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Vancouver Island

Largest island in British Columbia, Canada

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The population of Vancouver Island was 864,864 as of 2021. Nearly half of that population (~400,000) live in the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria on the southern tip of the island, which includes Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. Other notable cities and towns on Vancouver Island include Nanaimo, Campbell River, Courtenay, Port Alberni, and Parksville, all on or near the east coast. Indigenous peoples have inhabited Vancouver Island for thousands of years, long before the arrival of Spanish and British naval expeditions in the late 18th century.

The Spanish and British conjointly named it Quadra's and Vancouver's Island in commemoration of the friendly negotiations held in 1792 between the Spanish commander of Fort San Miguel in Nootka Sound, Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, and British naval captain George Vancouver, during the Nootka Crisis (but Bodega y Quadra's name was eventually dropped). It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, who between 1791 and 1794 explored the Pacific Northwest. Vancouver Island is the world's 42nd largest island, Canada's 11th largest island, and Canada's second most populous island after Quebec's Island of Montreal.

History

Indigenous peoples

Vancouver Island has been the homeland of many indigenous peoples for thousands of years. The groupings, by language, are the Kwakwakaʼwakw (also known as the Kwakiutl), Nuu-chah-nulth, and various Coast Salish peoples. While there is some overlap, Kwakwakaʼwakw territory includes northern and northwestern Vancouver Island and adjoining areas of the mainland, the Nuu-chah-nulth span most of the west coast, while the Coast Salish cover the southeastern Island and southernmost extremities along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Their cultures are connected to the natural resources abundant in the area.

Kwakwakaʼwakw

The Kwakwakaʼwakw today number about 5,500, who live in British Columbia on northern Vancouver Island and the mainland. They are also known as Kwakiutl in English, from one of their tribes, but they prefer their autonym Kwakwakaʼwakw. Their indigenous language, part of the Wakashan family, is Kwakʼwala. The name Kwakwakaʼwakw means "speakers of Kwakʼwala". The language is now spoken by less than 5% of the population—about 250 people. Today, 17 separate tribes make up the Kwakwakaʼwakw. Some Kwakwakaʼwakw groups are now extinct. Kwakʼwala is a Northern Wakashan language, a grouping shared with Haisla, Heiltsuk and Wuikyala. Kwakwakaʼwakw centres of population on Vancouver Island include communities such as Fort Rupert, Alert Bay and Quatsino, the Kwakwakaʼwakw tradition of the potlatch was banned by the federal government of Canada in 1885, but has been revived in recent decades.

Nuu-chah-nulth

The Nuu-chah-nulth (pronounced [nuːʧanˀuɬ]), are indigenous peoples in Canada. Their traditional home is on the west coast of Vancouver Island. In pre-contact and early post-contact times, the number of nations was much greater, but as in the rest of the region, smallpox and other consequences of contact resulted in the disappearance of some groups and the absorption of others into neighbouring groups. They were among the first Pacific peoples north of California to come into contact with Europeans, as the Spanish, Americans and British attempted to secure control of the Pacific Northwest and the trade in otter pelts, with Nootka Sound becoming a focus of these rivalries. The Nuu-chah-nulth speak a Southern Wakashan language and are closely related to the Makah of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington state and the Ditidaht.

Coast Salish

The Coast Salish are the largest of the southern groups. They are a loose grouping of many tribes with numerous distinct cultures and historically speak one of the Coast Salish languages. On Vancouver Island, Coast Salish peoples' territory traditionally spans from the northern limit of the Strait of Georgia on the east side of Vancouver Island and covers most of southern Vancouver Island. Distinct nations within the Coast Salish peoples on Vancouver Island include the Stz'uminus, the Kʼómoks of the Comox Valley area, the Cowichan of the Cowichan Valley, the Esquimalt, the Saanich of the Saanich Peninsula, the Songhees of the Victoria area and the Snuneymuxw in the Nanaimo area.

European exploration

Europeans began to explore the island in 1774 when rumours of Russian fur traders caused Spain to send a number of expeditions to assert its long-held claims to the Pacific Northwest. The first expedition was that of the Santiago, under the command of Juan José Pérez Hernández. In 1775, a second Spanish expedition under the Spanish Peruvian captain Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra was sent. By 1776, Spanish exploration had reached Bucareli Bay including the mouth of the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington, and Sitka Sound. Vancouver Island came to the attention of Britain after the third voyage of Captain James Cook, who spent a month during 1778 at Nootka Sound, on the island's western coast. Cook claimed it for Great Britain. Maritime fur trader, John Meares arrived in 1786 and set up a single-building trading post near the native village of Yuquot (Friendly Cove), at the entrance to Nootka Sound in 1788. The fur trade began expanding into the island, eventually leading to permanent settlement.

Dispute over sovereignty

The island was further explored by Spain in 1789 with Esteban José Martínez, who established the settlement of Yuquot and the artillery battery of Fort San Miguel at Friendly Cove, which Spain called Puerto de San Lorenzo de Nuca. This was to be the only Spanish settlement, as well as a whaling factory in Red Bay, Labrador, in what would later be Canada. Asserting their claim of exclusive sovereignty and navigation rights, the Spanish force seized the Portuguese-flagged British ships. British naval captain George Vancouver was sent to Nootka Sound in 1792 in order to negotiate a settlement. His Spanish counterpart in the negotiations was Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, who was commandant of Santa Cruz de Nuca in 1792. Vancouver had sailed as a midshipman with Cook. The negotiations between Vancouver and Bodega y Quadra ended in a deadlock with nothing resolved. Vancouver insisted the entire Spanish establishment be turned over, but Bodega y Quadra held that there were no buildings seized in 1789, and the only possible land was a tiny and useless cove nearby. The two decided to refer the entire matter back to their respective governments. The friendly meeting between Bodega y Quadra and Vancouver led the former to propose that the island be named after both: "Quadra and Vancouver Island", which became the original name. While we know this island today as "Vancouver Island", the British explorer had not intentionally meant to name such a large body of land solely after himself. In his September 1792 dispatch log report for the British Admiralty, Captain Vancouver reveals that his decision here was rather meant to honour a request by Bodega y Quadra that Vancouver:

would name some port or island after us both in commemoration of our meeting and friendly intercourse that on that occasion had taken place (Vancouver had previously feted Bodega y Quadra on his ship); ...and conceiving no place more eligible than the place of our meeting, I have therefore named this land ... The Island of Quadra and Vancouver.

Bodega y Quadra wrote, however, that it was Vancouver who made the suggestion of combining their names to designate some geographical feature.

In 1792, the Spanish explorer Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and his crew were the first Europeans to circumnavigate Vancouver Island. On 8 April 1806, Captain John D'Wolf of Bristol, Rhode Island, sailed the Juno to Nahwitti (Newettee), a small inlet in the northwestern promontory of Vancouver's Island. The captain described Newettee as one of the southernmost harbours frequented by American fur traders at 51 degrees north and 128 degrees west. He relates that since Captain Robert Gray of Tiverton, Rhode Island, had sailed the Columbia River in 1792, the trade of the northwest coast had been almost entirely in the hands of Boston merchants, so much so that the natives called all traders "Boston Men". A settlement was not successfully negotiated and ownership of the island remained in dispute between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Spanish Empire in the early 1790s. The two countries nearly began a war over the issue; the confrontation became known as the Nootka Crisis. That was averted when both agreed to recognize the other's rights to the area in the first Nootka Convention in 1790, a first step to peace. Finally, the two countries signed the second Nootka Convention in 1793 and the third Convention in 1794. As per that final agreement, the Spanish dismantled their fort at Nootka and left the area, giving the British sovereignty over Vancouver Island and the adjoining islands (including the Gulf Islands). For decades, Quadra's and Vancouver's Island was the most prominent name on maps of the coast, and appeared on most British, French and Spanish maps of the period. But as Spanish interests in the region dwindled, so did the use of Bodega y Quadra's name. The Hudson's Bay Company played a major part in the transition; by 1824 'Vancouver's Island' had become the usual designation in its correspondence for the island. A quarter of a century later, Vancouver Island had become such a well-known geographical feature that the founding of the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1849 gave this name full official status. Period references to "Vancouver" referred to Vancouver Island until the naming of the city of Vancouver in 1885.

British settlement

By March 1843, James Douglas of the Hudson's Bay Company and a missionary had arrived and selected an area for settlement. Construction of the fort began in June of that year. This settlement was a fur trading post originally named Fort Albert (afterward Fort Victoria). The fort was located at the Songhees settlement of Camosack (Camosun), 200 metres (660 ft) northwest of the present-day Empress Hotel on Victoria's Inner Harbour. In 1846, the Oregon Treaty, which ended the Oregon boundary dispute, was signed by the British and the United States to settle the question of the U.S. Oregon Country borders. The Treaty made the 49th parallel latitude north the official border between the two countries. In order to ensure that Britain retained all of Vancouver Island and the southern Gulf Islands, however, it was agreed that the border would swing south around that area. In 1849, the Colony of Vancouver Island was established. The Colony was leased to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) for an annual fee of seven shillings; the company's responsibility in return was to increase the population by promoting colonization. The first independent settler arrived that year: Captain Walter Grant started a homestead in Sooke. Following the brief governorship of Richard Blanshard, James Douglas, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay post, assumed the role in 1851. The island's first legislative assembly was formed in 1856. Government buildings were built and were occupied in 1859; the replacement, today's Parliament Buildings, were opened in 1898. Fort Victoria had become an important base when prospectors, miners and merchants began arriving for the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858. The Hudson's Bay lease expired in 1859 and the island reverted to Great Britain. The burgeoning town was incorporated as Victoria in 1862. Victoria became the capital of the colony of Vancouver Island, retaining this status when the island was amalgamated with the mainland in 1866. A British naval base, including Esquimalt Royal Navy Dockyard and a naval hospital, was established at Esquimalt in 1865 and eventually taken over by the Canadian military. Today, as CFB Esquimalt, it is the home port of the Maritime Forces Pacific and parts are designated as National Historic Sites of Canada.

Union and Confederation

The economic situation of the colony declined following the Cariboo Gold Rush of 1861–1862, and pressure grew for amalgamation of the colony with the mainland colony of British Columbia (which had been established in 1858). The two colonies were merged in 1866 into the United Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia by the Act for the Union of the colonies, passed by the Imperial Parliament. Arthur Kennedy was appointed governor of the united entity. (He would leave office in 1866 and later became Governor of the West African Settlements, British West Africa.) Victoria became the capital but the legislative assembly was located in New Westminster on the Lower Mainland. The capital was moved to Victoria in 1868.

Confederation

By 1867, Canada was established by the first of the British North America Acts, the Constitution Act, 1867 and the United Colonies joined Canada on 20 July 1871 through the British Columbia Terms of Union, following negotiations that secured the interests of the colonial elite in relation to a rail connection that would unite the colonies with the rest of Canada, establish Indian lands policy that would effectively perpetuate BC's pre-Confederation practices, and enshrine colonial officials' security of position. Victoria was named the capital of the province of British Columbia. Three delegates were appointed to the federal government.

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