Qualla: Ganges, British Columbia

Ganges, British Columbia: Introduction

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nle1229, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1859, a group of families packed up and left California, not because they had failed there but because the state had made it legislatively clear that they were not wanted. They were African American, and the laws being passed around them were designed to squeeze them out. Word came from the north that the colonial governor of Vancouver Island, James Douglas - himself a man of Guyanese and multi-ethnic birth - would guarantee them fair treatment in a colony that had abolished slavery more than twenty years earlier. They came. The north end of Salt Spring Island is where a good many of them settled, and the town they helped build is called Ganges.

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Image: Nle1229 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ganges, British Columbia: The Families Who Came North

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0. Through the 1800s, Ganges and neighbouring Vesuvius were predominantly African American communities - a fact that startles most visitors, because nothing about the island's present advertises it. The first house on Salt Spring was built at Ganges in 1859 by the first party of twe...

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Image: Michal Klajban | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ganges, British Columbia: Named for a Ship Made of Teak

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0. The harbour was originally Admiralty Bay. Captain Richards renamed it in 1859 for HMS Ganges, and Ganges in turn had been named for the river in South Asia - so a Gulf Island town carries a place name from half a world away by way of the Royal Navy's filing system. The ship herse...

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Image: Michal Klajban | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ganges, British Columbia: The Island's One Town

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0. Salt Spring is 182.7 square kilometres holding 11,635 people, and Ganges is where all of them eventually have to go. The groceries are here, along with the banks, the restaurants and a dense concentration of art galleries. So is the hospital, the RCMP detachment and the island's ...

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Image: Michal Klajban | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ganges, British Columbia: Make It, Bake It, or Grow It

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0. Every Saturday from April to October, 8:30 in the morning until four in the afternoon, Centennial Park and the streets around it fill with the Ganges Market. The governing rule is refreshingly short: make it, bake it, or grow it. Hundreds of vendors work within it, selling produc...

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Image: Michal Klajban | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ganges, British Columbia: Arriving by Water or Air

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bruno Gonzalez, CC BY-SA 3.0. There is no bridge, and there never will be. Three BC Ferries terminals sit within a twenty-minute drive of Ganges, running to Swartz Bay on the Saanich Peninsula, Crofton on Vancouver Island, Tsawwassen on the mainland, and the South Gulf Islands. Ganges Harbour itself is a busy...

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Image: Bruno Gonzalez | CC BY-SA 3.0