Top 10 Volcanoes in Canada
Canada is rarely thought of as volcanic country, but its western edge tells a different story. Along the mountains of British Columbia and the Yukon runs a belt of young volcanoes shaped by the slow grinding of the Pacific margin and by hotspot activity beneath the crust. Several have erupted within the last few thousand years, and one produced the deadliest volcanic event in Canadian history. Here are ten of the most remarkable volcanoes in the country, drawn from the volcanic landscapes of the Canadian Cordillera.
Mount Garibaldi
Rising to about 2,675 metres above the town of Squamish, Mount Garibaldi is the best-known volcano in Canada and the namesake of the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt. It is a stratovolcano that grew partly against and over glacial ice during the last ice age, leaving an unusually steep and partly unstable edifice. Its dramatic profile dominates the Sea-to-Sky corridor between Vancouver and Whistler.
Mount Meager
Mount Meager, near Pemberton, reaches around 2,650 metres and is the site of the most recent major explosive eruption in Canada, roughly 2,400 years ago. That eruption sent ash as far as Alberta and left thick deposits in the surrounding valleys. The volcano remains geothermally active, with hot springs and fumaroles, and it is closely studied for both its hazard potential and its geothermal energy.
Plinth Peak
Part of the Mount Meager massif, Plinth Peak is the highest summit of the complex at about 2,677 metres. The massif as a whole is one of the most hazardous in Canada, prone to enormous landslides from its weakened, hydrothermally altered rock. A massive debris flow in 2010 swept down Meager Creek, a reminder that the dangers here are not only volcanic but also from catastrophic collapse.
Silverthrone Mountain
Silverthrone Mountain, rising to roughly 2,864 metres, is a deeply eroded volcanic complex on the central British Columbia coast. Much of its structure has been carved by glaciers, exposing the internal plumbing of an old volcano. Remote and ice-clad, it sees few visitors but represents one of the larger volcanic centres of the coastal belt.
Mount Edziza
The Mount Edziza volcanic complex in northern British Columbia is one of the most spectacular in the country, a broad shield-and-cone landscape rising to about 2,793 metres. It features a central edifice surrounded by dozens of cinder cones, lava flows, and craters that record a long and varied eruptive history. Its red, black, and ochre slopes make it a striking destination in Tahltan territory.
Tseax Cone
Tseax Cone, in the Nass River area, produced the deadliest volcanic event in Canadian history. Around 250 years ago, an eruption sent lava flows down the valley, and volcanic gases are recorded in Nisga'a oral history as having killed roughly 2,000 people. The lava bed it left behind is now protected within the Nisga'a Memorial Lava Bed, a place of deep cultural significance.
Mount Price
Mount Price, near Garibaldi Lake, is a stratovolcano reaching about 2,052 metres. Its lavas helped dam the valley to form the brilliant turquoise Garibaldi Lake. The nearby Clinker Peak produced a lava flow that cooled against glacial ice, creating a steep wall known as The Barrier, which still holds back the lake today.
Opal Cone
Opal Cone, on the flank of the Garibaldi complex, is a well-preserved scoria cone that fed an unusually long dacite lava flow extending many kilometres downslope. Its tidy conical form, rising to around 1,736 metres, makes it a classic example of a parasitic vent on a larger volcanic edifice.
Pyramid Mountain
Pyramid Mountain, near Mount Edziza, is a subglacial mound — a volcano that erupted beneath ice, building a steep, flat-topped form known as a tuya. Reaching about 2,208 metres, it is a clear example of how the interaction between magma and glacial ice shaped much of Canada's volcanic landscape during the ice ages.
The Volcano (Lava Fork)
In the far northwest of British Columbia, near the Alaskan border, the Lava Fork volcano produced what may be the youngest lava flow in Canada, only a few hundred years old. Its fresh, dark flow stands out vividly against the surrounding forest and underlines that volcanism in Canada is not a thing of the distant past.
Explore on the map
From Mount Garibaldi above Squamish to the remote cones of Mount Edziza and the Nisga'a lava beds at Tseax, Canada's volcanoes trace a quiet but very real belt along the western mountains. Explore them on the interactive map — filter by country to compare Canada's young cones and domes with the volcanoes of the neighbouring Cascades and Alaska.