It’s feeding time, and a small raccoon that has been sitting in the window scoots down where scraps are thrown to see what she can salvage. A raspy growl signifies that the raccoon is fighting over some bread with another, and with the squawking seagulls and screeching eagle. This scene takes place on a privately…
I have wanted to go to Coal Harbour for years – hearing that it was worth a visit and that it has a museum dedicated to the World War II years when the village was a Royal Canadian Air Force station. My friend Cathy and I departed from Alert Bay to Port MacNeill on the…
I had the pleasure of joining a Wells Gray tour as the accompanying historian for two separate groups on an inaugural tour to Zeballos from Gold River and back via the famous Uchuck III coastal freighter from September 19-21. I joined the first group in Campbell River on Sunday the 19th and boarded the Wells…
I have always been fascinated by British Columbia’s west coast history and I see that Canada’s 150 Anniversary has brought attention to first contact between Europeans and Indigenous people on this coast. As far as is known, first contact took place at Nootka Sound in 1774 between the Spanish and the Mowachaht people, although it…
A very special event happens every year in November in Sointula – a small community of about 500 souls located on Malcolm Island in British Columbia. Malcolm Islanders celebrate Sointula Winterfest, and like everything else on Malcolm Island, it began many, many years ago. This year in 2014, the 38th Winterfest was put on, and…
There’s a mystery that surrounds Mitlenatch Island – it sometimes seems to float above the surface of the water on certain days, just as in this photo of it I took from the east side of Quadra Island, and to appear both close and far at the same time. In fact the Kwakiutl name for…
Last year I went to Port Alice for the first time. This year, I am returning for a long stay during the summer of 2017 and will be welcoming guests. Anyone interested in staying can contact me through this blog or through the Airbnb listing. All I knew about Port Alice before I went was…
After a summer of cruising the waters off the east coast of Vancouver Island in search of history, I traversed the island on a hot and sunny September day, and headed to the west coast with several members of the Captain Cook Society; this time in search of the site where Cook landed in March…
Campbell River BC have come full circle; reclaiming their history on their own ancestral lands. I had the opportunity to accompany 22 Homalco youth, average age in their mid twenties from Campbell River to Orford Bay – the site of their traditional territory in the Bute Inlet. We travelled there in the Kuluta, a boat…
