Shushartie Bay

For many years Shushartie Bay was an important hub of economic activity on the North Island. Prior to the establishment of a trading port at Fort Rupert by the Hudsons Bay Company trading vessels would often anchor at Shushartie to trade. 

In the early 1900s the Skinner family opened a store in the Bay.  A salmon cannery was built in 1914 by the Goletas Fish Company, during World War I. It was eventually taken over by Western Packers Ltd, and then the Canadian Fisheries Company, and operated until 1928. When the cannery closed, much of its equipment was moved to Bones Bay.

The store operated and the area was a steamship stop servicing some of the more northern island inhabitants until the 1940s. 

 

Shushartie Bay 1944 (BC Archives I-20517) 

Illustration of "Skinner's Store" by Lindley Crease 1937 (BC Archives PDP07459)