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The 'Bella Coola River' is a major river on the Pacific slope of the Coast Mountains in southern British Columbia. The town of Bella Coola, which is the historic and ancient capital of the Nuxalk people, is at its mouth on North Bentinck Arm. Bella Coola is the only town on the BC Coast between Kitimat and Squamish to have road access to the inland side of the Coast Mountains; it is at the end of Highway 20 from Williams Lake via the Chilcotin Country. It has a vehicular ferry terminal for a special routing from Kelsey Bay, on northern Vancouver Island, which also now stops at smaller communities on the inlets and islands in between.
The Bella Coola is actually only a short stretch of a much larger stream which changes names at various points during its length; it is primarily the Atnarko River, but a few miles upstream from the town of Bella Coola, at the confluence of Burnt Bridge Creek and the Talchako River with the Atnarko, the name officially changes to the Bella Coola River. This river is the northern boundary of the subgroup of the Coast Mountains known as the Pacific Ranges; the small volcanic-cone and plateau Rainbow Range is immediately north and east of the Atnarko, while beyond it and the Dean River are the Kitimat Ranges, which correspond to the Pacific Ranges in scope.