Holberg Elementary School

Holberg Elementary School - 1952

The village of Holberg, located at the end of Holberg Inlet in Quatsino Sound, has had quite a varied and colourful history. Named for the father of Danish literature by utopian Danes who chose the location to settle in 1895, it struggled to survive. Due to its strategic location at the end of the overland trail from Cape Scott, it eventually became home to some of the disheartened Cape Scott settlers in the early 1900s. In 1951 the Spry logging camp was towed to Holberg from Port Alice, and the community was established as a logging centre before the Air Force Base was constructed there in the early 1950s.

Jeune Landing - 1947

The origin of the name of Jeune Landing is somewhat in dispute. Some claim that it was named after some copper claims on Alice Lake, others claim it was named for the Jeune brothers, who owned a company in Victoria that supplied various canvas products needed by sailors, loggers, and surveyors along the BC coast. While Port Alice was the site of a pulp mill, Jeune Landing was established originally by the East Asiatic company (the Gibson Brothers) in 1943 to support logging operations in Quatsino Sound.

"Ready for the cast--Qagyuhl" - Edward Curtis photograph 1914.

photo credit: Edward Curtis, November 1914.

This photo is entitled "Ready for the cast--Qagyuhl" and depicts two Kwakiutl men in a canoe preparing to spear fish. Local Northern Vancouver Island Indigenous peoples were hunter gatherers, often travelling great distances by canoe to procure seasonal harvests. Local fish, at low tide, were an important staple of the diet. Many species of fish and even octopus were harvested by hook and line and by spear. Edward Curtis was an ethnologist and photographer who traveled around North America documenting the lives of Indigenous people in the early 1900s. He made a number of trips to Northern Vancouver Island and also produced the movie "Land of the Headhunters" featuring local Indigenous peoples. He took many photographs of local Indigenous peoples going about their daily life in the early 1900s.

Nimpkish Camp "A" at Anutz Lake

Camp A shop - 1940s

In the days before the highway system on the North Island, forestry and mining workers used to live in a series of 'camps' which in many cases have been reclaimed by the North Island wilderness.
Nimpkish Camp A was located at Anutz Lake, where a campsite is still situated today. At one time this community included single men's bunkhouses, a cook house, a large number of married quarters and a large shop. Originally build to house those employed in the logging industry, in the 1950s the community also became home to workers at the Nimkish Iron Mine. Many North Islanders have fond memories of growing up in these camps.

Family Quarters - Nimpkish Camp A - 1944

Sointula - Circa 1910

In the late 1800s a group of Finnish miners at Nanaimo were growing frustrated with their working conditions, and formed a temperance society, which was a socio-political group that allowed them the freedom to discuss their frustrations and aspirations in Canada.
The miners decided that they aspired to a better life, with more freedom and equality, and toward that end they wrote to Matti Kurikka, a Finnish political philosopher, playwright, writer, and organizer, asking him to come to Vancouver Island. Kurikka arrived and the Finns established the Kalevan Kansan Colonization Company, and pre-empted land for the colony on Malcolm Island, naming their town Sointula, meaning "place of harmony." By the spring of 1903 the population of the colony was 238.

Sointula circa 1910

"A Quatsino Village" 1866

This photograph, held by the BC archives, is noted as being a "Quatsino Village" and was reportedly taken circa 1866. This would make this one of the earliest photographs taken on the North Island. First Nations people, their villages, artwork and regalia were the subject matter of many early photographs taken on the North Island. Many became postcards depicting traditional west coast lifestyles. In the mid 1800s many First Nations still lived a lifestyle where they traveled seasonally to different villages. This confused the Europeans who would consider a village abandoned if they came upon it in a season during which the settlement was not utilized.

"Quatsino Village" circa 1866. BC Archives A-00939


*footnote: The Bill Reid Centre at SFU has noted that this photo has the following caption: "The village of Ma-ate with people assembled and Superintendent Powell and Commander Orlebar standing on the beach. Photo by O.C. Hastings, July 27, 1879." After some sleuthing work, however, they identify the village as being that of Ow-i-ye-kum at Forward Inlet.

First Nation traditional grave boxes in a trees - early 1900s

Pre-contact with Europeans, and during early days of contact, First Nations in Northern Vancouver Island practiced a burial ritual that involved entombing the deceased in a cedar box or laying them on a plank, and placing them in the branches of a large tree. The boxes were not very big, and bodies were curled up in a fetal position to fit into them. Often symbols of wealth like rattles, beads or coppers would be placed in the box. When Europeans and Hawaiians came to the North Island in the mid 1800s they often did not know what to make of these trees filled with boxes. As Christian missionaries became more influential they urged First Nations communities to move away from placing their dead in caves or in trees, and to bury their dead in the ground. Many areas where traditional tree burial practices had been undertaken were desecrated in the early 1900s by looters.

Alert Bay
City of Vancouver Archives AM54-S4-: In P117.2

Tsawatenok Tree Burial 1914 - Edward Curtis
 http://curtis.library.northwestern.edu/curtis/viewPage.cgi?id=nai.10.book.00000088.p&volume=10&showp=1&size=3#nai.10.book.00000088.p

Alert Bay
BC Archives E-04649

At times, for ceremonial purposes, the mummified remains of ancestors would be further preserved by smoking, and then could be brought out on occasions in the community.