Mayne Island

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Mayne Island
BC Ferries landing stage
BC Ferries landing stage
Waters Pacific Ocean
Archipelago Gulf Islands
Geographical location 48 ° 50 '42 "  N , 123 ° 16' 51"  W Coordinates: 48 ° 50 '42 "  N , 123 ° 16' 51"  W.
Mayne Island, British Columbia
Mayne Island
surface 21 km²
Residents 1071 (2011)
51 inhabitants / km²

Mayne Island is an island in the Canadian province of British Columbia . It belongs to the Gulf Islands , lies between Galiano , Pender and Saturna Island , and has a little over 1000 inhabitants. Administratively, the island belongs to the Capital Regional District and forms there, u. a. together with Iceland Saturna, Galiano Iceland , North and South Pender Iceland , the district chapter G . On the island is the 130.7 hectare Mayne Island 6 Indian reservation , which belongs to the Tsartlip . The tribe (2019), comprising a little more than 1000 members, lives on the Saanich Peninsula, and forms part of the Saanich . Culturally he belongs to the coastal Salish .

history

The oldest human traces, around 5000 years old, were found on the Helen Point Peninsula. There were also around 3000 year old traces of fishing, similar to the Active Pass. The island therefore gave its name to a phase in the coastal Salish's cultural development, the Mayne phase .

Before the arrival of the first Europeans, the island belonged to the settlement area of ​​the coastal Salish , more precisely the Tsartlip .

In 1794, George Vancouver landed at Georgina Point.

In 1852, Governor James Douglas signed treaties with the Saanich tribes on the islands and the mainland that gave them the right to reservations and certain rights of use. In 1877, after the province had joined the newly formed Canada, the Mayne Island 6 reserve was created.

Mary Magdalene Church from 1898, Miners Bay

The island was given its current name in 1857. Captain George Henry Richards of the HMS Plumper mapped the island and named it after his Lieutenant Richard Charles Mayne . The next year the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush broke out and thousands of prospectors came to the area. Many of them camped on the island and rowed from there to the mainland. A first newcomer stayed as a settler in Miners Bay in 1859. The most important place on the island developed there. In the fall of 1883, Annie Monk came to the island as the first teacher, and in 1885 Henry "Scotty" Georgeson became the first lighthouse keeper. In 1887 the Church of St. Mary Magdalene was built.

In 1895, the oldest continuously managed hotel in the entire province, the Springwater Lodge , built in 1892 as a residential building on Miners Bay Wharf in Active Pass, began letting operations. Only later did it become a hotel under the name Grandview Lodge . In 1896 a prison was established with the Plumper Pass Lockup . The first community hall was built around 1899 , and the island was accessible by a ferry from the Canadian Pacific Railway .

At this time apple growing was flourishing and Mayne Island King Apples were the first to be planted in British Columbia. There were also tomatoes, which the “tomato king” Richard Hall exported in large quantities for the first time. His example was followed by Japanese farmers who were forced to sell their land during World War II. For example, Kumozo Nagata had owned the farm The Mayne Mast on Village Bay Road not far from Mayne Street since 1921 . He operated extensive tomato cultivation around Campbell Bay and was the founder of the Cooperative Active Pass Grower's Association , which offered the Island Brand Tomatoes and Cucumbers , whose main house was on Georgina Point Road. In 1937 he enlarged his house. He married Kiyono Konishi, who belonged to a family who had also made fortunes from growing tomatoes. Another of the families dispossessed during the war were the Kadonaga, whose house was in the southeast of the island on Horton Bay.

The Tsartlip try to protect their cultural heritage in their reserve. Nevertheless, vandalism and theft continue to occur, as in August 2007 when a stone bowl or mortar, possibly used to grind grain, which is estimated to be 2,000 to 4,000 years old, disappeared. The bowl, about one meter in diameter, had been stolen 15 years ago, but someone had returned it anonymously.

traffic

Galiano Island can be reached by ferry (via Village Bay in the west of the island) from the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal on the mainland and from the Swartz Bay Ferry Terminal on Vancouver Island.
In terms of traffic, the Active Pass is also important. This is a strait which is formed by Mayne Island and Galiano Island and through which one of the ferry connections from the mainland to Vancouver Island runs.

Web links

Commons : Mayne Island  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ^ Mayne Island Trust Area Profile. Census 2011. In: Statistics Canada . March 1, 2013, accessed July 18, 2013 .
  2. ^ Mayne Island 6. In: Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada . Retrieved April 30, 2019 .
  3. ^ Excavations took place there in 1968. See also John David McMurdo: The Archeology of Helen Point, Mayne Island , thesis, Simon Fraser University 1974.
  4. ^ Andrew Scott: The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names: A Complete Reference to Coastal British Columbia. Harbor Publishing, Madeira Park (BC) 2009, ISBN 978-1550174847 , pp. 369-370
  5. ↑ The Japanese Garden
  6. ↑ Kadonaga
  7. ↑ Tsartlip artifact stolen from Mayne Island beach ( Memento from February 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), in: Times-Colonist , August 17, 2007.