Meares Island

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Meares Island
Giant Arborvitae (Western Red Cedar) on the Big Cedar Trail
Giant Arborvitae (Western Red Cedar) on the Big Cedar Trail
Waters Clayoquot Sound
Geographical location 49 ° 10 ′  N , 125 ° 50 ′  W Coordinates: 49 ° 10 ′  N , 125 ° 50 ′  W
Meares Island, British Columbia
Meares Island
length 14.9 km
width 12.3 km
surface 84.8 km²
Highest elevation Mount Colnett
792  m
main place Opitsat
Meares Island in Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island
Meares Island in Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island

Meares Island is a 84.8 km² island off the west coast of Vancouver Island on the Canadian Pacific coast. To the north, the Matlset Narrows, less than 500 meters wide, separate the island from Vancouver Island, and to the east, the Fortune Channel is 1.2 km wide .

The Tla-o-qui-aht and the Ahousaht , the local First Nations , call the island Wah-nah-juss and Hilth-hoo-iss, respectively . The western part of the island is dominated by the 730 meter high Lone Cone. The mountain's Ahousat name, Hilth-hoo-iss , translates as "The people who go to the mountains". The east of the island is dominated by the 792 meter high Mount Colnett. The island is a good one kilometer north of Tofino and can be reached from there by water taxi that crosses the Browning Passage in around ten minutes.

Meares Island is now the main part of the reserve in which the Tla-o-qui-aht , a tribe of the Nuu-chah-nulth, live . They also inhabit the southeastern Indian Island and an area on the Heynen Channel in Clayoquot Sound .

In the south and west of the island are the villages of Opitsat and Kakawis. The Tla-o-qui-aht settlement Opitsat has 174 inhabitants (as of the 2006 census).

history

On June 12, 1788, the English navigator John Meares discovered the island. In 1791/92 the American Robert Gray wintered on the island and had Fort Defiance built in Adventure Cove in Lemmens Inlet.

In 1811 150 Tla-o-qui-aht warriors were killed while capturing the Tonquin . This loss destroyed the tribe's supremacy on southwest Vancouver Island. In the 1880s, the tribe, further decimated by epidemics, were assigned reservations on and near Meares Island. The island was named after the person who discovered it in 1862 by Captain George Henry Richards of the Royal Navy , in command of HMS Hecate .

In 1899 the Christian Indian Residential School was established on Meares Island. From 1920 the system of residential schools was introduced. All children of the Tla-o-qui-aht between 7 and 15 years had to attend these schools. This system was initially intended to become one of the main levers of integration policy, but the violent conditions in these schools led to a wave of complaints until 1983, when the last of these schools (in Tofino) was closed.

In 1984 the Tla-o-qui-aht declared the island a tribal park , sued successfully in court and thus received “their” rainforest . With the establishment of the Pacific Rim National Park in 2001, large parts of the west coast were placed under protection, either as part of the park or as a provincial park . Tourism in the region has now increased so much that Tofino had to carry out strict water rationing in late summer 2006. As a result, the Ahkmahksis Water Reservoir , which was planned back in 1985 and formerly known as Ginnard Creek, has become much more urgent. However, it was not finally approved in 2007.

Others

The Big Cedar Trail , a moderate, almost 3 km long circular route, is marked by yellow bands. However, it is boggy in places. Stairs and raised wooden paths still allow comparatively easy access.

In the direction of Tofino lies the neighboring Morpheus Island . The island was Tofino's cemetery from 1900 to 1950, where it continued a centuries-old tradition of Tla-o-qui-aht.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Statistics Canada: Community Profile Opitsat, 2006