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 Did you know that one of Canada’s most deadly known natural disasters was volcanic in origin? More than two thousand First Nations people lost their lives in a devastating eruption in northern British Columbia in 1775. This eruption is just one of hundreds that have modified the landscape of western Canada over the past million years. Geologically recent, these volcanoes are part of a dynamic process of mountain building and earthquakes that affects Canada’s westernmost landmasses — British Columbia and the Yukon. A host of volcanic landforms dot the region, some of them lava flows (like the Islands of Hawaii) and others the result of more explosive eruptions (like the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State). However, Canadians don’t have to travel to distant lands to see volcanoes. If you live in British Columbia or the Yukon, they are close by. For example, just north of Vancouver, Mount Garibaldi can be viewed from the road leading to the resort municipality of Whistler. From the viewpoint on Highway 99, five kilometres south of Squamish, the volcano's prominent twin peaks are easily recognized. In Brandywine Falls Provincial Park, just south of Whistler, Brandywine Creek has carved a canyon through lava flows 35 000 years old that form a spectacular waterfall at the head of the canyon.
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