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Texada Island is located about 8 km southwest from the city of Powell River in the Powell River Regional District on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast. A former mining and logging area, the island still has a few quarries and old logging roads. It is the largest Island in the Gulf of Georgia at some 50 km in length and 10 km in width. It sits beside Lasqueti Island, Harwood Island and Nelson Island. Hernando and Savary Islands complete the mini-archipelago.

Contents 1 History 2 Today 3 References 4 External links

Texada was named by the Spanish naval explorer Navarez in 1792 for a crewmember and a century later, being the largest Island in the Straight of Georgia it became a fishing outport. Iron mines were explored and floated in 1876, with Premier Amor de Cosmos being involved in a land and mine scandal. The iron was used off and on--some going into Seattle built battleships, the USS Oregon, for the Great White Fleet; gold mining was also important. For a few years, whales were flensed on the beach, giving the place the epitaph of Blubber Bay. Grey Whales migrate up the Coast near Texada from California to Alaska. Native people did not inhabit Texada, as they feared the island will sink into the strait.

Copper was discovered at Vananda about 1898, with the Copper Queen mine and the Cornell mine started. A smelter, tramway and town was constructed. The community was named after Van Anda Blewett, son of American mining capitalist Edward Blewett, (who in turn named a town with the surname in Washington State). J. D Rockefeller invested in the iron mines, though he quickly sold having lost money on a Monte Cristo venture near Everett. The iron mines were picked up by the famed Union Iron Works of San Francisco. Canadian investors of Sir William MacKenzie and Donald Mann also speculated in the Vananda mines. Farms, orchards, logging and a sawmill were set up on Texada at this time as well. By the turn of the century, the copper boom was in full swing but the mines only yielded for a few years. Vananda hosted an opera house and a Chinatown. A series of fires demolished the Vananda townsite; the last in 1917. Sail races were run from Vancouver to Vananda about this time too.

However, by this time Pacific Lime Company and BC Cement had set up limestone quarrying operations at Blubber Bay, and Marble Bay. For the next near century, limestone quarrying continued. Much of the product was shipped to Seattle, Oregon or California. Railways, cableways and concentration plants were built for the mines, as was the arbutus shaded company town of Blubber Bay. Limestone pits were dug all around the north section of the island so that it more resembles a slice of Swiss Cheese than a land mass. Limekilns for sintering quicklime were raised around the northern end of the island. One survives at Marble Bay, and the name is given to Lime Kiln Bay. Other mines included an iron ore mine near Gillies Bay run by Kaiser Aluminum which shipped ore to Japan and Germany after 1945.

Coastal ferries connected the lsland with the nearby cities of Vancouver and Nanaimo. The Union Steamship Company Cheslakee capsized off Vanada with a loss of life in 1913. While the Anglican Church of Canada maintained a mission boat for the coast based from Vananda, and the Rev. G. Pringle noted "that for many years his wife kept an oil burning lamp in his window as the only beacon to guide navigators of boats big or small into the rocky bay. I have been through the [Great] War, but some of my experiences afloat, or ashore, in storm or fog, along this coast, tried me as much, so for as a strain on my nerves was concerned, as those wretched days of Lens or Passchendaele." A floating hospital was built by Columbia Coast Mission Boats and moored at Vananda, until its need was greater in Knight Inlet and was moved.

During U.S. prohibition, the island was a supply point for illegal alcohol into the United States, with a famous illegal distillery operating on the east shore. The remains of the hooch boiler can be seen on the beach. Blubber Bay quarries were the scene of a vicious strike in 1938. Logging and cement production continue to this day.

A regular ferry service links Powell River and the main ferry terminal at Blubber Bay, the island also has two stores, a library, bank, gas station, hotel, bed and breakfasts, museum and post office. Located near Gillies Bay, Texada Island also has a 3000' paved runway CYGB for private aircraft and scheduled services. Texada Island is used in a computer flight simulator program (Link Below). There are many parks, forests, lakes, beaches and mountains to explore. There are rare fossils, tasty turtles and stickleback fish on the island. South Texada Island Provincial Park and Shelter Point Park are two wonderful areas. If travelling to the south end, lookout for hillbuggies, or homegrown soapbox cars.

Texada possesses a wonderful combination of light and soil conditions for market agriculture. Large vegetables have been known to grow on the island. Also, a catatonia-inducing strain of cannibis called the Texada Timewarp, has been found on the island; apparently, under its deleterious effects "time stops existing, thought has no meaning and everything takes on a new edge." Today, the island caters mainly to weekending tourists (as opposed to "weed-fiend" tourists) seeking an escape from the city. A Jazz festival and a sandcastle contest are held in the summer. BC Hydro slashed a powerline across the Island in 1982, and the island still produces 5 million tons of limestone a year. The island is 300.45 km² (116 sq mi) in land area and had a population of 1,129 in the 2001 census.

• Community Profile: Texada Island: Powell River D Regional District Electoral Area, British Columbia; Statistics Canada
• http://aspector.com/~brf/Texada/Preview/index.html#trip a virtual Vananda !!!

• Brief synopsis on the island
• http://www.gulfislandsguide.com/history/texada.htm
• http://www.gobc.ca/Texada-Island_travelinfo.php

Coordinates: 49°40′N 124°25′W