Woss, British Columbia, commonly known as Woss Lake, is a small west coast village in the Nimpkish Valley, located 75 km (47 mi) south east of Port McNeill, and 128 km (80 mi) north of Campbell River

Campbell River, British Columbia

Campbell River is a coastal city in British Columbia on the east coast of Vancouver Island at the south end of Discovery Passage, which lies along the important coastal Inside Passage shipping route...

 on Highway 19, in northern Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...

. The estimated population of Woss and the Nimpkish Valley is 400 people.

Woss is a member municipality of the Regional District of Mount Waddington, which also includes Alert Bay

Alert Bay, British Columbia

Alert Bay is a village on Cormorant Island, British Columbia, Canada. According to the 2006 census, 556 people live within the village.-Population:Slightly more than half of the village's 556 residents are First Nations people...

, Port Alice

Port Alice, British Columbia

Port Alice is a small, quiet, town of approx. 821 located off on Neroutsos Inlet, northwest of Port McNeill, on Vancouver Island, originally built by Whalen Pulp and Paper Mills of Vancouver. The community is known for its natural beauty, pulp mill, and salt water fishing.-History:It was named...

, Port McNeill

Port McNeill, British Columbia

Port McNeill is a town in the North Island region of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada with a population of 2,623 . Located on Vancouver Island's north-east shore on Queen Charlotte Strait, it was originally a base camp for loggers, Port McNeill became a settlement in 1936...

, Hyde Creek, Coal Harbour

Coal Harbour, British Columbia

Coal Harbour in northern Vancouver Island is named after a small and unsuccessful local coal mine that was founded in 1883. The village's most successful industry, however, was whaling. It was the last whaling station in British Columbia when it closed in 1967...

, Holberg

Holberg, British Columbia

Holberg is a small settlement on northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The community was established in the early 1900s by Danish settlers who named their new home in honour of Baron Ludwig Holberg....

, Malcolm Island, Quatsino

Quatsino, British Columbia

Quatsino is a small hamlet of 91 people located on Quatsino Sound in Northern Vancouver Island, Canada only accessible by boat or float plane. Its nearest neighbour is Coal Harbour, to the east, about 20 minutes away by boat, and Port Alice, to the south, about 40 minutes away by boat...

 and Port Hardy

Port Hardy, British Columbia

Port Hardy is a district municipality in British Columbia, Canada located on the north-eastern coast of Vancouver Island. Port Hardy has a population of 3822 at last census...

. Woss has regular telephone service, but no cellular phone services. Woss has one elementary school, Woss Lake Elementary School, 11 students grades K-7.

Up until the late 1960s Woss was accessible only by rail from Beaver Cove

Beaver Cove, British Columbia

Beaver Cove, British Columbia is a small coastal village on the east coast of northern Vancouver Island. It is south east of Port McNeill and up the inlet from Telegraph Cove. It is the northern terminus of the Englewood Railway....

 on the Englewood Railway

Englewood Railway

Englewood Railway is a logging railroad on northern Vancouver Island, Canada. Headquartered in Woss, the line runs from Vernon Lake, through Woss, past Nimpkish Lake Provincial Park to Beaver Cove...

. During this time period most of the loggers were housed in bunkhouses heated with wood fired steam. One of the original steam fired locomotives is currently used as a working tourist attraction. Nearby Woss Lake is the main summer recreational playground for Woss residents and the original community campground at the lake is now a provincial park

Woss Lake Provincial Park

Woss Lake Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada, located 75 kilometres southeast of Port McNeill, near the community of Woss, which is also known as Woss Lake.-History:...

.

Tage Wickstrom, who was the school principal until his death in 1986, built the only 440 dirt oval track and field on the north island at his school in Woss. For many years Woss Lake School hosted all of the track and field competitions for School District #85 which included communities from Woss to Port Hardy. The track and field are now known as the "Tage Wickstrom Track and Field" in honour of the educator who built them.

Geology

Woss is on the dividing line between a pluton

Pluton

A pluton in geology is a body of intrusive igneous rock that crystallized from magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Plutons include batholiths, dikes, sills, laccoliths, lopoliths, and other igneous bodies...

 of Jurassic

Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Mya to  Mya, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles. The start of the period is marked by...

 granodiorite

Granodiorite

Granodiorite is an intrusive igneous rock similar to granite, but containing more plagioclase than orthoclase-type feldspar. Officially, it is defined as a phaneritic igneous rock with greater than 20% quartz by volume where at least 65% of the feldspar is plagioclase. It usually contains abundant...

 and a mass of Triassic

Triassic

The Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 250 to 200 Mya . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...

 basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

; mountains to the north are basaltic while ranges to the west, south and east are mostly granitic. Surface deposits in the community are coarse with abundant gravel and stones.