Barkley Sound

48.902463 - 125.32814Koordinaten: 48 ° 54 '9 "N, 125 ° 19' 41 " W

The Barkley Sound is a 800 km ² bay on the west coast of the Canadian island of Vancouver Iceland. It is located south of Ucluelet and north of Bamfield. In the bay there are several hundred small islands in two groups, which are called Broken Group Islands and the Deer Islands. These islands comprise only 13.5 square kilometers of dry land. The largest islands are Effingham, Turret, turtle, Dudd, Jacques, Nettle and Gibraltar Iceland. Together with the West Coast Trail and the Long Beach Unit form the Broken Group Islands one of the three major sections of the Pacific Rim National Park. In early English nautical charts of the Sound was also called Barclay Sound, these are but only to a transmission error.

Name

The name comes from Captain Charles William Barkley, of the Imperial Eagle, a British ship under the Austrian flag, commanded in the waters of Vancouver Iceland 1787. Barkley was accompanied by his 17 -year-old bride, so Frances Barkley was the first European woman on Vancouver Iceland. In Spanish charts of this period there is also the name of Baia de Carrasco. So, after a Spanish naval officer and his second commander on this expedition, the Spanish explorer José María Narváez in 1789 named the bay.

Fauna

In addition to the rich fish stocks, who found a refuge by the connection to the Pacific, and thanks to the snugness of the bay here, there are numerous species of birds, such as American Wigeon or the belted kingfisher. In the Pacific are found nearby colonies of sea lions and gray whales move between the bay and the open Pacific back and forth. The same is true for salmon that pass through to spawn the sound and swim up the rivers.

Traffic

From Port Alberni you can post ship (Lady Rose or Frances Barkley ) reach the nearby islands in the Sound, but also continue through the Sound and Ucluelet and Bamfield. You are an excellent sea kayaking area. Anyone wanting to go to the specific reserves as islands, should obtain a permit in the band office of Tseshaht in Port Alberni.

History

The Toquaht, be traced back to a village called T'ukw'aa, which was inhabited since at least 800 AD live on the north side of Barkley Sound. In the village Ch'uumat'a the finds date back even 4000 years. Your neighbors in the Sound were now form ( the contribution to the archeology of Tseshaht see ), the Nuu -chah- nulth largest group at Barkley Sound to 1882 the Tseshaht. The finds date back to about 3500 BC. The Ucluelet in the north and east have share in the Sound, as well as the Hupacasath and Ohiaht, so see a total of six First Nations traditional parts of their territory there. Share of the Deer Group and the Broken Islands, however, have only the Huu -ay -aht and the Tseshaht. The latter in turn, are composed of at least six individual groups First Nation. Evidence of their presence can be found everywhere in the sound, in the form of stone fish traps. Three of them are found in the lagoon between Jacques and Jarvis Iceland, another four before Mence, Brabant, Turtle and Wouwer Iceland; a total of seven of these devices within the Broken Islands to see evidence can be 39 Apart from fishing, such as salmon, hunted the Nuu- chah- nulth as only one on the west coast of Canada whales in the open sea, but also in the large bays. So they hunted humpback whales in Barkley Sound.

The oldest traces found in 1999 on Benson Iceland, an island that keep the Tseshaht for the birthplace of their tribe. Whether they actually lived more than 5000 years ago there, so if there is a reasonable cultural continuity, however, is not clear. Until the 18th century the Tseshaht lived in Benson, Clark, Owens, Lovett, Trickett and Turret Iceland, came to a small part of the Sound. Only from that time they expanded through military campaigns. In such conquests, there was often a complete takeover of the traditional territory of the defeated, in many cases the relatives were amalgamated in various forms and have been a part of the Tsehsaht. The largest expansion reached its territory late 19th century when they held the Broken Islands, the west of the Deer Group, the northern strip of the Sound, the greater part of the Alberni Canal and the lower Somass River. Central place for rituals was Effingham Iceland, where there was a this important lake. In winter they lived at the bottom Somass, where they had a protected village of longhouses. These were built from the wood of Cedar or Thuja plicata or gigantea, which is called the German giant tree of life. In contrast, they lived from March to August in the Broken Islands. In January, they began to slowly pull according to the food supply there. Except for the supporting columns they took it to their homes with their canoes. After 1800, the Tseshaht gave their houses on the Broken Islands, but returned to 1840.

1982 were already 32 shell mounds (shell middens ) are known, a kind of trash heap for shells and shells. These dark hills that are mostly devoid of vegetation, are under protection and should not be entered because they represent significant archaeological sites.

1791 sailed an expedition ship of the Spaniard Francisco de Eliza, the Saturnina, under the leadership of Juan Carrasco and José María Narváez several weeks by the Barkley Sound, which the Spaniards called Boca de Carrasco.

First settlers, not the Nuu- chah- nulth belonged, came around 1850. According allocation of reserves to the neighboring Indian tribes them remained in the sound only reservations on Diana ( there is at Kirby Point is a place of burial, the last used in the 1940s was, therefore there is the stay banned ), Haines, Effingham, Nettle and Keith Iceland.

1882 received the Tseshaht, mainly Effingham, Nettle and Keith Iceland used, there is a small reserve. Since there was no visible sign of their presence on Benson, this island was not added to the reserve. John Benson bought the island in 1903 when the Tseshaht the island still occasionally sought out. 1914 burned the village onto Effingham, as someone tried to market with fire snakes. Since the 1940s, the lower Somass is the main field of Tseshaht - until now. Since then, the number of recovered Tseshaht whose population had experienced catastrophic declines, rapidly. You no longer live in the Sound, when they are fishing again in the Equis - bay and use huts on Nettle Iceland.