Port Alice


Port Alice is a village of approximately 664 located off on Neroutsos Inlet, northwest of Port McNeill, on Vancouver Island, originally built by Whalen Pulp and Paper Mills of Vancouver. The community is known for its natural environment, pulp mill, and salt water fishing.

History

It was named after Alice Whalen, the founders' mother. The brothers Whalen began their construction of the mill at its present site in 1917, with first pulp produced in 1918. The mill at Swanson Bay, on the Inside Passage farther north, was also a Whalen operation. Port Alice bears a resemblance to Port Annie, the fictional town described by Vancouver Island author Jack Hodgins in his novel The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne. The new orchid hybrid "Port Alice" has been officially listed at London England in the Royal Horticultural Society's "Book of Registered Orchid Hybrids". This slipper-type flower is the result of crossing a complex hybrid Paphiopedilum "Western Sky" with a species Paphiopedilum appletonianum.

Geography

Devil’s Bath, a flooded sinkhole near Port Alice, is an example of a cenote and is the largest in Canada at 359 meters in diameter and 44 meters in depth.
There are a number of hiking destinations in the area. They include Devil’s Bath, Eternal Fountain, Vanishing River & Reappearing River. These are a series of ancient karst and limestone formations. The access is through dirt roads.

Climate

Port Alice has an oceanic climate and is one of the mildest and wettest places in Canada, receiving of actual rainfall per year and exceptionally little snow, which amounts to as much as 33 percent more rainfall than infamously wet Prince Rupert and only marginally less than Southeast Alaska’s wettest cities of Ketchikan and Yakutat which each average around and receive much more snowfall.

Notable people