Margaret Horsfield - Tofino and Clayoquot Sound: A History

Tofino and
Clayoquot
Sound

A History

Margaret Horsfield and Ian Kennedy

Tofino and
Clayoquot
Sound

A History

Harbour Publishing

Copyright 2014 Margaret Horsfield and Ian Kennedy

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777, info@accesscopyright.ca.

Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd.

P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0

www.harbourpublishing.com

Edited by Audrey McClelland

Indexed by Stephen Ullstrom

Text design by Lisa Eng-Lodge

Dust jacket design by Anna Comfort OKeeffe

Maps by Carlos Garca Gonzlez

Printed and bound in Canada

Front jacket: Carol Evans watercolour, Feather in a Pool, depicts Frank Island and Chestermans Beach near Tofino, BC. Courtesy the artist and Dayspring Studio Inc. (carolevans.com).

Front flap and back jacket (detail): This painting, A Whale AshoreKlahoquaht, by American artist George Catlin shows a beached whale with Nuu-chah-nulth hunters converging on the scene. For many years Catlin travelled widely in North America to record the appearance and activities of indigenous people. He made one voyage along the Northwest Coast, going as far north as the Aleutians, in the 1850s. Note the sailing vessel near the shore and the steamship on the far horizon. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Image 1965.16.214.

Harbour Publishing acknowledges financial support from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

ISBN 978-1-55017-681-0 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-55017-682-7 (ebook)

In memory of Gordon R. Elliott, teacher and friend.

19202006

Concerning Place Names

Many places mentioned in this book are known by, or have been known by, more than one name. A selective list of these follows. The official names, listed on the left, are taken from current marine charts, or the Gazetteer of British Columbia.

* Name still in use on 1921 census.

Throughout the book we have generally chosen to use place names as given in the Gazetteer of British Columbia. For this reason, First Nations villages appear as Hesquiat or Ahousat, without the aht ending that is increasingly used. However, we use the aht ending (meaning people of) in the names of the aboriginal peoples of Clayoquot Sound.

We do not attempt to provide all of the names traditionally used by First Nations, nor all the names used by the Japanese who lived on the coast prior to World War II.

Place names around the world reflect choices made in previous generations, often for political reasons. Official West Coast place names repeatedly honour explorers, traders, naval vessels, missionaries, and settlers. Writing for the Daily Victoria Gazette in 1858, William Banfield questioned the names colonial authorities were giving to places on Vancouver Islands west coast. Good taste would lead us at the present day to adopt the Indian names, he wrote, in most instancesmuch prettier, many of them having a natural beauty of soundGreat Britains Colonies have enough Royal names, noble names, and titles of our grandfathers and grandmothers. His comments went unheeded. But as time passes, place names in Clayoquot Sound, and all over British Columbia, remain subject to change. In a hundred years, a list of place names in this area could look very different.

The Tla-o-qui-aht village of Okeamin on the east shore of the Kennedy River near the Clayoquot cannery, ca. 1930. Image AA 00287 courtesy of Royal BC Museum, BC Archives

Introduction

From across Canada and far beyond, visitors travel in great numbers to Tofino and Clayoquot Sound at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Inspired by spectacular images of old-growth rainforest, vast sandy beaches, and abundant wildlife, they flock in the hundreds of thousands to the westerly end of a winding road across the mountains and find themselves in one of the most acclaimed wilderness areas in the world.

Midway up the west coast of Vancouver Island, Clayoquot Sound covers approximately 2,600 square kilometres, measures some fifty kilometres in length and as much as twenty-five kilometres wide. The Sound embraces the land, lakes, rivers, islands, and inlets between Hesquiat Peninsula to the north and Long Beach and Kennedy Lake to the south. It includes nine major watersheds and four major inlets: Sydney Inlet, Shelter Inlet, Herbert Inlet, and Bedwell Sound, also covering Warn Bay and Tofino Inlet. Many rivers and streams flowing westward from the interior mountains of Vancouver Island run into Clayoquot Sound: Tofino, Bulson, and Ursus Creeks, and Bedwell, Moyeha, Megin, and Sydney Rivers, among others. The largest islands of the SoundFlores, Vargas, and Mearesalong with a scattering of seemingly countless smaller islands, Wickaninnish, Echachis, Lennard, Frank, and Stubbs to name only a few, protect much of the shoreline and the inside waters from the open Pacific Ocean. Several small communities are located in Clayoquot Sound: Hot Springs Cove, Ahousat, Opitsat, Esowista, Ty-Histanis, and Tofino; of these, only the last three can be accessed by road.