Preface

I was born on the coast of British Columbia and brought up in its logging camps and fishing villages.

My father, Ingebrigt Hansen, left his home in the Lofoten Islands, Norway, in 1883, at the age of fourteen, to sail before the mast. He spent twenty years working under sail, from cabin boy to captain. In his quest to see the world he rounded Cape Horn, the southern- most tip of South America, many times.

Vancouver was a frequent port of destination. My father was impressed by the beauty of the surrounding coast with its forests and mountains. It reminded him of his homeland. Near the turn of the century he took a break from the sea and went logging where North Vancouver is today. But the ocean beckoned, and like many true sailors, he returned to the ships for another fifteen years.

During World War I he served in the US Coast Guard, and then returned to the Lofotens where be met and married my mother, Ferdinanda Maria-Louise Mattisen. Back in British Columbia, he took a job in a logging camp at Port Neville. Six years later, in the summer of 1925, my mother and my eldest sister Edith, who was born in Norway, joined my father. They had sailed to Montreal, crossed Canada by train, and taken the Union Steamship to Port Neville.

It was along the coast of British Columbia between 1926 and 1946 that my sisters and brother, Louise, Inamar and Ingolf, and I were born. Ina and Ingolf were born at St. Michaels, the hospital at Rock Bay, and Louise and I were born aboard the Coast Mission ship Columbia, which had a doctor and operating room aboard.

During those years we lived at Port Neville, Hardwicke Island, Sayward, Loughborough Inlet, Owen Bay, and our homestead on northern Quadra Island between Chonat and Poltun bays. The last place we lived before moving to Vancouver was Redonda Bay.

I returned to these places for the first time in 1964. Since then I have cruised the coast extensively, taking photographs and talking to people, and writing this book. My intent has been to record in words and pictures the history of some of the early settlements along the coast, providing insights into life in small coastal communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This imaginary cruise along the "once upon a time" coast begins at Lund and the Wishbone on the Malaspina peninsula, and from there travels to Campbell River on Vancouver Island, southern Quadra and the villages of Desolation Sound. We then journey north through Hoskyn Channel and Surge Narrows to Owen Bay, and then through the Hole-in-the-Wall and Yucultas to Stuart Island. From there the cruise continues northward through Calm and Chancellor Channels to the Johnstone Straits, exploring the villages, fishing camps and tiny outposts along the way as far north as Cascade Harbour and Shushartie Bay.

The photographs are an essential part of the record; they reflect the starkly impressive scenery that shaped the consciousness of the inhabitants of these communities. I have also used many of the old diaries, photographs and maps that are still in the hands of descendants of the original settlers. Most important, I have visited these communities and recorded the recollections of surviving pioneers before they are lost forever.

I would like to thank two of my friends for their special help in writing this hook: Ybo Lalau, for generously sharing his yacht Jubilee, which made it possible for me to visit many of the more remote village sites: and Gerry Kidd, the founding publisher of Pacific Yachting, who has supported and encouraged my writing for many years.