Prince Rupert

Prince Rupert city (1991 pop. 16,620), W British Columbia, Canada, on Kaien Island, in Chatham Sound near the mouth of the Skeena River, S of the Alaska border. A railroad and highway terminus and an ice-free port, it serves the mining, lumber, and agricultural areas of central and W British Columbia. A containerized shipping terminal, opened in 2007, also enables the port to serve as an intermodal transshipment center to interior North America. Prince Rupert is a major fish-processing center, and there are wood-processing plants. The city's growth dates from the arrival (1914) of the railroad. During World War II the city was a major supply base for U.S. forces in Alaska.

Rupert, Prince (1619–82) English Royalist general, son of Frederick V, elector of the Palatinate, and nephew of Charles I. Born in Bohemia, he went to England and joined the Royalist side just before the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642. He made his name in the early years of the war as a leader of cavalry, but after a series of victorious engagements was defeated by Parliamentarian forces at Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645). He later lived chiefly in France until the Restoration (1660), when he returned to England and commanded naval operations against the Dutch (1665–67 and 1672–74). In 1670 Rupert became the first governor of the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada. He was deeply interested in art and science, and was also responsible for the introduction of mezzotint engraving into England.