Rivers Inlet (Owikeno)

Rivers Inlet, BC · Transport Canada · Transport Canada · Rivers Inlet (Fitz Hugh Sound / Pacific Ocean), Central Coast BC

Rivers Inlet (Owikeno) is a small remote public port facility owned by Transport Canada on the Central Coast of British Columbia, located about 65 km north of the northern tip of Vancouver Island in Rivers Inlet, a roughly 45 km tidal Pacific fjord connected to the open ocean via Fitz Hugh Sound. Transport Canada classifies it among the eight small Pacific Region public/remote port facilities that serve communities where marine transportation is the primary mode of access and that do not handle Canada's trade agenda cargo; it is also listed under the Ports Asset Transfer Program (PATP). The facility supports the Wuikinuxv (Owekeeno / Rivers Inlet) Nation village, providing a wharf/dock that enables access to fishing grounds and the unloading of essential goods and services for the community. The surrounding inlet has a long commercial fishing and logging history, once hosting the second-largest sockeye salmon run after the Fraser River and up to 19 canneries from the 1890s.