YozoraAtlas

How dark is the sky in British Columbia?

Sky darkness for 72 towns and parks in British Columbia, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 54 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Cape Scott Provincial Park (21.95, Bortle 2), the brightest Langley (17.62, Bortle 8). The bright core of the Milky Way never climbs clear of the horizon haze anywhere in British Columbia while the sky is fully dark; the rest of the band passes overhead, with the longest moonless nights from September to April.

19 Bortle class, 1 pristine to 9 city center park or dark-sky place city

Numbers like 21.95 or 16.97 are the brightness of the sky overhead on a clear, moonless night, in mag/arcsec². The scale runs backwards: a lower number means a brighter sky, from about 22 for a natural sky to about 17 in a city center.
How the readings are made

All 72 places in British Columbia

Amber names are parks and certified dark-sky places. The figure is the Bortle class: 1 darkest, 9 city center.
Abbotsford7Akamina-Kishinena Provincial Park3Alexandra Bridge Provincial Park4Artlish Caves Provincial Park2Blackcomb Glacier Provincial Park4Brandywine Falls Provincial Park4Burnaby8Cape Scott Provincial Park2Chilliwack8Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park4Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park4Coquitlam8Delta8Dionisio Point Provincial Park4Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park3Duffey Lake Provincial Park3E. C. Manning Provincial Park4Elk Lakes Provincial Park4Garibaldi Provincial Park4Glacier National Park, BC2Golden Ears Provincial Park4Gulf Islands National Park Reserve4Gwaii Haanas2Hamber Provincial Park2Height of the Rockies Provincial Park3Horne Lake Caves Provincial Park4Joffre Lakes Provincial Park3Juan de Fuca Provincial Park4Kamloops7Kelowna8Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park3Koksilah River Provincial Park4Kootenay National Park3Lac La Hache Provincial Park2Lac Le Jeune Provincial Park4Langley8MacMillan Provincial Park4Maple Ridge7McDonald Park5Memory Island Provincial Park4Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park3Mount Edziza Provincial Park and Recreation Area2Mount Revelstoke National Park3Mount Robson Provincial Park2Muncho Lake Provincial Park2Murrin Provincial Park4Nairn Falls Provincial Park3Nanaimo7North Vancouver8Pacific Rim National Park Reserve3Paul Lake Provincial Park4Prince George8Princess Louisa Marine Provincial Park3Pyramid Creek Falls Provincial Park2Rearguard Falls Provincial Park2Richmond8Saanich5Sasquatch Provincial Park4Silver Lake Provincial Park4Sir Alexander Mackenzie Provincial Park2Skihist Provincial Park3Sproat Lake Provincial Park4Stein Valley Nlaka'pamux Heritage Park3Strathcona Provincial Park3Surrey8Tantalus Provincial Park4Ten Mile Lake Provincial Park4Tweedsmuir South Provincial Park2Vancouver8Victoria8Wells Gray Provincial Park2Yoho National Park3