Time Line

Canada enters World War II and the Great Depression ends.

Several Pender residents put up money to purchase 60 acres of land from George Grimmer (a son of Pender pioneer Washington Grimmer) for the Pender Island Golf and Country Club. These first individuals and many others take out memberships and work hard to plan and develop the layout and build the tees and greens.

Mr. Sones is the school teacher. A vote is held on 13 July for superior school, with the results 34 for, 16 against. F.C. Smith is elected as Secretary/Treasurer of the School Board.

A store and Post Office open on South Pender.

The first Fall Fair is held at the Hope Bay Community Hall.

Mr F. X. Hodgson opens a general store on the present site of Poets Cove Resort. He later adds a few rental cabins and by 1935 is advertising the site as a resort.

Captain B.G. Amies replaces Major Bogs (?) as school trustee. Miss Dickson is the teacher.

Robert Stewart Wallace Corbett of the Hope Bay Store retires. His son Percy becomes Postmaster and takes over running the store, assisted by his son Stuart. The store is sold in 1956. Percy remains Postmaster until 1961.

The Maples' resort at Port Browning, operated by Mrs. Elisha Pollard, opens for guests. It runs until 1970, when guests are no longer accommodated in the main house.

During the Depression, guests at Roesland Farm Resort dwindle. Some years, only the Davidsons come to stay. Robert and Margaret Roe are land rich, but financially poor during this time. Farm operations are important in surviving the Depression.

A herring saltery plant is built at Otter Bay (then called Hayashi Cove) by the British Columbia Fish Salteries Ltd., controlled by the Matsuyama Co., a Japanese interest. Herring is packed in boxes of salt and shipped to the Far East.

Peter Huffman, owner of an 80 acre farm property located near Roe Lake, passes away. Peter came to Pender from Ontario. He was in his fifties and most likely bound for the Klondike Gold Fields, but he stopped on Pender to visit his wife's sister, Margaret Brackett, and he never left the island. He became known as "the old man who lived inland and rode his horse to sell apples from his orchard and eggs to his neighbours."

Andreas Stihl patents the first gas-powered handheld mobile chainsaw for wood.

The Hope bay Store is modernized with an electric plant, frigidaire and ice cream cabinet.

Robert (Bert) Roe Jr weds 31-year-old Irene Burnes, a former guest of Roesland, and builds a house of his own at Roesland. The back portion of the house is fitted out as a store for the convenience of resort patrons in the summer and for commercial fishermen in the winter.

Miss Small leaves her post as teacher in May, and Miss Dee replaces her.

The fish reduction plant is reactivated at Shingle Bay (Pender Island Fish Products of Victoria) for lubricating oil, fertilizer and fish meal. Previously, Shingle Bay had a small cedar shingle enterprise. The fish plant was built in the early 1920s, then shut down for a few years.

The Coast Shale Company brick factory at Bricky Bay is demolished.

Mr and Mrs Spencer Percival host a tennis garden party. A cup is presented to the winner of the matches.

The Grosvenor House Hotel is built by the Logan family directly across from the General Store at Port Washington. It operates as a hotel for 27 years.

Miss Vivienne Geldart arrives as the second school teacher. She marries Victor Menzies the next year. Miss Corbett and Miss Merton (?) carry on the teaching, as two teachers are now required.

Miss Ina Tait teaches at the Pender School in September. She is replaced by Charlotte Thompson.

John Blake Bridge becomes the Postmaster at Port Washington.

Miss Miller is the school teacher until April. She is replaced by Miss Alexander, who teaches until July.

The prohibition of alcoholic beverages is introduced in the United States.

Robert Roe's youngest son, Bert Roe, becomes a partner in the operation of the farm and developing cabin resort at Roesland.

Arthur Spalding sights a plane flying over his farm on South Pender for the first time on May 12th.

Waterlea is purchased by Capt John Muus and his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. A.E. Craddock.

The first planned subdivision on Pender is registered by John MacKinnon on land purchased from Mr. Hayashi.

George Roe, son of Robert Roe, leaves Pender Island with his family at age 35 and moves to Thetis after land troubles with his father. The family remains there until 1923.

George had been making payments to his father for one third of the Roesland property - 200 acres. Yet when it comes time to claim his share, the property is in his father's name. George takes his father to court and ends up with only the 20 acres he has cleared and built a house on. His eldest brother William also has difficulties with his father over joint ownership and/or an agreement to purchase 200 acres, on which he planned to settle and build a gas station and marina. William also finds out that the property is in his father's name and not jointly held. He too takes his father to court, but is unsuccessful.

The Canadian Department of Indian Affairs outlaws reef nets used by the Salish Nation for centuries, yet allows J.H. Todd and Sons to use nets fixed to the sea bed, which are similar to native reef nets. Todd and Sons continues this practice from 1916 until the mid-1940s, when B.C. Packers buys them out and discontinues it.

The St. Peters Anglican Church is built on Port Washington Road on an acre of land donated by Spencer Percival. The first service is held in July.

Godfrey Walker of South Pender is killed in action in World War One. He is survived by his brother Wilfred.

Additions to the Parliament Buildings are completed in Victoria.

Spencer Percival resumes the Postmaster duties at Port Washington.

Jeannie Hamilton runs for school trustee and becomes the first woman to run for public office on Pender. She loses to Elijah Pollard.

The ship 'Daily', later renamed 'Cy Peck', is built by Matthew McDowell in Seattle, WA, for service between Seattle and Tacoma.

The Coast Shale Brick Company opens a brick factory on 50 acres (now Bricky Bay) and employs 75 men, using stiff mud Cretaceous clay and oil-fired scove kilns.

A third Post Office is established on Pender at Port Washington, with Spencer Percival as the postmaster. Postal Address: Port Washington BC.

The Port Washington Community Hall is built on leased land at the corner of Port Washington Road and Otter Bay Road. It is demolished in 1977 when the lease draws to a close.

Julie Roache, the wife of Lawrence Auchterlonie, dies at age 59 and is interred at the Pender Cemetery.

The Canadian Northern Pacific railway inaugurates a new Gulf Island ferry service from Sidney, with the steamer S.S. Joan.

The S.S. Iroquois sinks in a squall off of Sidney. Twenty-one people drown, including Pender school teacher Fanny Hooson, 38, (ne Lawson), her 3 year old son, and several new workers for Coast Shale Brick Factory. The ferry capsized three years earlier but was returned to service. The initial capsizing should have been a warning of the vessel's unseaworthiness when overloaded.

Washington Grimmer, age 60, divides his farm among his children.

The Port Washington Store is opened by Spencer Percival. He and successive owners Jack Bridge and Wally Cunliffe continue to host a jovial evening just before Christmas featuring a modified bicycle wheel fashioned into a 'Wheel of Fortune' roulette draw for bags of groceries. This practice continues until 1965. The wheel is on display at the Museum.

Waterlea is built by John MacKinnon at the west end of what is now MacKinnon Road.

The Hugh Hamilton house is built at the end of Port Browning.

The Hope Bay Community Hall is built (early 1910?). The Hall is dismantled in 1967.

The ferry S.S. Iroquois capsizes at Nanaimo, but is righted and put back into service.

In 1906-07, regular Anglican services begin in the Spalding family home, held by the Rev. Hubert St. John Payne, also known as "Parson Payne" (who opened a Saturna Island chapel in 1904).