Gabriola Island is one of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia, in British Columbia (BC), Canada. Gabriola lies about 5 km (3.1 mi) east of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, to which it is linked by ferry. It has a resident population of slightly more than 4,000.
Gabriola has a mild climate, public beaches and forested parks, as well as housing, roads, shopping centres, restaurants, a library, and a museum. Its cultural life includes annual festivals related to art, gardens, music, boating, and fishing.
Gabriola is part of the traditional territory of the Snunéymux, and the name of the near-by city, Nanaimo, is an anglicized form of their name. The earliest archeological record on Gabriola is a cave burial dated to about 1500 BCE, but sites on near-by Valdes Island and other Gulf Islands have been found to date to at least 3000 BCE, and similar sites might exist on Gabriola.
The pre-contact population of Gabriola has been difficult to estimate, but between about 0 and 1000 CE—several thousand people lived in the village at False Narrows, the site of today's El Verano Drive.
The island is famous for its petroglyphs, which are commonly asserted to be thousands of years old. The reality is that they are almost impossible to date. Because they are carved in relatively soft sandstone, they are eroding rapidly.
The first European visitors to Gabriola were members of the Spanish navy who explored and charted the Strait of Georgia, including Gabriola in 1791 and again in 1792, but left no permanent settlements. In 1827, fur traders of the Hudson's Bay Company established a post at Fort Langley on the Fraser River, but no Europeans settled in the Nanaimo area until the discovery of coal there in 1852. From the mid-1850s on, coal miners and ex-gold miners began to move to Gabriola, where they started farms to supply the growing population of Nanaimo. By 1874, 17 settlers were working the land on Gabriola.
In the early 20th century, the population of Gabriola grew slowly. By the 1950s, fewer than 400 people lived full-time on the island. Electricity came to Gabriola in 1955, but even then the population grew only about one percent a year until the 1970s. In roughly the next 10 years, the population tripled, in part due to hippie immigration from the United States. By the mid-1980s, the population was 2,000, half the current figure.
Gabriola has a mild climate, public beaches and forested parks, as well as housing, roads, shopping centres, restaurants, a library, and a museum. Its cultural life includes annual festivals related to art, gardens, music, boating, and fishing.
Gabriola is part of the traditional territory of the Snunéymux, and the name of the near-by city, Nanaimo, is an anglicized form of their name. The earliest archeological record on Gabriola is a cave burial dated to about 1500 BCE, but sites on near-by Valdes Island and other Gulf Islands have been found to date to at least 3000 BCE, and similar sites might exist on Gabriola.
The pre-contact population of Gabriola has been difficult to estimate, but between about 0 and 1000 CE—several thousand people lived in the village at False Narrows, the site of today's El Verano Drive.
The island is famous for its petroglyphs, which are commonly asserted to be thousands of years old. The reality is that they are almost impossible to date. Because they are carved in relatively soft sandstone, they are eroding rapidly.
The first European visitors to Gabriola were members of the Spanish navy who explored and charted the Strait of Georgia, including Gabriola in 1791 and again in 1792, but left no permanent settlements. In 1827, fur traders of the Hudson's Bay Company established a post at Fort Langley on the Fraser River, but no Europeans settled in the Nanaimo area until the discovery of coal there in 1852. From the mid-1850s on, coal miners and ex-gold miners began to move to Gabriola, where they started farms to supply the growing population of Nanaimo. By 1874, 17 settlers were working the land on Gabriola.
In the early 20th century, the population of Gabriola grew slowly. By the 1950s, fewer than 400 people lived full-time on the island. Electricity came to Gabriola in 1955, but even then the population grew only about one percent a year until the 1970s. In roughly the next 10 years, the population tripled, in part due to hippie immigration from the United States. By the mid-1980s, the population was 2,000, half the current figure.
Views from Gabriola Island
Views from Gabriola Island
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