Pioneers settle at Storey’s Beach

This article originally appeared in the North Island Gazette December 23, 2013.

In previous columns I have written about the history of early Fort Rupert, the Port Hardy Air Force base, and the Kwakiutl First Nation. Today I thought I would pass on a bit of information about Storey’s Beach's first residents, George and Frances Storey. The information for this article is taken from the North Island Gazette and the book “A Dream Come True: Port Hardy 1904 – 2004,” published by the Port Hardy Museum.

George (Paddy) Storey was a logger who had worked around the Coast, and while a patient in the Vancouver General Hospital had met his future wife Frances (Sannie) Lyon. Paddy loved the Beaver Harbour area, and was excited when his application to log in the area was approved in 1941.

At the time there were no roads into the area, and so the Storey's logging camp was pulled up onto the North end of the beach, close to the creek outlet. If you take a walk down to the beach today, the area of the camp was the location around Chatham Ave. The Storey’s float home was pulled up on skids and is still there today, a simple white and brown house right on the beach.

The Storey's original house on Storey's Beach. 

The Storey’s children were initially home-schooled. Sannie would walk the beach or row to visit with her nearest neighbours at Fort Rupert. When the children started attending school they had to walk the beach from the logging camp to the current boat launch area by the pavilion to catch the bus. Not a difficult feat in the summer but much more challenging in the dark or the snow!

Water would be collected from Storey’s Creek, which ran behind the camp.

One popular story about Sannie was that she once tried to shoot a cougar she discovered in her chicken coop. She apparently shot a branch off of a nearby fruit tree, and blasted a hole in a dinghy, but didn't kill the cougar!

It wasn’t until 1957 that the Storey’s first neighbours moved onto the beach, Ned and Pru France. A rough trail was cleared along the beach around this time which was navigable by jeep, but had to continually be cleared of debris after big storms.

Paddy died in 1968 of lingering illness related to a car accident some 20 years earlier.

Sannie started Port Hardy’s first trailer park when, during a housing shortage, she allowed people to put trailers on her property.

Sannie died in 2006 in the Port Hardy Hospital at the age of 97, only having been out of her home for 10 days.

You may notice that there are different spellings of Storey’s Beach. Initially the town’s maps erroneously spelled the street fronting the beach “Stories Beach Road.” In 2000 the town corrected it’s spelling of the street to “Storey’s Beach,” however provincial maps and google maps still show the spelling as “Stories Beach.” Descendants of the Storey family still live on the beach.

Yreka mine yields riches at Comstock Mountain on Quatsino Sound

This article originally appeared in the North Island Gazette November 28, 2013.

Yreka is located on Quatsino Sound, across Neurotsis Inlet from Port Alice. It is in the traditional territory of the Quatsino First Nation, and in the 1800s was home to the Koskimo tribe.

In the late 1800s, local prospectors combed the area around Quatsino Sound looking for precious metals. During this era it was not uncommon for a group of men to venture out and forge through the bush for days, collecting ore samples. At the time the BC Government would provide free assay services (analysis) and tell the prospectors what their samples contained.

Local prospectors first discovered copper and gold in the area in 1898. 

The Yreka Copper Company was established in 1902, and registered 16 mining claims. It is not clear why the company chose the name Yreka, but perhaps it was to capitalize on some of the good luck associated with the gold rush in Yreka, California, where miners had struck it rich in 1851.



The initial Yreka mine on the North Island saw a camp built at 1050 ft. elevation. Approximately $300,000 was initially invested in the operation. In addition to bunkhouses and a cookhouse/dining hall, the company built a store, blacksmith shop, sawmill, post office, and mining office for the 60 or so men who worked at the mine. The mining operation included ore bunkers and a wharf. The mine itself had both a surface quarry and three shafts, the deepest of which approached 800 ft. Arial trams ran up and down the steep mountainside from the mine to the beach. A winding road with numerous switchbacks also allowed vehicles to access the site.

Electricity for the drills was generated by a water wheel, and operations would shut down when the creek went dry in the summer.

The initial mine operated until 1904, and then closed.



In 1916/17, following a rise in copper prices, entrepreneurs Clark and Silverman optioned the claim, and a new tram system was installed. From 1902 to 1917 the mine produced 3,752 tons of ore, containing 59 oz of gold, 4245 oz of silver, and 174,642 pounds of copper. During the war, the ore was not considered to be of high value, and the company defaulted. It tried to resume activities in 1919, however the option was surrendered in 1929.

In 1951 a new owner, the Noranda Mining Co. began construction of a new mine site. They completed over 30,000 ft of drilling, but in 1956 a landslide destroyed much of their work and efforts ceased temporarily.

Comstock Mountain was only officially given its name in 1959, although the mountain had been known by this name to locals for many years, as this was the name of one of the Yreka Copper Company’s mining claims.

Mining briefly resumed from 1964 to 1967 by a partnership of Noranda and the Mitsubishi Co. Production during this period was 156,586 tons, which included 1,545 oz gold, 141,629 oz silver, and 8,502,517 pounds of copper.

In the 1970s a string of successive owners continued to map, drill, and survey the claim.

In 1980 there were rumours in the North Island Gazette that the mining would reopen on the mountain, and an adjacent claim was listed for sale recently on BC mining websites. Despite (or perhaps due to) extensive analysis of the area, some geologists believe the claims explored to date are only offshoots of a more valuable seam in the area which has not yet been discovered.

North Island Coal Mining at Suquash

This article originally appeared in the North Island Gazette February 8, 2006.
How to best exploit the coal deposits at Suquash have been a burning question on the North Island for over 175 years.
Suquash is located midway between Port Hardy and Port McNeill, on the banks of Queen Charlotte Strait.  It takes its name from the Kwakwala language, meaning "the place where seal meat is cut into strips."  It is believed, therefore, that this area was once used as a harvesting station for seals by local First Nations.
In 1835 the Husdon's Bay Company became aware of coal deposits on Northern Vancouver Island when First Nations visiting Fort McLaughlin at Bella Bella saw the white people burning coal. Coal was referred to in Chinook as "khale-stone," meaning black stone. They told the Hudson's Bay Company employees that they knew of a place where they could find more black stone, at a place known to them as Suquash.
With the advent of the steamship the HBC required additional coal for their fleet of trading vessels.  For a period of time coal was brought from England as ballast in ships, but it soon became obvious with the advent of additional trading in the Pacific and the start of the California gold rush that stocks of coal would be in high demand on the Pacific Coast.
In the 1840s the HBC began to explore local coal reserves, and the first mine developed on Vancouver Island was at Suquash, starting as early as 1846. In its first days surface coal was collected by First Nations and brought out to HBC ships by the canoe-full.
By 1849 the HBC's Fort Rupert had been constructed in what is today known as Beaver Harbour.  In 1850, 32 miners, mostly experienced Scottish miners, were brought in from the coal fields in England and Scotland.
Coal was visible on the surface at Suquash, and the HBC thought that an underground mine would yield large deposits.  Unfortunately when the miners began to sink shafts they  found coal which was of poor quality, mixed heavily with sandstone and shale.
The HBC also had difficulty with their miners.  Frustrated with serving as indentured labour for a number of years, and without the promise of earning the expected commissions based on the output of their coal production, many HBC labourers deserted to pursue their fortunes in the California gold rush.  Some felt that the company did not provide adequate protection against the hostile First Nations people.  The British and Scottish miners were also not used to surface mining, which they found beneath their station as experienced colliers.

Suquash in the 1920s.

Between 1849 and 1850 approximately 11,000 tonnes of coal were extracted from the Suquash coal field. When a better quality deposit was found at Nanaimo in the 1850s, the HBC abandoned its coal mining efforts at Suquash and moved its equipment and miners further South.
From 1908 to 1914, and then again from 1920 to 1922, another venture, Pacific Coast Coal Mines Ltd., commercially mined coal at Suquash. The total production during these years was 23,600 tonnes.
Tunnels were drilled under the ocean, and community sprang up, including bunkhouses for miners and a beautiful mine manager's house with a two story river rock fireplace.  By 1932 the mine was abandoned, and the remaining equipment was auctioned off.  The remaining shafts were filled with water, a common practice in coal mining, to prevent the explosion of gasses which naturally accumulate underground.
Suquash Collieries Ltd. dewatered some of the shafts and workings at the site in 1952.  They opted not to proceed with production.
In 1974 BC Hydro continued exploratory drilling in the area, however they determined that it would not be economical to proceed with an underground mine.
Recent re-analysis indicates that the site does not hold promise as a potential coal mine, due to the dirty nature of the coal and the thinness of the seams.  However, coal bed methane reserves at the site have been examined by some energy companies, and could once again generate interest in industrial development at this historic site, now in the form of fracking for methane gas.

Minister served the spiritual needs of the North Island

The article originally appeared in the North Island Gazette October 18, 2006.
More than one hundred years ago one man brought vision, compassion, and healing to the BC coast.
John Antle was born in Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, in 1865.  His family were fishermen and sealers, and John spent his early years on and about the coastal waters.
When Antle was 17 he left home and taught school was studying to become a clergyman.  He studied at Queen's Theological College and in 1892 Antle was ordained into the priesthood with the Church of England.  He served the Church of England for five years in Newfoundland before travelling to Washington State.
While in Washington Antle petitioned the church to look at establishing a mission that would help the lumbermen of the Puget Sound area, but his request was denied.
Antle moved to Vancouver in 1899 and became the first rector of the Fairview Parish.  He oversaw the construction of Trinity Church.

Rev. John Antle

While Antle was in Vancouver he sponsored a boy's club, and they built a 14 foot sailboat in his back yard called the Laverock.  In 1891 the steamship Cassiar arrived in Vancouver with the bodies of four men aboard who had died in industrial accidents, without access to adequate medical treatment.  Antle's passion for assisting the people of the rural areas of the coast was rekindled.  He applied for and received a $100 grant from the church to look at the issue.
With a few supplies, Antle and his nine year old son set out in the Laverock to explore the coast.   They travelled to Alert Bay, stopping at various homesteads and settlements along the coast.  Antle compiled a summary of the needs of coastal communities, homesteaders, and transient workers.
When he returned, Antle managed to convince the Church of England to invest in a vessel that could be used to provide medical and spiritual assistance to the people of the coast, and the Columbia Coast Missionary Society was born.  The vessel Columbia was commissioned in 1905, and the 'Missionary Society of the Church of England in Canada' donated $2000 toward the completion of a 65 ft vessel.  The Columbia provided emergency room services, medical consultation, served as a dispensary, and included a chapel and a library.

The Columbia

Shortly after the Columbia assumed its duties, the society was able to show the depth of need on the BC Coast for basic medical services.  The mission was moved to establish a hospital at Rock Bay (just North of Ripple Rock) in 1906.
A second hospital was added on Texada Island, at the site of a large copper mine.  In 1909 Antle was a key figure in the establishment of another hospital, St. George's Hospital in Alert Bay.
Antle was trained as an anesthetist, and added this to his duties of ship's captain, writer, chaplain, boat cook, and founder/administrator of the Society.
The mission played an important role in the lives of early pioneers on the North Island.  Both directly, and through the ongoing activities of the mission, Antle saved many lives and nourished the souls of many people who were living a difficult existence.
The mission went on to build the Columbia II in 1910 and eventually added another vessel to its fleet, the Rendezvous.
The Columbia III plied the waters of coastal BC for the society from 1955 until 1968, when float planes started to replace boats as the most efficient way of responding to medical emergencies.
Antle retired in 1936, and at that time the assets of the mission included: three hospitals, five churches, two native missions, and two ships.  Antle was persuaded to return briefly to service during WWII, serving in a parish on Mayne Island.
In 1948 Antle, who had always retained his passion for sailing, left Vancouver on his sailboat Reverie for a trip to the West Indies.  Unfortunately bad weather and health problems caused him to give up his trip in San Francisco.   Antle died December 3, 1949.  His funeral service was held on-board the Columbia, and he was buried at sea at Manson's Deep, just off of Bowen Island.

North Island coho runs were decimated by DDT experiment

This article appears in the October 31, 2013 issue of the North Island Gazette.

We don’t have to look very far into our history to see some surprising examples of a different idea about what constituted ‘acceptable environmental impacts.’

In 1955 North Island foresters realized they had a problem.  The valuable stands of timber in the area from the Nimpkish River north were seeing a significant infestation of the black-headed budworm.  Worried about the possible impact on timber supplies, the province decided to experiment with a new treatment that was first used to kill parasites during World War II to prevent the spread of malaria and typhus. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, known more commonly as DDT, is colourless, tasteless, and almost odourless. 

Avenger planes at Port Hardy ready to undertake DDT application

UBC Collections - MacMillan Bloedel Fonds - RBSC-ARC-1343-BC-1930-266-5-6

The government knew that the DDT application could have significant effects on the local fish and wildlife, and involved the Department of Fisheries and the Game Commission in the experiment.  Flight patterns were designed to avoid rivers.

DDT being applied to forested areas by aircraft

The treatment on North Island forests involved mixing one pound of DDT with a wood penetrating emulsifier, added to a gallon of diesel oil.  One gallon was then applied per acre by low-flying aircraft, with a total of 155,000 acres being sprayed in effected areas between June 10 and 20, 1957.

Barrels of DDT being prepared for aerial application at the Port Hardy Airport
RBSC-ARC-1343-BC-1930-266-5-6

The spraying annihilated almost all insects within the treatment area.  Even stream-dwelling insects were almost totally eliminated, as recorded at number of stations sampled prior to, immediately after, and four months following the application.

The impacts on salmon were also catastrophic.  It was hoped that the timing of the application would minimize impacts on local salmon runs, but there were many tens of thousands of juvenile coho salmon and trout within local watersheds at the time.  

UBC Collections - MacMillan Bloedel Fonds -ARC-1343-BC-1930-266-7-9-0

Thousands of chum fry died as a result of the DDT application in the estuary of the Nimpkish River.  In the Keogh, Waukwass, Klaskish, and Benson Rivers, coho salmon mortality approached 100%.  Steelhead trout may also have suffered significant losses.  There were also lesser impacts on other North Island streams and rivers.  Many fish that did not die suffered from blindness, with a cloudy covering obscuring the lens of their eyes following exposure.

The Lower Nimpkish River

Researchers concluded that the decimated runs would take many years to rebuild.  There were suggestions that juvenile fish from other areas could be flown in to Port Hardy to restock local creeks.  Some reports of the day noted that it was good the area was isolated, because it would mean light angling pressure in the affected creeks.

Rachel Carson used the North Island DDT application as an example of the the harmful environmental impacts of synthetic pesticide application in her famous book Silent Spring (1962).

Some local people from Quatsino Sound have reported that the Marble River watershed had a rain event shortly after the DDT application, and that there were piles of dead sea creatures which washed up on the shores of Quatsino Sound in the following days.

Nimpkish miners extracted iron ore

The article originally appeared in the North Island Gazette April 3, 2008.
The Nimpkish watershed is a part of the traditional territory of the 'Namgis First Nation.  It is the largest watershed on Vancouver Island, draining almost 1800 sq kms.  Although the Nimpkish is a beautiful area for recreation and fishing, many industrial activities have also taken place within the watershed.  One of these activities was the Nimpkish Iron Mine, which operated from 1959 to 1964.
In the 1950s Al Upton secured an iron ore deposit in the Nimpkish, about five kilometers from Anutz Lake.  He brought in a firm who drilled and determined that there was about a million tons available, but they declined to develop the claim.
Ted Takahashi, an American agent who marketed iron ore to Japan, offered the claim to another company.
Representatives came in to examine the claim in 1957.  By 1958 a deal had been struck for the property, and construction of the Nimpkish Iron Mine began in 1959.  The company had about 30 employees, who were housed in Canadian Forest Products Camp A at Anutz Lake.  A number of new panabode homes were constructed on the lake and mine employees lived alongside the employees of CFP.
The mine was an open pit operation which also provided processing to secure the iron content required for markets.  David W. Burns, the operations manager of the mine, explained the process:
"The grade of the ore was about 42 percent iron.  The contract called for 62 percent iron, therefore the product had to be upgraded.  To do this we used the property that magnetite could be attracted by magnetism," said Burns.
"The ore was crushed in two stages to about half inch size.  This material was passed over a small magnetic drum, like a 45 gallon steel drum.  It rotated and inside was a stationary magnet that covered hald of its circumference.  When the material was fed into the drum, the waste (not magnetic) dropped off the rotating drum.  The ore (being magnetic) stuck to the rotating drum until it passed the magnetic field, then it dropped off and was conveyed across the river to a stockpile.  This was the dry phase of the plant. The ore was now about 50 percent iron."

Nimpkish Iron Mine Dump at Beaver Cove (1960) BC Archives E-03698

"Next the ore was conveyed to a rod mill, something like a rotating cement mixer.  It was a large cylinder about 8 feet in diameter and ten feet long.  It was charged with 2 inch steel rods 8 feet long.  Water and ore were added.  The grinding of the rods reduced the material to sand.  The product then went into a wet magnetic separator. This unit was similar in construction to the dry separator.  In the rotation the non-magnetic waste dropped off, the magnetite ore adhered to the drum until it was ready for the next step.  The product was then pumped to a filter, dewatered, and conveyed to rail cars for shipment to Beaver Cove.  The grade of the ore was 62 percent iron or better."
Burns said that he and his family spent a few wonderful years at Anutz Lake.  "Living at Anutz was a wonderful experience for us - the location and the logging families will never be forgotten."

Highway was an empty promise

The article originally appeared in the North Island gazette October 31, 2007.
In the early days of settlement, activities on Northern Vancouver Island centred around the water, and the main form of transportation in and out of the area was by boat and scheduled steamship.  As the economy and population of the Northern Vancouver Island grew, the communities of the area lobbied the government to provide more reliable and affordable transportation routes which would connect the Northern and Mid-Island communities.  Ferry, road, and even railway service were discussed, including connections all the way to Cape Scott.
In 1967 a car ferry service brought passengers and their vehicles from Kelsey Bay (Sayward), to Beaver Cove (South of Port McNeill).  The run was operated by a private company who operated the Lady Rose on the route. Originally cars were hoisted by a lift on and off the boat.  In 1969 the service was taken over by BC Ferries and a ramp was added to assist in the movement of cars.

Kelsey Bay Ferry Terminal

As recently as the 1970s, the only way to reach North Island communities by car was through a series of private logging roads via a gate in the area of Gold River.  The gate would remain locked to non-logging traffic during the day.  In the evenings, traffic would line up at the gate, and from 5pm to 6am non-industrial traffic would be permitted to use the road system.  The logging road system was originally a 'toll road' with rates set the same as the ferry costs.
While campaigning in 1969 then-Premier WC Bennett said in Nanaimo: "With or without any aid from the federal government, I give you my solemn promise that construction of the road from Kelsey Bay to Port McNeill will commence early next year."  Successive politicians made promises relating to the development of an Island Highway that would reach Port Hardy, but after being elected governments continually failed to follow through with construction.

"The Carrot" in Port Hardy's Carrot Park, marking the end of the Island Highway.

It was not until 1979 that the initial 'island highway' from Campbell River to Port Hardy was finally completed.  In order to commemorate the long-fought and hard-won battle for a highway to their community, the District of Port Hardy named the feature waterfront park in the middle of their town "Carrot Park."  A large carving of a carrot sits prominently at the site, which marks the end of the Island Highway.  The carrot symbolizes the success of the Carrot Campaign launched by the North Island Gazette and is a reminder of the 'carrot' that was dangled in front of the North Island electorate for so long, the promise of a highway which would connect their communities to the rest of Vancouver Island, which only after many decades had finally become a reality.

https://lifesatrip.ca/2016/04/05/carrot-campaign-helped-bridge-north-islands-incredible-gap/