25 Facts About Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia.

Vancouver Island is the world's 43rd largest island, Canada's 11th largest island, and Canada's second most populous island after the Island of Montreal.

Vancouver Island has been the homeland to many indigenous peoples for thousands of years.

Kwakwaka'wakw centres of population on Vancouver Island include communities such as Fort Rupert, Alert Bay and Quatsino, The Kwakwaka'wakw tradition of the potlatch was banned by the federal government of Canada in 1885, but has been revived in recent decades.

Distinct nations within the Coast Salish peoples on Vancouver Island include the Stz'uminus, the K'omoks of the Comox Valley area, the Cowichan of the Cowichan Valley, the Esquimalt, the Saanich of the Saanich Peninsula, the Songhees of the Victoria area and Snuneymuxw in the Nanaimo area.

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Vancouver Island came to the attention of Britain after the third voyage of Captain James Cook, who spent a month during 1778 at Nootka Sound, on the island's western coast.

Vancouver Island was further explored by Spain in 1789 with Esteban Jose Martinez, who established the settlement of Yuquot and the artillery battery of Fort San Miguel at Friendly Cove, which Spain called Puerto de San Lorenzo de Nuca.

British naval captain George Vancouver Island was sent to Nootka Sound in 1792 in order to negotiate a settlement.

Vancouver Island insisted the entire Spanish establishment be turned over, but Bodega y Quadra held that there were no buildings seized in 1789, and the only possible land was a tiny and useless cove nearby.

Bodega y Quadra wrote that it was Vancouver Island who made the suggestion of combining their names to designate some geographical feature.

Decades, Quadra's and Vancouver's Island was the most prominent name on maps of the coast, and appeared on most British, French and Spanish maps of the period.

Quarter of a century later, Vancouver Island had become such a well-known geographical feature that the founding of the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1849 gave this name full official status.

Victoria became the capital of the colony of Vancouver Island, retaining this status when the island was amalgamated with the mainland in 1866.

Vancouver Island is located in the southwestern corner of the province of British Columbia.

Vancouver Island Ranges run most of the length of the island, dividing it into a wet and rugged west coast and a drier, more rolling east coast.

Vancouver Island is mostly made up of volcanic and sedimentary rock which was formed offshore on the now disappeared Kula oceanic plate.

Since Vancouver Island has become an accretionary wedge on the North American continent, the Kula Plate has fully subducted beneath it and the remnants of the Farallon Plate, the Juan de Fuca Plate, are now subducting below the island.

The Forbidden Plateau, in the east of the Vancouver Island Ranges, was the epicentre of the 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake that registered 7.

Vancouver Island was the location of the observation of the episodic tremor and slip seismic phenomenon.

Vancouver Island is the location where some of the tallest Douglas fir were recorded.

Fauna of Vancouver Island is similar to that found on the mainland coast, with some notable exceptions and additions.

Outside of Victoria, Vancouver Island's economy is largely dominated by the forestry industry.

Vancouver Island is home to a handful of universities, several colleges and trade-schools, hundreds of public schools, and a few dozen private schools .

The ICF has established a contract with the Southern Railway of Vancouver Island to move all rail freight on the island to and from the mainland.

Vancouver Island is well served by secondary routes, a growing number of which have efficient roundabouts in place of the traffic lights that can back up traffic on the main highway routes.

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