History

The history of northern Vancouver Island goes back about 10,000 years to the first peoples. The European explorers arrived in 1774 with the discovery of Nootka Island by the Spanish explorer Juan Perez. In 1778 Capt. James Cook arrived at Nootka Sound, becoming one of the most important anchorages of western North America. The fur trading vessels would travel up and down the coast stopping in at various native Indian villages along the coast to trade goods for the highly prized sea otter pelts.

In 1895 the first settlement of Cape Scott was established by a handful of Danish settlers. These iron willed people made an incredible stab at carving out a living at Cape Scott. With the promise of a road to be built to the cape by the provincial government keeping their hopes alive, they struggled on. They built a dyke across Hansen Lagoon, to reclaim tidal flats for farm land, the first of a few failures. After the dyke was completed, the first winter storm came though and destroyed all their work. A second dyke was erected in a different location in the lagoon and was successful, and still stands today. These first settlers slowly left the cape for other locations due to transportation and the harsh winter conditions leaving them isolated on the north island with no connection to the outside world.

A second wave of settlers arrived at the cape around 1910. At the same time settlement of the San Josef Valley was beginning. By 1912, there were approximately 1000 people living in the area, working at clearing land, building homes and constructing a corduroy road to connect the farms at the cape to each other. Trails were built from San Josef Bay, Sea Otter Cove and the Fisherman's River through the rain forest to Holberg. A telegraph line was constructed along these trails. This was the only means of overland connection. Anything that could be carried in was done on these trail networks. The average backpack weighed 110 lbs. Everything else was brought in by the steamships that ran up and down the coast. In the beginning these ships would stop by once a week in fair weather, bringing everything from livestock to heavy equipment. In the winter months the ships could not make anchor because of foul weather, leaving the settlers once again cut off.

Logging, fishing and mining have historically been the lifeblood of the north island but they too are slowly fading, leaving the north island at yet another cross roads.