Traditionally named swiwelát for its sunny warmth, Princess Louisa Inlet is a deep fiord located in the ancestral territory of the shíshálh (Sechelt) Nation on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast. (Photo: Diane Selkirk) British Columbia’s Princess Louisa Inlet is a misty rainforest work of art. Traditionally named swiwelát for its sunny warmth, the deep fiord located in the ancestral territory of the shíshálh (Sechelt) Nation on the Sunshine Coast, about 100 kilometres northwest of Vancouver, is a place of mossy forests, granite cliffs and more than 60 tumbling waterfalls — home to seals, grizzly bears, mountain goats, eagles and northern goshawks. For the estimated 10,000 visitors who pass through the inlet each year, it was a stroke of luck that in 1953, former miner James MacDonald rejected an offer of $400,000 for his cabin and 18.2 hectares of land located at the head of the inlet, choosing instead to give the property to the people of the Pacific Northwest. “It is Yosemite Valley, the fjords of Norway and many other places all wrought into the background of our conifer forests,” he wrote at the time. “It should never have belonged to one individual.” MacDonald’s gift kicked off a conservation project that […]
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