The Bella Coola Valley

Nested in the heart of the Coast Mountains, the Bella Coola Valley is an undiscovered natural paradise. Offering outdoor adventures in a spectacular setting, this beautiful valley is renowned for hiking, fishing and a relaxed atmosphere. Abundant wildlife, giant cedars, mountains and glacial waterfalls grace the landscape. The Bella Coola River winds along the valley floor through historic settlements and farms. The Bella Coola Valley is 80 km (50 mi) long and is home to the friendly communities of Hagensborg and Bella Coola. These communities are 15 minutes apart from each other and both offer a full range of amenities and services.

A Brief History

For generations the Nuxalkmc have occupied the Bella Coola Valley amidst the magnificent mountains and lush forests of the central coast of British Columbia. Their aboriginal culture, rich in material and ceremonial wealth, was first encountered by Europeans in 1793, when explorer Alexander Mackenzie, his voyageurs, and native guides completed the first recorded crossing of North America. Seven weeks prior to Mackenzie’s visit, Captain George Vancouver’s surveyors had charted North Bentinck Arm. Traveling the historic Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail, Mackenzie’s party preceded the American government-financed Lewis and Clark expedition by twelve years.

From 1848 onwards, Bella Coola was a busy port and supply centre for the Interior. In 1867 the Hudson’s Bay Company established a trading post in Bella Coola. By 1892, sixteen non-native residents had settled in the Valley; two years later homesteads were granted to a large group of Norwegian-speaking colonists – many of whom became the first commercial loggers, fishermen and farmers in the area. The seeds of future tourism were sown in 1938, with the opening of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park: the largest in B.C.

Through the first half of the twentieth century Bella Coola remained isolated from the rest of the province. Local labour and volunteer effort changed this in 1953, when the “Freedom Road” was pushed over the mountains to Anahim Lake. Now connected to the provincial highway system, the Valley became the “Third Outlet to the Pacific”.

Conservation

The topography of the area is extremely varied. East of the park near Anahim Lake, the Interior Plateau abruptly gives way, at an elevation of about 1,350 metres, to peaks of the Rainbow Range. The range--Tsitsutl, meaning "painted mountains" in the local dialect--is an enormous dome of eroded lava and fragmented rock that presents to the viewer an astonishing spectrum of reds, oranges, yellows and lavenders.

Contrasting with the vivid colouration and gentler slopes of the Rainbow Range are the higher and more rugged Coast Mountains that mark the western extremity of the park. Vast glaciers sculptured these granite giants, leaving behind serrated peaks still under the erosive attack of alpine ice. Tzeetsaytsul Peak - so named by the Indians for the rumble and boom of its glacier - and its neighbour, Thunder Mountain, are dominant features of the park’s western boundary. Monarch Mountain, in the southwest corner of the park, is, at 3,533 metres, the highest mountain in the area. Further evidence of the glacial activity of the past along the park’s west side are the deep valleys of the Bella Coola and Atnarko Rivers and ocean fjords like Dean Channel.

The climate and topography influence the type and distribution of vegetation, with four zones being easily identifiable. Commencing at the coast and extending inland along the Talchako and Dean Rivers is a coastal hemlock forest that thrives in this moist area. Farther into the park the climate is drier since much precipitation has been shed by the time Pacific air masses have passed through the mountains. At lower levels and on the plateau, forest cover is a combination of Douglas-fir and trembling aspen or lodgepole pine interspersed with natural meadows. High on the mountainsides is dense Englemann spruce and sub-alpine fir growth that gives way above 1,650 metres to treeless alpine tundra.

Flowers, trees and shrubs are part of the park's natural heritage, please don't damage or remove them.

Wildlife

Most large mammals are wide ranging and difficult for the casual visitor to spot. The alpine and grass meadows north of Highway 20 are the habitat of grizzly bears, black bears, mountain goats, caribou and wolves and the summer range of moose and mule deer. In the summer and into the late fall grizzly bears utilize the Atnarko valley in pursuit of salmon. Cougar and many other smaller mammals also inhabit the park. There is also a great variety of bird life in the park, including the magnificent trumpeter swans that winter at Lonesome Lake.

The park is also known for its coastal cutthroat trout, mountain whitefish, resident and sea-run Dolly Varden, and runs of chinook, coho, sockeye, chum, and pink salmon.