5 ms·

I can see why it's being taken care of. A town with Tide Water access on Canada's west coast could be very very valuable.

cj 4y ago
(At the risk of sounding uninformed) - why?
- pj_mukh 4y ago
  Canada likes to ship its oil out that way, esp to Asia. Pipelines from Alberta to BC are a political minefield but buying real-estate and then waiting for the politics to “blow-over” is apparently a thing that happens a lot.
  - cgh 4y ago
    If you're referring to Northern Gateway, it was planned to terminate in Kitimat, which is not a ghost town. However, tanker traffic off the BC north coast was banned, which effectively killed it. If you're referring to Trans Mountain, that pipeline upgrade/expansion terminates in Burnaby, which is a suburb of Vancouver. For other interesting company-owned ghost towns on the coast, see also Anyox and Ocean Falls. Anyox is relatively close to Kitsault and is worth reading about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anyox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anyox There's also Stewart, which is north of these and which has quite a storied mining history that's still being written (the "Golden Triangle" of BC).
    - pj_mukh 4y ago
      Yea so kitsault wants a pipeline too. As evidenced by the website someone posted elsewhere in this thread [1] [1] http://www.kitsaultenergy.com/index.html http://www.kitsaultenergy.com/index.html
- Landsubsidence 4y ago
  In the next 100 years the tide water will gain several fee in depth. Shipping ports are the most valued geographical asset there is. Even a minor change in water depth would dramatically increase waterfront realestate area. The key here is the abandoned infrastructure origionaly left for the school an shoping mall. People will flee further north with time as our lives become more decentralized and the climate become more temperate.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- scythe 4y ago
  Due to spherical geometry, Prince Rupert is closer to Asia than any other reasonable North American port (sorry, Skagway) south of Anchorage. Kitsault is just up the inlet, and much easier to reach (crossing the Coast Mountains sunk Prince Rupert). It also happens to be easier (lower) to cross the Rockies (CA-16) when you're north of Prince George, so Kitsault could possibly have better access to Chicago than does, say, Seattle (I'm not certain here). However, the col to access Kitsault from the BC central valley is still about half a mile high, so you would need to build a tunnel to get decent rail freight capacity. It would be a short one, easier than tunneling to Stewart/Hyder. Also, the inlet is only about 1800 feet wide, which could be difficult to navigate considering the high frequency of inclement weather in the area.
  - elihu 4y ago
    There's rail access to Port Edward (just a couple miles from Prince Rupert) currently, going by what you can see in Google Maps. Looks like it follows a pretty flat route, though it winds around to follow the shorelines / rivers. I wonder how much sea level rise or flooding it would take to inundate that rail line and the Yellowhead highway? They seem like they're barely above water level now. Using Kisault as a port is an interesting idea. Worth mentioning that the tides in that area are huge, which makes for dangerous currents. (Random personal trivia: I once passed within about 20 miles of Kisault while travelling to the Queen Charlotte islands by way of Prince Rupert. The 800 passenger ferry we took, The Queen of the North, some years later got off course on a different route and struck a rock at full speed and sank. Almost everyone got off.)
    - moistly 4y ago
      > Almost everyone got off. Rumour is that the acting Captain was getting his rocks off instead of doing his job of not crashing into rocks at full speed. https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/captain-of-b-c-ferry-that-sank-after-crew-allegedly-had-sex-on-bridge-makes-case-for-what-caused-disaster https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/captain-of-b-c-... In the end there was no hard proof. Two people died, bodies never found. The officer was convicted with a four-year jail term (I’ve no idea how long he actually served.)
jabbany 4y ago
Also given the state of global warming... Something still coastal but further up north could prove to be quite desirable in the future climate-wise...

cj 4y ago

(At the risk of sounding uninformed) - why?

pj_mukh 4y ago
Canada likes to ship its oil out that way, esp to Asia. Pipelines from Alberta to BC are a political minefield but buying real-estate and then waiting for the politics to “blow-over” is apparently a thing that happens a lot.
- cgh 4y ago
  If you're referring to Northern Gateway, it was planned to terminate in Kitimat, which is not a ghost town. However, tanker traffic off the BC north coast was banned, which effectively killed it. If you're referring to Trans Mountain, that pipeline upgrade/expansion terminates in Burnaby, which is a suburb of Vancouver. For other interesting company-owned ghost towns on the coast, see also Anyox and Ocean Falls. Anyox is relatively close to Kitsault and is worth reading about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anyox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anyox There's also Stewart, which is north of these and which has quite a storied mining history that's still being written (the "Golden Triangle" of BC).
  - pj_mukh 4y ago
    Yea so kitsault wants a pipeline too. As evidenced by the website someone posted elsewhere in this thread [1] [1] http://www.kitsaultenergy.com/index.html http://www.kitsaultenergy.com/index.html
Landsubsidence 4y ago
In the next 100 years the tide water will gain several fee in depth. Shipping ports are the most valued geographical asset there is. Even a minor change in water depth would dramatically increase waterfront realestate area. The key here is the abandoned infrastructure origionaly left for the school an shoping mall. People will flee further north with time as our lives become more decentralized and the climate become more temperate.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
scythe 4y ago
Due to spherical geometry, Prince Rupert is closer to Asia than any other reasonable North American port (sorry, Skagway) south of Anchorage. Kitsault is just up the inlet, and much easier to reach (crossing the Coast Mountains sunk Prince Rupert). It also happens to be easier (lower) to cross the Rockies (CA-16) when you're north of Prince George, so Kitsault could possibly have better access to Chicago than does, say, Seattle (I'm not certain here). However, the col to access Kitsault from the BC central valley is still about half a mile high, so you would need to build a tunnel to get decent rail freight capacity. It would be a short one, easier than tunneling to Stewart/Hyder. Also, the inlet is only about 1800 feet wide, which could be difficult to navigate considering the high frequency of inclement weather in the area.
- elihu 4y ago
  There's rail access to Port Edward (just a couple miles from Prince Rupert) currently, going by what you can see in Google Maps. Looks like it follows a pretty flat route, though it winds around to follow the shorelines / rivers. I wonder how much sea level rise or flooding it would take to inundate that rail line and the Yellowhead highway? They seem like they're barely above water level now. Using Kisault as a port is an interesting idea. Worth mentioning that the tides in that area are huge, which makes for dangerous currents. (Random personal trivia: I once passed within about 20 miles of Kisault while travelling to the Queen Charlotte islands by way of Prince Rupert. The 800 passenger ferry we took, The Queen of the North, some years later got off course on a different route and struck a rock at full speed and sank. Almost everyone got off.)
  - moistly 4y ago
    > Almost everyone got off. Rumour is that the acting Captain was getting his rocks off instead of doing his job of not crashing into rocks at full speed. https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/captain-of-b-c-ferry-that-sank-after-crew-allegedly-had-sex-on-bridge-makes-case-for-what-caused-disaster https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/captain-of-b-c-... In the end there was no hard proof. Two people died, bodies never found. The officer was convicted with a four-year jail term (I’ve no idea how long he actually served.)

jabbany 4y ago

Also given the state of global warming... Something still coastal but further up north could prove to be quite desirable in the future climate-wise...