried to compensate for misconduct by the Europeans through theft, the British responded with the use of muskets, pistols and cannons to defend their equipment and to educate the Tsimshian to submission. Some Tsimshians were killed, wounded and captured. Also during their time at Calamity Bay, the British explored the region's complex waterways by boat, including the Principe Channel , Douglas Channel and Laredo Sound . In the course of these explorations, the first significant maps of this stretch of coast were created.
The Spanish explorer Jacinto Caamaño explored the region in 1792 and crossed the Principe Channel with the corvette Aranzazu . Caamaño relied on the maps made by Colnett. The incompletely explored bays on the maps prompted the Viceroy of New Spain to order a voyage of discovery, which was transferred to Caamaño. During his trip, Caamaño had intensive contact with the Tsimshians of Pitt Island and Banks Island during a month-long stay at the southern end of Pitt Island.
Web links
- Banks Island . In: BC Geographical Names (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hlgaagilda Xaayda Kil words. In: FirstVoices. First Peoples' Cultural Council, accessed March 9, 2015 .
- ^ Island Directory. (No longer available online.) In: UN System-Wide Earthwatch Web Site. July 20, 1988, archived from the original on February 12, 2015 ; Retrieved March 9, 2015 (English, differences compared to information in the Columbia Gazetteer).
- ^ Banks Island , The Columbia Gazetteer of North America
- ^ The Atlas of Canada. Sea Islands. (No longer available online.) Natural Resources Canada, archived from the original January 22, 2013 ; accessed on March 10, 2015 (area: 990 km²).
- ^ Andrew Scott: The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names: A Complete Reference to Coastal British Columbia . Harbor Publishing, Madeira Park, BC 2009, ISBN 978-1-55017-484-7 , pp. 58 (English).
- ^ A b James Colnett: A Voyage to the North West Side of America: The Journals of James Colnett, 1786-89 . Ed .: Robert Michael Galois. University of British Columbia (UBC) Press, Vancouver 2003, ISBN 978-0-7748-0855-2 , pp. 14, 19, 27, 47, 69 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed March 9, 2015]).
- ^ Gil Island . In: BC Geographical Names (English)