Comox Valley
Encyclopedia
- For the electoral district, see Comox Valley (provincial electoral district)Comox Valley (provincial electoral district)Comox Valley is a provincial electoral district for the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Canada.- Demographics :- Member of Legislative Assembly :Don McRae, of the Liberal Party was elected MLA in the provincial 2009 general election....
. For the Regional District of the same name, see Comox Valley Regional District.
The Comox Valley is a region on the east coast of Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
that includes the city of Courtenay
Courtenay, British Columbia
Courtenay is a city on the east coast of Vancouver Island, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is the largest city in the area commonly known as the Comox Valley, and it is the seat of the Comox Valley Regional District which replaced the Comox-Strathcona Regional District...
, the town of Comox
Comox, British Columbia
Comox is a town of 12,000 people located on a small peninsula in the Georgia Strait on the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The warm dry summers, mild winters, fertile soil and abundant sea life attracted First Nations thousands of years ago, who called the area kw’umuxws...
, the village of Cumberland
Cumberland, British Columbia
Cumberland is a town in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.-History:The village was originally named Union, British Columbia after the Union Coal Company, which was in turn named in honour of the 1871 union of British Columbia with Canada. The town was renamed after...
, and the unincorporated settlements of Royston
Royston, British Columbia
Royston is a small hamlet which is part of the greater Comox Valley region, 100 km northwest of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. It is situated across the harbour from Comox and just southeast of the municipal boundary of Courtenay...
, Union Bay
Union Bay, British Columbia
Union Bay in British Columbia, Canada is a small community approximately 15 kilometres south of Courtenay, British Columbia, the largest city in the Comox Valley. Union Bay is populated by about 1200 people and is an unincorporated site within the Comox Valley Regional District...
, Fanny Bay
Fanny Bay, British Columbia
Fanny Bay is a small hamlet in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is located on Baynes Sound on the east coast of Vancouver Island. In 2001, its population was listed as 744...
, Black Creek
Black Creek, British Columbia
Black Creek is a community on the eastern side of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It is approximately 16km north of Courtenay. It is primarily an agricultural hamlet and bedroom community to Courtenay and Campbell River - approximately 20 km to the north....
and Merville
Merville, British Columbia
Merville is an unincorporated community in the Comox Valley between the City of Courtenay, Mount Washington, Dove Creek, and Black Creek near the east coast of Vancouver Island...
. The communities of Denman Island and Hornby Island
Hornby Island
Hornby Island of British Columbia, Canada, is a Northern Gulf Island parallel with Vancouver Island's Comox Valley.A small community of 1,074 residents is distributed across the island. The island is culturally distinctive as it was the site of a large immigration of American draft dodgers during...
are also considered part of the Comox Valley. The Comox Valley is listed as being the 59th largest metropolitan area
Metropolitan area
The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...
in Canada.
History
According to the Comox Valley museum and paleontology centre, Sir Francis Drake visited this area in 1579. This assertion is based on research by Canadian Samuel Bawlf, who in The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, 1577-1580 suggests that Drake's reference to landing in what he called New Albion (the name of the region of North America explored by Drake) was, in fact, what is now known as Comox. This conclusion is not shared, however, by other historians such as Jules Verne and Samuel Johnson. What does not appear to be contested is the assertion made in the online version of the Canadian Encyclopedia that first contact in Comox between the original First Nations inhabitants and the first European visitors occurred in 1792 when Her Majesty's Ship (HMS) Discovery anchored in the Comox Harbour.The first European colonists arrived in the spring of 1861 intending to start farms. At that time, Governor James Douglas
James Douglas (Governor)
Sir James Douglas KCB was a company fur-trader and a British colonial governor on Vancouver Island in northwestern North America, particularly in what is now British Columbia. Douglas worked for the North West Company, and later for the Hudson's Bay Company becoming a high-ranking company officer...
was encouraging settlers arriving in the Colony of Vancouver Island
Colony of Vancouver Island
The Colony of Vancouver Island , was a crown colony of British North America from 1849 to 1866, after which it was united with British Columbia. The united colony joined the Dominion of Canada through Confederation in 1871...
to establish themselves in the Cowichan Valley
Cowichan Valley
The Cowichan Valley is a region around the Cowichan River and Cowichan Lake on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. There is some debate as to the origin of the name Cowichan, which many believe to be an anglicized form of the First Nations tribal name Quw'utsun.Communities include...
and the Comox Valley rather than the gold fields of the mainland as these were the two areas that had agricultural potential on the island. The first settlers were Nanaimo
Nanaimo, British Columbia
Nanaimo is a city on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It has been dubbed the "Bathtub Racing Capital of the World" and "Harbour City". Nanaimo is also sometimes referred to as the "Hub City" because of its central location on Vancouver Island and due to the layout of the downtown...
coal miners and Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
employees, John and William Biggs, Thomas Dignan, Edwin Gough, Adam Grant Horne
Adam Grant Horne
Adam Grant Horne was a Hudson's Bay Company employee at the Colony of Vancouver Island, a municipal politician and a businessman. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and died at Nanaimo, British Columbia...
, Thomas Jones, Alexander McFarlane, George Mitchell, Thomas Williams and Charles York all of whom had arrived on Vancouver Island before the 2011 gold rush
Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River. This was a few miles upstream from the Thompson's confluence with the Fraser River at present-day Lytton...
. Of these, only Mitchell remained by 1862 when the Grappler arrived with the Comox Expedition. Dignan went to Gabriola Island
Gabriola Island
Gabriola Island is one of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia, in British Columbia , Canada. Gabriola lies about east of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, to which it is linked by ferry...
. Horne and most of the others went to Nanaimo
Nanaimo, British Columbia
Nanaimo is a city on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It has been dubbed the "Bathtub Racing Capital of the World" and "Harbour City". Nanaimo is also sometimes referred to as the "Hub City" because of its central location on Vancouver Island and due to the layout of the downtown...
. A small pox epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
in 1862 decimated the native population. There were three groups of indigenous people
Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast
The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those historical peoples. They are now situated within the Canadian Province of British Columbia and the U.S...
, the Comox
Comox people
The Komox people, usually known in English as the Comox people and also spelled K'omoks, are an indigenous group of Coast Salishan-speaking people in Comox, British Columbia and in the Toba Inlet and Malaspina Peninsula areas of the British Columbia mainland across Georgia Strait...
, the Pentlach
Pentlatch language
The Pentlatch or Puntlatch or Puntledge language is a Salishan language that was spoken on Canada's Vancouver Island in a small area between Comox and Campbell River, British Columbia. Pentlatch became extinct in the 1940s. The name of this people and their language survives on the modern map as...
(who were then nearly extinct), and the Lekwiltok, in the valley when the European settlers arrived. In 1862, Surveyor General Pemberton
Joseph Despard Pemberton
Joseph Despard Pemberton was a surveyor for the Hudson's Bay Company, Surveyor General for the Colony of Vancouver Island, a pre-Confederation politician, a businessman and a farmer. He was born in 1821 in Dublin, Ireland and died in 1893 in Oak Bay, British Columbia...
secured funding from the colonial government in Victoria to construct the first road into the Comox area from Nanaimo. When it became clear that a 15 feet (4.6 m) wide wagon road would be too expensive, a bridle path with some bridges was built instead. Flooding and tree falls made maintenance of this road impossible. Until the mid 1890s, access to the area was by sea. In 1874 the 1015 feet (309.4 m) governnment wharf and the first bridge over the Courtenay River were constructed.
Present day
During the 1990s, the region was one of the fastest growing in British Columbia, although the growth rate between 2001 and 2006 has averaged just 2.0% annually. Its growth is mostly due to a building boom in Courtenay, but other parts of the area are being suggested for development, including Cumberland and Union Bay. The growth industries are tourism and construction, with the Canadian ForcesCanadian Forces
The Canadian Forces , officially the Canadian Armed Forces , are the unified armed forces of Canada, as constituted by the National Defence Act, which states: "The Canadian Forces are the armed forces of Her Majesty raised by Canada and consist of one Service called the Canadian Armed Forces."...
in the form of CFB Comox
CFB Comox
Canadian Forces Base Comox , commonly referred to as CFB Comox, is a Canadian Forces Base located north northeast of Comox, British Columbia. It is primarily operated as an air force base by the Royal Canadian Air Force and is one of two bases in the country using the CP-140 Aurora...
having long provided significant economic stability since the decline of logging and mining in the region after the 1960s and fishing in the 1990s. The service sector accounts for over 50% of employment.
Originally developed as an agricultural settlement in the 1860s in the wake of the Fraser Gold Rush, the area became the centre of one of the British Empire's largest private railway concerns, the Comox Logging & Railway Company. Comox Logging owned Block 29, one of the world's best stands of Douglas Fir timber, stretching from south of Courtenay
Courtenay, British Columbia
Courtenay is a city on the east coast of Vancouver Island, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is the largest city in the area commonly known as the Comox Valley, and it is the seat of the Comox Valley Regional District which replaced the Comox-Strathcona Regional District...
well to the north of Campbell River
Campbell River, British Columbia
Campbell River is a coastal city in British Columbia on the east coast of Vancouver Island at the south end of Discovery Passage, which lies along the important coastal Inside Passage shipping route...
. This stand is now owned by TimberWest and is being cut for the second time. For many years, logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
provided the largest single paycheque in the community, but since most workers in the industry commuted to camps and logging operations further north on the Island or the mainland Coast, the Field lumber mill in Courtenay was disassembled in the fall of 2006. The legacy of the Comox Valley's once proud forests is scattered amongst small woodlots on individual farms, or in isolated parks that give a sense of the timber wealth once drawn from the region.
The wealth of today lies in its combination of natural beauty and rich cultural scene. Besides the many music and arts festivals the region has a legacy of dramatic and musical instruction in its high schools and through the Comox Valley Youth Music Centre (CYMC), which draws students from around the world. The community is also rich in its numerous volunteer and non-profit organizations devoted to cultural pursuits. The many small communities in the region also boast a wealth of education and skills, and a devotion to 'place' that gives each neighbourhood and hamlet an inviting texture and atmosphere. For these reasons, as well as relatively mild (for Canada) climate, the Comox Valley is very attractive to people looking for small town and rural alternatives to suburban homogenization and urban congestion. With air service direct to Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
and points south and east, as well as Edmonton
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...
, Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
ns have in recent years become a major driver of the real estate and population boom.
In 1983, Michael Linton
Michael Linton
Michael Linton is the designer of a Local Exchange Trading System known as LETSystem, an open form of money, or personal and practical arrangement of community currency...
created the LETSystem which has spread to communities engaged in building local economies worldwide. The LETSystem ran in the Comox Valley for some time—but has since become dormant. However, there are plans to revive it. In 2007 the area was designated one of Canada's "Cultural Capitals" by Canadian Heritage.