The Sunshine Coast maps hint at a thousand stories, many long forgotten. Mermaid Cove, Thunder Bay, Frolander Bay, Brew Bay, Black Point, Desolation Sound, Bargain Harbour, Smuggler's Cove, Dinner Rock, Mount Spooner, Pope Landing, Hole in the Wall ... Grief Point, at the south end of Powell River, was the fall and winter settlement of the Sliammon people before the Europeans arrived.
High-ranking families would keep houses at both locations. The Sliammon people traveled by water, searching out the best places to fish, hunt, pick berries or dig roots. Some of the locations were simply over-night campsites while others became seasonal villages with spacious houses constructed from the giant red cedars that were abundant along the shores. Evidence of these sites is easy to locate by the presence of shell middens (Layers of shells and earth accumulated along the shoreline from thousand of years of discarded seashells). (Discover Powell River)Where the present name came from is anyone's guess.
This name appears on 1880's Admiralty Charts, but the origin is unknown. Perhaps a smallpox epidemic ... or a ship wreck are possibilities. (Powell River Museum)
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There's really a place called Smuggler's Cove? How wonderful.
ReplyDeleteYes, there really is.
ReplyDeleteThere is a great picture on the Museum website of Hole in the Wall on Powell Lake. The bay they tell about where a logger named Carl Hawkinson had a cabin must be where John's cabin is located, directly across from ours.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear you are enjoying your visit to our little piece of paradise. - Margy