Qualla: Port Alice

Port Alice: Introduction

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0. Port Alice receives 3.4 meters of rain per year. Not rainfall equivalent -- actual rain, almost no snow. That makes it wetter than Prince Rupert, a city whose reputation for rain is practically a Canadian punchline, and nearly as wet as Ketchikan and Yakutat in Southeast Alaska. The difference is that those Alaskan towns get meters of snow on top of their rain. Port Alice just gets rain -- relentless, vertical, year-round rain that has shaped everything about this village of 739 people clinging to the shores of Neroutsos Inlet on northern Vancouver Island. It has shaped the economy, the landscape, and most dramatically, the ground itself.

Read more: Port Alice on Qualla

Image: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Port Alice: Alice Whalen's Town

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Qyd assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. The village owes its existence and its name to the Whalen family. The brothers Whalen, who operated pulp and paper mills along British Columbia's coast, chose this site on Neroutsos Inlet for their next operation, and named it after their mother, Alice. Construction began in 1917...

Read more: Port Alice on Qualla

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Qyd assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Port Alice: A Town That Moved

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit VQwertyvv, CC BY-SA 4.0. Heavy rainfall and steep slopes are a dangerous combination, and Port Alice learned this early. Mud and rock slides struck in 1927 and again in 1935, burying parts of the original town site near the mill. These weren't gentle warnings. By 1965, the accumulated damage and ongoing ...

Read more: Port Alice on Qualla

Image: VQwertyvv | CC BY-SA 4.0

Port Alice: Devil's Bath and the Vanishing River

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sflostrand, CC BY 3.0. The same geology that sends hillsides sliding into town has created something extraordinary in the forests near Port Alice. Devil's Bath is a flooded sinkhole -- technically a cenote, like those found in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula -- and at 359 meters in diameter and 44 meters de...

Read more: Port Alice on Qualla

Image: Sflostrand | CC BY 3.0

Port Alice: Punching Above Its Weight

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit VQwertyvv, CC BY-SA 4.0. For a village of 739 people accessible only by a long drive through logging roads, Port Alice has produced an improbable roster of talent. Dale Walters won a bronze medal in boxing at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Daryl Sturdy competed in rowing at both the 1964 Tokyo Olympics a...

Read more: Port Alice on Qualla

Image: VQwertyvv | CC BY-SA 4.0