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British Columbia Tourism Region : Vancouver, Coast, & Mountains
Description From Owner:
DundaraveAtkinson Point
- Capilano is the anglicized form of a Squamish and Musqueam Indian personal name, for which no meaning is known.
- The last man known as Chief Capilano, who died about 1870, was of Squamish and Musqueam ancestry, and one of his homes was beside the river that now bears his name.
- Dundarave - Russell E. Macnaghten (d. 1918), Assistant Professor of Greek at UBC, was one of the persons who purchased and subdivided land here in 1909.
- It was he who named the area after Dundarave Castle, Loch Fyne, Scotland, the ancestral home of Clan Macnaghten. Dundarave Castle was reached by rowboat, and dundarave (which should rhyme with 'have') is a Gaelic word meaning 'the castle of the two oars.
- Passage Island - Named by Captain Vancouver because of its position midway in the passage (Queen Charlotte Channel) between Point Atkinson and Bowen Island.
- Mount Strachan - After Admiral Sir Richard J. Strachan (pronounced 'Strawn'), 1760-1828. Strachan was one of those men seemingly born lucky but finally felled by a piece of ill fortune.
- Inheriting a baronetcy from an uncle at seventeen, he was a naval lieutenant at nineteen and the captain of HMS Naiad at twenty-three.
- In 1805 a squadron under his command captured four French ships of the line after a spirited battle, a victory that won Strachan the thanks of Parliament and promotion to the rank of rear-admiral.
- Then Strachan was put in command of the naval forces supporting the army's disastrous invasion of the Island of Walcheren in the Low Countries.
- The consequent obloquy attached itself to Strachan, who was never given another command, though he received the customary promotions on the inactive list to vice-admiral in 1810 and admiral in 1821.
- West Vancouver - Although West Vancouver did not officially exist until the West Capilano District seceded from the Municipality of North Vancouver in 1912, the term had been used unofficially earlier.
- Thus, in 1910 John Lawson, the 'father of West Vancouver,' and his brother-in-law, W.C. Thompson, incorporated the West Vancouver Transportation Company to provide a ferry service with Vancouver.
- Point Atkinson - Captain Vancouver recorded that he had named this point after a 'particular friend.' Unfortunately he neglected to identify the friend.
- The most likely candidate appears to be Thomas Atkinson, RN, who was later master of HMS Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar.
- 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/WestVancouver