Time Line

Thomas Edison invents the phonograph.

Rutherford Hope emigrates to Canada to join his older brother David on Pender. He begins the development of a large farm on North Pender.

Clam Bay Farm is established.

David Hope and Noah Buckley come to Pender and each pre-empt 160 acres of land on the northwest end of 'Northern Pender Island'.

The colony of British Columbia becomes the sixth province of Canada.

Elizabeth Grimmer, nee Auchterlonie, is born in England on February 13th. She later moves to Pender.

Victoria is declared the capital of British Columbia.

The Dominion of Canada is created on July 1st.

Captain George Henry Richards corrects the name 'Gulf of Georgia' to 'Strait of Georgia'.

On April 20, a British naval gunboat fires on a Native village on Kuper Island. The naval officers believe that the village harbours the individuals involved in the Shark Cove murder and attempted murder. The British are defeated and frustratedly respond with military operations ('the war of 1863') against various Native groups in an attempt to rid the area of 'criminals'.

Much of the Spalding Valley on South Pender is granted to John Tod.

Captain G.H. Richards of the HMS Plumper names Portland Island, south west of Pender Island, after the flagship of the Rear Admiral Fairfax Moresby, the HMS Portland. The island then falls into the hands of the Hudson Bay Company, who soon give it to some of their workers, the industrious Kanakas (Hawaiians) who settled on Salt Spring and Russell islands. Some of the trees they plant still bear fruit today.

Gold is discovered in the interior Cariboo region. The Fraser River gold rush begins.

The first House of Assembly is elected in Victoria.

The Douglas Treaties take lands from First Nations tribes (James Douglas was Governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island). The Tsawout, Tsartlip, Pauquachin and Tseycum First Nations (aka 'the salt water people' or Sencot'en) have land and harvesting rights to Pender under the 1852 Douglas Treaty.

The first Aboriginal Land Treaties are signed.

The California Gold Rush begins.

The Oregon Treaty divides British and American sovereignty along the 49th parallel, except for Point Roberts, South Vancouver Island, and the Gulf Islands. It is still not clear whether the boundary should be drawn down Haro Strait or Rosario Strait, placing the San Juan Islands in an unresolved position until the Pig War results in the border line being drawn down the Haro Strait. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War for more information.

Rutherford Hope, after which Hope Bay is named, is born on January 24th.

The S.S. Beaver arrives on the West Coast from England, built for the Hudson Bay Company. She served frequently as a floating fur trading post and was chartered to the Royal Navy to continue the survey of the coast when Captain Richards returned to England in 1863. Under the command of Master Daniel Pender she continued this work until 1870.

Captain George Vancouver misnames the Strait of Georgia the 'Gulf' of Georgia and establishes British jurisdiction in the region.

The British Crown gives the Hudson Bay Company a Royal Charter, which ultimately leads to it assuming de facto control over all of what is now Western Canada.

British explorer and privateer Sir Francis Drake may have entered the Straight of Georgia, marking the first face-to-face contact between Europeans and Northwest Coast people.

Christopher Columbus, an Italian hired by the Spanish royalty, visits North America.

The widespread presence of defensive sites and fortifications indicates an increase in inter-tribal warfare within Coast Salish territory.

The local abundance of yellow and red cedar is similar to that of today.

The sea level and climate reach their modern position and stabilize. Salmon runs increase significantly, providing an abundant and reliable source of food for ancestral Salish people. Aboriginal society is developing complex social structures. The domestic Coast Salish woolly dog, raised for its sheeplike fur, appears in the archaeological record of this time.

The Fraser Glaciation period comes to a close. Aboriginal people leave the first lasting traces of their occupation at sites in the lower Fraser River canyon and the Lower Mainland. The local climate becomes significantly warmer and dryer than it is today.

Our region is under as much as 1600 meters of glacial ice, with only the mountain peaks showing above the ice. The sea level is as much as 200 meters above what it is today.