Within the Canadian Cordillera,[2] the canyon is roughly on the boundary between the Coast Mountains and the Intermontane Belt.

[5] Two rocky islands divide the river into four channels at high water and two at low, which creates vicious eddies during all seasons.

At high water, a narrow rocky channel, called Canoe Passage, separates Ringbolt Island from the shore.

Occupied for about 5,000 years, the locality includes petroglyphs, totem poles, culturally modified trees, and archaeological remains.

During the 1800s, the two permanent Tsimshian settlements controlled trade, ultimately with the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC).

[18] To traverse the turbulent water, steamboats were winched using steel cables attached to rings cemented into the canyon walls.

[19] Foley, Welch and Stewart (FW&S), the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (GTP) prime contractor, installed donkey engines on the shore for this purpose.

[20] In 1909, the HBC completed a warehouse at the upper canyon,[21] which collapsed in a severe gale later that year.

[24] That year, the only two sternwheelers remaining on the Skeena were the HBC Port Simpson and the chartered FW&S Inlander.

Patterson (alternative spelling Paterson) became the mining recorder and opened a general store that year[27] and was the inaugural postmaster 1906–1914.

[33] That year, the Big Canyon Weekly newspaper was established,[34] and P. Burns & Co built a cold storage plant,[35] which was moved out the next summer.

[50] At the northern end of the canyon[6] on the eastern shore,[51] the FW&S camp 11[29] included warehouses, a general store, and hospital.

[20] In 1910, an aerial tramway was installed to run along the eastern side of the canyon from the southern end shoreline to the top of the hill.

[60] In 2010, a westbound Canadian National Railway (CN) train fatally struck a man who wandered onto the tracks.

Freight was unloaded, carried overland, and reloaded into canoes at the northern end of the canyon.

The adjacent Government Telegraph Office[17] was a three-room building occupied by operator Frank Boss.

[16][62] Charles Durham (born Carl Joseph Halvar Dorum)[29] arrived in 1903 to be linesman for the government telegraph.