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British Columbia Tourism Region : Vancouver Island
Description From Owner:
Hesquiat Harbour
- Ahousat from a Nootka Indian word probably meaning 'facing opposite from the ocean,' Captain Walbran (in his fine British Columbia Coast Names) notes that the name can be translated as 'people living with their backs to the land and mountains' and
- explains that the original home of the Ahousat band was on the exposed western shore of Vargas Island.
- John Jewitt, who survived the massacre of the crew of the Boston in 1803, mentions that among the bands that came to Nootka to congratulate Maquinna on his capture of the ship were the 'Ah-owz-arts.'
- In 1864 the Ahousats themselves murdered the crew of the trading schooner Kingfisher.
- Brabant Channel, Clayoquot Sound named after Father Augustus J. Brabant, who arrived on the west coast of Vancouver Island from Belgium in 1869.
- He spent the next forty years here as a missionary priest, acquiring extensive knowledge of the Indians and mastering their language. In 1908 he became Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Victoria.
- Catface Range takes its name from the cats-face appearance of a mineral deposit showing on a principal mountain.
- Estevan Point - In 1774 the Spanish authorities, alarmed by reports of Russian penetration into the Pacific Northwest, sent north from Monterey Lieutenant-Commander Juan Perez with the Santiago and eighty-seven officers and men.
- He explored part of the coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands, then turned south.
- Bad weather kept him from sighting Vancouver Island until 7 August, when he moved inshore in the vicinity of Nootka Sound and, without landing, made contact with the local Indians.
- Perez named Estevan Point after his second lieutenant, Estevan José Martinez, making this the first place in British Columbia to be named by a white man. The nearby Perez Rocks were named later.
- Captain Cook, arriving four years after Perez but ignorant of his nomenclature, named this Breakers Point.
- Flores Island - Named in 1791 after Don Manuel Antonio Flores, fifty-first Viceroy of Mexico (1787-9).
- Hesquiat Harbour - From the Nootka Indian word meaning 'people of the sound made by eating herring eggs off eel grass.' Captain Walbran gives an explanation:
- 'At Hesquiat village a saltwater grass called 'segmo' drifts on shore in large quantities,
- especially at the time of the herring spawning, which the Indians are in the habit of tearing asunder with their teeth to disengage from the grass or weed the spawn, which is esteemed by them a great delicacy.'
- With permission from G.P.V and Helen B. Akrigg 1997 British Columbia Place Names. UBC Press.
Address of this page: http://bc.ruralroutes.com/Ahousat