Kitsault River drains a watershed of about 113,668 acres (46,000 ha), that includes the Kitsault Glacier and several smaller glaciers that flow out of the Cambria Icefield, and flows south for 23 miles (37 km) to Alice Arm, about 37 miles (60 km) south-southeast of Stewart and 1.7 miles (2.7 km) north-northwest of Kitsault, British Columbia. The name derives from the Nisga’a language, meaning ‘at the inside.’ Alice Arm is a fjord that branches from Observatory Inlet and extends north for 12 miles (19 km) into the Coast Mountains. In 1868, Captain Daniel Pender named it for Alice Mary Tomlinson, wife of Reverend Robert Tomlinson, who led the Anglican mission near the mouth of the Nass River, about 38 miles (61 km) southwest of the fjord. Northwest British Columbia hosts significant deposits of copper, gold and other metals in Triassic and Jurassic rocks of the Stikine terrane. The Kitsault River flows along the terrane’s western margin in the Canadian Cordillera and lies within the Intermontane Belt, bordered by Eocene granodiorite to the west and the Bowser Basin to the east. Terranes in this belt accreted to North America’s western margin during the Triassic and Jurassic. The Stikine terrane formed as a volcanic island arc during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic. Marine and nonmarine sandstones, siltstones, and conglomerates from the Middle Jurassic to mid-Cretaceous overlie it. In the Tertiary (about 64 to 54 million years ago), magma intruded the terrane. As it cooled, massive cores of crystalline igneous rock known as the Coast Mountains Batholith formed, including plutons of quartz monzonite and granodiorite. The Fraser Glaciation, the last major glaciation, began around 29,000 years ago. Ice advances from mountains into valleys and fjords started 25,000 years ago and peaked between 16,000 and 14,000 years ago at the Last Glacial Maximum. By 13,000 to 9,000 years ago, the glaciers retreated, shaping the present-day topography, and exposing gold, silver, and copper mineralizations. The newly uncovered coastal margin soon attracted human settlement.

Kitsault River and Alice Arm lie within the traditional territory of the Nisga’a First Nation. Many villages and fishing sites once dotted the region, including the Nisga’a community of Gits’oohl at the head of Alice Arm near the Kitsault River’s mouth. Nisga’a lore holds that the Ẁahlingigat—or ‘old people’—were the first inhabitants. Archaeological evidence near the Nass River dates initial occupation to about 5,000 years ago. These longstanding ties reflect the deep cultural and economic bonds between the Nisga’a and their land; their traditions endure today. Historically, Observatory Inlet teemed with food. It hosted all five Pacific salmon species and one of the Northwest Coast’s largest eulachon runs—a type of smelt. Each March, millions of eulachon swam into the estuary, ending a long winter of scarcity. Using rakes and nets, the Nisga’a caught the fish, placed them in large bins, and heated them to extract prized oil or ‘grease.’ This month-long process yielded a dietary staple and valuable trade commodity for the Nisga’a and their north coast neighbors. Summer was the busiest season as the Nisga’a shifted between river camps and tributaries to fish for salmon and harvest berries. Hunting and trapping of bears, mountain goats, and other game began in fall and continued into early winter. Autumn trading expeditions targeted the inland Gitxsan, exchanging coastal goods for inland products. With winter’s onset, the Nisga’a returned to their villages to rest after storing the year’s food. In 1793, Captain George Vancouver sailed into Observatory Inlet and made first contact with the Nisga’a. In 1834, the Hudson’s Bay Company established Fort Simpson at Lax-Kw’alaams, a traditional Tsimshian village, though detailed European exploration did not begin until the mid-1800s. Smallpox epidemics in the late 1700s and 1860s decimated North Coast villages, and by the turn of the 19th century, Gits’oohl, at the head of Alice Arm, was abandoned. In 1888, Peter O’Reilly—British Columbia’s Indian Reserve Commissioner—designated Gits’oohl Indian Reserve No. 24.

In the early 1900s, prospectors spread into Observatory Inlet, Hastings Arm, and Alice Arm. Frank Roundy staked the first claims at Alice Arm’s head in 1903, soon followed by others. Most claims clustered within 1.2 miles (2 km) of the inlet, as rough terrain and forests limited exploration. In 1908, Joe Wells and William Dilworth hiked through Kitsault Valley into the Nass River Valley and staked two claims in the Kitsault headwaters. In 1910, four Scandinavian prospectors—Ole Evindsen, Ludwig Eik, Ole Pearson, and E. Carlson—discovered silver deposits in the middle Kitsault River watershed, 14 miles (23 km) north of Alice Arm’s head. Known as the Dolly Varden claims, the finds yielded abundant pyrite, galena, silver ore, and native silver. The name comes from the heroine in Charles Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge. A narrow-gauge railway, 16 miles (26 km) long, from tidewater at Alice Arm to the mine enabled transport of equipment, supplies, and ore to a loading dock for shipment to a smelter. The deposits spurred a rush of prospectors, miners, and laborers. In 1912, an agreement between the province and federal government removed Nisga’a lands on the Kitsault River’s west side from the Gitzault Indian Reserve; they were sold in 1929 as building lots for Alice Arm. To bypass shallow tidal flats at the river’s mouth, docks were built along the bay’s rocky west side, while the town—with cabins, stores, cafes, storage sheds, and a large hotel—developed 1.2 miles (2 km) further north on upper mudflats and hillsides. In 1919, the Taylor Mining Company took over the Dolly Varden Mine and railroad, producing 1.3 million ounces (36,854 kg) of silver. By the mid-1940s the railway was replaced by a road. Prospecting continues today at a limited scale. In 2000, the remaining Gits’oohl land became part of the Nisga’a titled holdings under the Nisga’a Treaty, leaving a lasting impact. Read more here and here. Explore more of Kitsault River and Alice Arm here: