Dixon Entrance

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Dixon Entrance as delineated by BCGNIS and the disputed "A-B Line", along with Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. Red dots indicate capes and points, gray text indicates island names. The international boundary between Canada and the United States follows Portland Canal to "Point B", thence to Cape Muzon. The "A-B Line" portion of the boundary is disputed.

Dixon Entrance is a strait about 80 kilometres (50 mi) long and wide in the Pacific Ocean at the International Boundary between the U.S. state of Alaska and the province of British Columbia in Canada. The northern and southern islands of Haida Gwaii which are the homelands of the Haida indigenous peoples lie on either side of the Strait.

Dixon Entrance lies between the Clarence Strait in Alexander Archipelago in Alaska to the north, and the Hecate Strait the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, to the south. Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, is the largest of the Alaskan islands on the north side of the entrance, and is also home to a branch of the Haida, known as the Kaigani Haida.

The Dixon Entrance is part of the Inside Passage. Part of the maritime boundary between the U.S. and Canada is disputed. Members of the Haida nation maintain free access across the Strait.

The Dixon Entrance is named after Captain George Dixon, a British fur traders, who surveyed the area in 1787. The more ancient name in Haida is Seegaay.

The so-called A-B Line (approximately 54°40'N), which marks the northern boundary of Dixon Entrance, was delineated during the 1903 Alaska Boundary Award. The meaning of the line remains in dispute between Canada and the United States. Canada claims the line is the international maritime boundary, while the United States holds that its purpose was only to designate which islands belonged to which country, and holds that the maritime boundary is an equidistant line between islands.^[1] Territorial fishing disputes between the countries remain today as the United States does not recognize the A-B Line for purposes of seafloor resources or fishing rights and has never shown the treaty boundary on its own maps.