1. Out of the Mists

I have in my study an old streamer trunk that nowadays is my treasure trove of Meares Island history. I doubt if there is such a cache of materials on this subject elsewhere, for the various items included are fragments of memory and politics brought together, conveniently, and at considerable cost, under legal instructions to leave no stone unturned in my research.

In that trunk are legal files, statements of claim, legal questions and responses, lists of documents, injunctions, correspondence with lawyers, personal jottings, and notes of all sorts gathered from near and far. These materials contain Spanish references, ghostly traces of the first Europeans to voyage to Vancouver Island’s shores. Some American traders’ papers are also to be found in the trunk. These are hard-nosed in character, reflective of the traders’ mindset. Missionary records make their appearance, symptomatic of a search for the possession of souls. Most of the documentation, as could be expected, is British and colonial. Given the British fetish for keeping records for legal purposes, the short colonial period of Vancouver Island history suffers from no shortage of documentation. Successor governments—British Columbia and Canada—continued the tradition, and the modern practice of photocopying means that literary fragments of Meares Island history are now scattered globally.

It was not always so. Only fifty years ago, Meares Island was terra incognita to the outside world. Like many other places on this earth, it was possessed and comprehended solely by its inhabitants and near neighbours. Isolation moulded a separate identity of a world apart.

“We still don’t know how long people have lived on the West Coast, or where they came from.” That is the view of archaeologist John Dewhirst, who estimates that 4,200 years ago is the likely time of occupation of Yuquot specifically. Based on his extensive oral history research, Dewhirst further states that the Nuu-chah-nulth resent the view that they had ultimately come from Asia: “the Nootkans maintain that they have always lived on the West Coast.”⁸ From my perspective as a historian, this startling Native view does not square with assembled anthropological and archaeological evidence, which suggests the first occupants came vast distances from the Asian periphery 10,000 or more years ago, crossing the Beringia land bridge or coasting the shore, and taking preliminary possession in and around the place we now call Meares Island. However, 10,000 years or even 4,200 years is an ancient history, and these occupants have been on Meares Island and the coast of Vancouver Island since time out of mind. By contrast, the modern era seems like the twinkling of an eye—but so much has passed in this short epic era. It is one of dizzying intensity.

Today, and in the relatively recent past, we have come to possess Meares Island variously: as Native homeland, as forest preserve lying dormant, as Native ecological park, and even in memory as battleground in a dogged court fight. Plucked from virtual obscurity in the day-to-day prosaic political affairs of British Columbia, Meares Island attained importance, even notoriety, out of proportion to its geographical size. It was “put on the map,” so to speak, by crisis. Outsiders came to know of it in consequence of the crisis. Nowadays we possess it in more symbolic ways: as a survivor of clear-cutting timber practices, as nature preserved in the face of industrial-age onslaughts. We might also wonder how we will possess it in decades and centuries hence.

Where is this island of history and politics? It is best described as being near Tofino, north across intervening waters. Today, if going by the customary land route, you drive by car from the city of Alberni and wend your way along the highway crossing the mountainous spine of Vancouver Island. Near a small building indicating that you are at last in splendid Pacific Rim National Park you halt at the stop sign, and then, turning right when almost in sight of the open Pacific Ocean, you travel on until you come to the village or town of Tofino. This municipality, incorporated 1983, lies mainly at the tip of the low-lying Esowista Peninsula, northwest of undeniably magnificent and well-named Long Beach, now possessed by Canada in Pacific Rim National Park. The coastline forming an immense backdrop to this theatre of nature is steep and sharp. Mountains three or four thousand feet high come down to water’s edge. Here and there are low-lying places, some islands, suitable for human occupation.

In geographical terms, you are just about on the forty-ninth parallel and approximately 130 miles due west of the city of Vancouver. In another sense, you are far away from the maddening noise and bluster of the metropolis, on the rim of the world. Tofino and Clayoquot Sound, they say, is life on the edge. “But on the edge of what?” ask Dave Duffus and Nancy Turner of the University of Victoria, who then respond: “It is, of course, the edge of the vast Pacific Ocean and the west coast of Vancouver Island. But it is also the edge of two planes of existence, the edge between the white industrial world and the world of aboriginal tradition.”⁹ Named for an eighteenth-century Spanish cartographic and navigation specialist, Don Vincente Tofiño, the place acquired military distinction as an air station during the Second World War and now boasts a fine small landing strip. In later years it has become a refuge for the disaffected, a mecca for surfers, a retreat for urbanites, a platform for media seekers, and much else.

Before the days of commercial air travel—indeed, before the road (Highway 4 from Tofino/Ucluelet to Alberni) was “punched through” by logging companies and the BC Highways Department in 1959—the place was accessible only by sea or air, mainly float plane.¹⁰ Remoteness, when you think of it, has been its secret for so long. All the same, new forces were coming to possess it from the late 1700s.

Maritime fur traders seeking sea otter pelts formed the first wave of intruders. When the sea otter were hunted to near extinction locally, a dormant era ensued. Later, itinerant traders established makeshift quarters here. But nothing seemed permanent in the days before the coastal steamships began arriving on a schedule. For a time, Roman Catholic priests made conversions here, and on Meares Island they built a residential school.

In the early years of contact, and well into the twentieth century, the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples maintained seasonal camps for fishing and for hunting sea mammals on the open beaches of small islands, on what they refer to as the “outside,” the rough and rugged coast of storms. By contrast, their principal villages are built on the “inside,” in sheltered locations within sounds and inlets. As a rule, summer occupation was on the outside, winter on the inside. This was the case at Clayoquot. Characteristic of the locale is its protected inner waterways. There exist two entries to the same, one in the southeast, leading to today’s Tofino, and the other to the north, nearer to Ahousat and Hesquiat.

From late October to early spring, violent storms lash the coast, creating mountainous surf pounding outer beaches and rocky shores. Spring and summer are relatively calm periods, but even then heavy ground swells are found outside, and fog banks come crawling in from the sea. The interior channels are largely free from storms and winds. The Japanese current sweeping by the west coast keeps the winter temperatures above freezing, while in summer the climate is mild and unlikely to be hot for humans. The annual rainfall is 96 to 100 inches, about twice that of Vancouver and three times that of Victoria. Heavy forest and ground cover plus fallen trees keep habitation to the shore. For Aboriginal people, seasonal migrations were dictated by northwest winds, and drenching rains would require the seeking of shelter and abandonment of the economic pursuits of summer’s kinder weather. In all, it may be said that this is a benign climate, though prone to torrential rain and storms—nowadays a tourist attraction.

Father Augustin Brabant, the Belgian-born and -educated Oblate priest, described the area in his reminiscences of 1900: “The coast is rugged and rocky, presenting in its entire extent the appearance of desolation and barrenness. The hills and mountains run down to the beach; the valleys are lakes, and a few patches of low land, to be encountered here and there, are covered with worthless [unmarketable] timber. No clear land is to be seen anywhere, and no hopes can be entertained that the west coast of Vancouver Island will ever be available for agricultural settlements.”

Brabant arrived in Victoria in 1869, and in 1874 went to Hesquiat, north Clayoquot Sound, as a missionary. He faced much resistance. But he came to know the area and people well, and he had a strong interest in its history, taking note of Native accounts. At Hesquiat the church building, ready for service in 1875, soon proved inadequate, and a new one, Sacred Heart Church, with stepped buttresses or gables with parapets, gave it a unique look (it decayed to ruin in 1936). Brabant thought the climate differed little from Victoria. About half the time it was fine weather, about half rain. Heavy frost was rare; snow seldom fell in any depth. The local peoples—“Indians,” he called them—“seem not to notice the general depression of the seasons, but for one born and raised elsewhere, accustomed to the society of his fellow white men, there are no words to convey how monotonous it is, and how lonesome one would feel were it not for the thought of the sacredness of the object for which he is here.”¹¹

Anthropologist Philip Drucker writes that a distinctive feature of North Pacific culture is the use of wood, which is one of the area’s chief natural resources. Red cedar and redwood, both soft and tract-able, long and straight and easily split and opened, are still in common use. So are yellow cedar, alder, Douglas fir, true firs, spruce and hemlock, all with different properties and degrees of difficulty to work. With adzes, chisels, wedges, hammers and mauls, drills, knives and limited sanding materials, much can be completed by hand. Fire is also used. Iron appeared on the coast before contact and may have come via Japanese sea drifters or by other ways—for example, shipwreck. Native development of tools and implements gave all sorts of opportunity for the fashioning of boxes, rattles, masks, ornaments, carved doors and posts, and, not least, large roof beams and planks for shelter. According to Drucker, “The exteriors of wooden containers and dishes were usually simple geometric forms, sometimes modified into stylized zoomorphic shapes, but always symmetrical both externally and in relation to the hollowed-out portion.”¹² Symmetry and neatness were characteristics of items manufactured out of wood. There were wooden clubs and spears, too, but many were crafted out of sea lion bones, which were stronger and more durable. But this was, and is, a culture dependent on wood, and not least among its requirements were transportation and trade. Canoes, crafted from red cedar, were best made on the Northwest Coast by the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples. They were used locally and were sold or bartered in trade with other nations.

Meares Island was, and in many ways still is, a world apart. From the main wharf of Tofino, on most days you can see the island clearly, for its horizon is dominated by a large cone-shaped mountain, now shown on maps as Lone Cone (743 metres, 2,438 feet). From the time of human occupation the mountain has served as a sentinel. The Ahousaht know Meares Island as Hilhooglis (the closest rendering in English phonetics; Hithuugis, ipa is the transliterated spelling). Lone Cone Mountain is wanacks. The meaning of Hilhooglis, explained to me by Peter S. Webster, an Ahousaht Elder,¹³ is “People who go, or steer, by the Mountain”—that is, are guided by it.

It is easy to see why this is so. From offshore, in clear weather, Lone Cone offers an aid to navigation. It is distinct from the other hills or mountains of the immediate vicinity, including the more southeasterly Mount Colnett (802 metres, 2,631 feet), also on Meares Island, which though slightly higher in elevation is not so dramatic in shape. Given the blue-grey hues of the landscape, such variations as these curiosities in terrain can be an essential and lifesaving marker to a mariner approaching from a distance. In inshore waters, through the labyrinthine paths and in some cul-de-sacs, the Ahousaht, and others, steered by the mountain. Webster, born 1908, recounts how he accompanied his grandmother to strip bark from cedar trees for clothing. He remembers trapping black bear with his grandfather and building dugout canoes. And he recalls the shifts of his people to take advantage of nature’s bounty: in spring and summer, catching herring and spring salmon near Vargas Island; in the fall, dogfish could be found at Bedwell Sound; later they would move to a sheltered bay on Meares Island, where they would find ling cod, clams, duck and loon. He and his kin survived on what nature could provide.

The principal village of Meares Island, then as now, is Opitsat. Originally a Kelsemaht village, it was conquered by the Clayoquot, who then numbered about 350 warriors and counted eighteen big houses. The Clayoquot declared war on the Kelsemaht to obtain their fishing waters in about 1720. Oral tradition holds that it was a stubborn battle, after which the Kelsemaht were driven away and made their home at Tloo tlpich (Cloolthpich), also on Meares Island, north of the future site of Christie Indian Industrial School. The Clayoquot’s earliest place of residence, by their traditions, was Tla a qua, a spot about ten miles east on Tofino Inlet from present-day Tofino, at the north end of Kennedy Lake.¹⁴ At Opitsat the Clayoquot flourished, being closer to salmon and herring. They had a summer village at Clayoquot (Stubbs Island) and another at E-cha-chist, and perhaps others elsewhere. E-cha-chist was their whalers’ station, and there they awaited their next quarry.

To the naked eye the land thereabouts seems all greys and greens, and when taken all together it forms one harmonious whole. Toward the seashore, the land is generally of a low character but appears to rise in increments the farther the distance away, often to snow-clad mountains. The higher mountains are frequently and magically wreathed in low-lying clouds. Behind, the flanking mountains form a barrier to the lands beyond and to the straits and inlets even farther to the east. Farther still, the Cordilleran mountains form the formidable spine of North America.

In the inlets immediately within view from our vantage point of Tofino we see small islands and islets as well as big ones, all with twisted deciduous trees that we note have strongly held up against the storms that sweep in here from the open and often wild Pacific. A fog bank lying offshore may obliterate the view; if not, the eye looks to the vanishing horizon, all the while perhaps imagining Japan, Russia or China beyond the rim of the sea.

From the viewpoint of the mariner approaching offshore, there is an outer shore, a difficult channel, and an inner sanctuary or port. Tofino lies as if cradled by the protective islands, sandbars and reefs that form the outside, or southeast, entrance. From the rocky entrance, Templar Channel, named for the cutter of the yachtsman Charles Barrett-Lennard, who called here in 1860 as part of his stupendous pioneering circumnavigation of Vancouver Island, leads to the safer anchorage off the point of Tofino, on the north side. This is Port Cox. By dint of experience, seaborne mariners from far away learned how to approach, then steer through and ultimately come to anchor in this place of magnificent safety. Here is how John Hoskins of Boston described the tricky entrance in March 1792:

"

This Harbour or rather this district or tribe is called by the natives Clioquot and as has been before observed by Captain Gray Hancock’s Harbour [Port Cox]. It is situated about twenty leagues to the east south east of Nootka in the latitude of 49°9’ north and longitude 125°26’ west. The entrance to this harbour is through a roads [Templar Channel] about five miles in length where there is good anchorage. The only obstruction in the passage through the roads is two sand spits the one running off the eastern the other from the western shore. [T]o go clear of these you will run close in to Observatory Island steer from thence north north west until you get the passage into the harbour open on the eastern side of Harbour Island (there is a passage on the other side of the island but not so good). You may then venture to keep away for [from] it keeping Harbour Island shore aboard till you are in the gap then doubling round the eastern point you will find good anchorage in six or seven fathoms water over a sandy bottom about a mile from the shore.¹⁵

"

A number of islands lie scattered about the harbour, and in those early days there were many sandbanks or spits that presented hazards to navigation. There were many coves, too, and the anchorage seemed well sheltered from any wind, though tides run very strongly off Tofino. Hoskins took his bearings using various landmarks and the flagstaff at Opitsat.

What is true for Clayoquot Sound is generally true for the west coast of Vancouver Island. The Admiralty Pilot, or sailing directions, published in London in 1864, puts the problems of navigation this way:

"

[The coast is] fringed by numerous rocks and hidden dangers, especially near the entrances of the sounds, and the exercise of great caution and vigilance will be necessary on the part of the navigator to avoid them . . . On no occasion, therefore, except where otherwise stated . . . should a stranger attempt to enter any of the harbours or anchorages during night or thick weather, but rather keep a good offing until circumstances are favourable; and when about to make the coast, it cannot be too strongly impressed on the mariner to take every opportunity of ascertaining his vessel’s position by astronomical observations, as fogs and thick weather come on very suddenly at all time of the year, more especially in summer and autumn months.¹⁶

"

Forewarned mariners sailing these waters were always aware of the devious currents and treacherous tides. They knew, as their successors do, that access from the open Pacific can be a tortuous passage from the entrance through to safe moorage. The same is true for a return to open sea: in short, it is a dangerous passage.

Sailors aboard a sea otter trading vessel must have expressed much wonder at the richness offered by the forests, the great trees, particularly cedar, standing in majesty. Bernard Magee, in 1793, wrote in his log this account of the region: “the whole face of the Country is covered with woods having a most beautiful appearance . . . & in some places that were Clair of wood was Covered with beautifully green verdure most pleasing to the Eye & in my opinion as fine a Country as any in the globe.”¹⁷ Spanish pilot Juan Pantoja, there in May 1790, thought Clayoquot milder than Nootka and certainly drier. “The surface of the country is likewise full of woods and is rough for travel, although not so dismal and gloomy. Wherever I have gone with the longboat I have seen small pieces of flat land on which there is good pasture for cattle.”¹⁸

These were agreeable views of summertime visitors. In wintertime a different prospect presented itself from offshore. And for this we turn to Captain Cook, the master mariner.