I RINCE RUPERT is a frontier port on the north Pacific coast. Located at the western end of the Canadian pioneer fringe and hemmed in on the north by the Alaskan Panhandle and the unproductive highlands of northern British Columbia, it is the potential outlet for the northwestern margin of the advancing American agricultural frontier (Figure 1). Prince Rupert is young, younger than the Alaskan ports that were founded during the gold rush at the turn of the century. Yet, in, the short time since the city was incorporated (1910), its dominant functions and cultural landscape forms have undergone marked changes. Prince Rupert was designed and built to function as a potential world port, the Pacific terminus of the new National Transcontinental-Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Soon (1920) the railway became bankrupt and was taken over by the Canadian National Government and operated on a smaller scale. The young city, thus deprived of its chief financial support, and further handicapped by slow development of its hinterland, never became an important commercial center. Prince Rupert has continued to function chiefly as a fish shipping port and center of local trade and government. At present an attempt is being made to secure bonds for the construction of a wood pulp mill within the city. The establishment of this new industry would change again the economic life of the community. Changes in the function of Prince Rupert have caused changes in the cultural landscape. Areas planned for one use have been diverted to another or remain unoccupied. Erection of the pulp mill would cause further readjustment. The purposes of this study are to state, and, so far as possible to explain, the origin, location, metamorphosis, and probable further development of Prince Rupert. Emphasis will be placed upon dominant activities, or functions, and their objective expressions in the morphology of the cultural landscape.