Graveyard Point is a historical steamboat landing and telegraph station on the north bank of the Skeena River, near the mouth of the Shames River, about 58 miles (94 km) east of Prince Rupert and 14 miles (23 km) southwest of Terrace, British Columbia. The point is a natural terrace, an older river plain left high above the modern floodplain as the Skeena cut down through glacial deposits. The valley between Terrace and Hazelton is underlain by Quaternary glacial sediments that the river has been reworking since the last ice retreated. The last Cordilleran Ice Sheet reached its maximum about 20,000 to 17,000 years ago, began retreating from the coast around 18,000 years ago, and had largely disappeared from the region by about 11,000 years ago.

The point was once the site of a Tsimshian village, and its name probably derives from the graveyard associated with that settlement. The Tsimshian buried their dead in bentwood cedar boxes placed behind houses, often weighted with stones. Over time the boxes collapsed and were covered by household refuse. Between 1864 and 1912, at least sixteen sternwheel steamboats plied the Skeena between the coast and Hazelton. The first, the Union, arrived from Victoria in 1864 carrying four passengers and twenty tons of freight. Rapids and shoals made the river treacherous, so sternwheelers did not run it at night and tied up at Graveyard Point instead. On Friday September 13th 1907, the sternwheeler Northwest, moved north from the Columbia River that year, sank after striking a rock. Accounts differ on the location but one source places the wreck between Graveyard Point and Telegraph Point, another about 40 miles (64 km) above Hazelton.

The federal Dominion Government Telegraph began work in 1897, reviving the route of the abandoned Collins Overland Telegraph north from Quesnel. That line had been abandoned in 1867. The service’s Yukon line reached Dawson City by 1901. It was followed by the Skeena River Line, built in 1901–02, which ran about 203 miles (327 km) between Prince Rupert and Hazelton. The company also built telegraph stations every 30 or 40 miles (48-65 km), including at Graveyard Point, which were manned by a telegraph operator and a lineman. The lineman would patrol the line on either side of the station, repairing it after windstorms and heavy snowfalls. Today, the point is occupied by sport fishing lodges. Guided fishing on the lower Skeena near Terrace generates about $16.5 million a year and supports more than 150 jobs, according to a 2016 analysis by the Skeena Angling Guides Association, while guides reported 11,066 angler-days across the wider watershed in the 2007–08 season. Read more here and here. Explore more of Graveyard Point and the Skeena River here: