The Salish Sea ( SAY-lish) is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean located in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington. It includes the Strait of Georgia, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, and an intricate network of connecting channels and adjoining waterways. The sea stretches from the channels of the Discovery Islands north of the Strait of Georgia to Budd Inlet at the south end of Puget Sound. It is partially separated from the open Pacific Ocean by Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula. Much of the coast is part of the Pacific Northwest megalopolis. The region is anchored by Vancouver to the north and Seattle to the south. Other principal cities on the Salish Sea include Bellingham, Port Angeles, Port Townsend, Sequim, Everett, Tacoma, Olympia, and Bremerton in Washington, and Victoria and Nanaimo in British Columbia. As of 2021, the region was home to 8.76 million people.
Name
Etymology The first known use of the term "Salish Sea" was in 1988 when Bert Webber, a geography and environmental social studies professor emeritus in Huxley College of the Environment at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, created the name for the combined waters in the region with the intention to complement the names Georgia Strait, Puget Sound, and Strait of Juan de Fuca, not replace them. The adoption of the term, he said, would raise consciousness about taking care of the region's waters and ecosystems. Webber's efforts are credited with the official recognition of the term in Canada and the U.S.
Coast Salish peoples
The Coast Salish are the indigenous peoples who live in southwest British Columbia and northwest Washington along the Salish Sea and share a common linguistic and cultural origin. The Coast Salish are seen as one of the main cultural and linguistic branches of a larger group known as Salishan or Salish. Five divisions of the Salish language family are recognized, with Coast Salish and Interior Salish being the primary two. The Salish family consists of 23 separate languages. European and American explorers first encountered Salishan people along the Pacific Northwest coast in the late 18th century. The first detailed information was obtained by the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804–1806. The term "Salish" was originally applied only to the Interior Salish Flathead tribe living in the region of Flathead Lake, Montana. By the mid-20th century, it had been extended to cover all people speaking a similar language. The Flathead Nation continues to refer to their language and culture as Salish. A variant name for Flathead Lake is "Selish Lake". No overarching title exists for this area or even a commonly shared name for any of the waterbodies in any of the Coast Salish languages. The waterways of the Salish Sea were important trade routes for the Coast Salish, and they remain a source of food and other resources for the Indigenous peoples. The basin includes territory of not only Coast Salish peoples, but also the Northern Wakashan Kwakwaka'wakw and Southern Wakashan peoples (the Nuu-chah-nulth, Makah, and Ditidaht) and, formerly, that of the Chimakum (a Chimakuan people related to the Quileute, who no longer exist as a recognizable group, having been wiped out by the Suquamish and others in the 19th century).
Official recognition In March 2008, Chemainus First Nation proposed renaming the Georgia Strait the "Salish Sea", an idea that reportedly met with approval by British Columbia's Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong, who pledged to put it before the Executive Council of British Columbia for discussion. Making the name "Salish Sea" official required a formal application to the Geographical Names Board of Canada. A parallel American movement promoting the name had a different definition, combining the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound, as well as the Strait of Georgia and related waters under the name Salish Sea. In August 2009, the British Columbia Geographical Names Office approved a resolution recommending that the Geographical Names Board of Canada adopt the name Salish Sea contingent on approval by the United States Board on Geographic Names. The name was endorsed by the Washington State Board on Geographic Names in late October 2009. It was approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names on November 12, 2009, and by the British Columbia Geographical Names Office in February 2010. The French name Mer des Salish is also official in Canada. In a 2019 survey of residents in the general vicinity of the Salish Sea, only 9% of Washingtonians and 15% of British Columbians were able to correctly identify and name the Salish Sea.
Other names The region encompassing these waterways is or was also known variously as the Georgia–Puget or Puget–Georgia Basin, or in the singular as the Georgia Depression, the Georgia Basin or Puget Sound, et al. The Canadian half of the region was named in 1792 by George Vancouver, and often remains referred to as the Gulf of Georgia, a term which encompasses the Strait of Georgia and all other waters peripheral to it, as well as to the communities lining its shores or on its islands. Like the term "Puget Sound", the terms "Georgia Strait" and "Gulf of Georgia" refer to the general region, as well as the body of water.
Geography
The Salish Sea is about 440 km (270 mi) long and has a surface area of about 18,000 km2 (6,900 mi2), which is roughly the same size as the Gulf of Riga in Northern Europe. This combines the total surface area of the Strait of Georgia (6,400 km2 or 2,471 mi2), Strait of Juan de Fuca (4,400 km2 or 1,699 mi2), Puget Sound (2,500 km2 or 965 mi2), Desolation Sound (1,100 km2 or 425 mi2), and various other bodies of water (3,600 km2 or 1,390 mi2). The sea has an average depth of 130 m (430 ft) and reaches a maximum depth of 670 m (2,200 ft) in Jervis Inlet.
Extent The Transboundary Georgia Basin–Puget Sound Environmental Indicators Working Group defines the limits of the Salish Sea as:
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