Great Bear Rainforest spans about 24,710 square miles (64,000 square kilometers) on the north and central Pacific coast of British Columbia , a western province of Canada. It is part of the largest ancient temperate rain forest in the world. A rain forest is a woodland of tall trees growing in a region of plentiful rainfall. Temperate rain forests are rain forests that receive rain all year long and are located outside the tropics. The Great Bear Rainforest is nestled between southeastern Alaska to the north and Vancouver Island to the south. It extends from the Coast Mountains of mainland British Columbia on the east to the flatter, boggy, outer islands off the coast.
The Great Bear Rainforest’s hundreds of islands make up one of the world’s largest archipelagos —that is, broad expanses of sea with many islands. Dozens of inlets, including some of the longest in the world, penetrate the mainland area of the rain forest from the Pacific Ocean. Waterfalls pour off granite rock faces. Thousands of waterways, from small creeks to large river systems, drain into the Pacific from the rain forest.
The Great Bear Rainforest is named for its bears , which thrive in a habitat largely free of roads and industrial disturbance. Black and grizzly bears are common in region. The Kermode bear, also called the spirit bear, a rare form of black bear, lives on a handful of islands. It has brown eyes, creamy white fur, and white claws. Sea otter and whale populations are recovering following a period of overhunting. Salmon are abundant and are an important source of food for bears, wolves, and other kinds of wildlife.
The Great Bear Rainforest is home to a number of First Nations —that is, indigenous (native) peoples of Canada. In the early decades of the 2000’s, local First Nations have regained some control over natural resource management that they lost following European colonization in the 1800’s. Prime conservation objectives in the region involve safeguarding the rain forest, stopping the hunting of wildlife for trophies, and preventing oil tanker traffic in the region. Tankers present a danger of producing environmentally damaging oil spills. In 2016, the government of British Columbia, local First Nations, environmental groups, and logging companies reached an agreement to protect large expanses of the Great Bear Rainforest from industrial logging.
