Qualla: Portland Island (British Columbia)

Portland Island (British Columbia): Introduction

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1958 the province of British Columbia gave a princess an island. Princess Margaret had come out for a royal tour, and rather than a plaque or a scroll the government handed her Portland Island - a whole island of arbutus, Douglas-fir and rock in the Salish Sea, beaches included. What a person does with an island on the far side of the world is not obvious, and nine years later she handed it back, on the understanding that it become a park. It did. Today Portland Island lies inside Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, close enough to the main ferry route that thousands of people look at it every day from the deck of a vessel bound for Swartz Bay, and reachable by none of them.

Image: Michal Klajban | CC BY-SA 4.0

Portland Island (British Columbia): A Fleet Written on the Water

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0. The names around here all come from the same decade and the same squadron. Portland Island is named for HMS Portland, flagship of Rear-Admiral Fairfax Moresby, Commander in Chief of the Royal Navy's Pacific Station from 1850 to 1853. The admiral himself got the island to the east...

Image: Ymblanter | CC BY-SA 4.0

Portland Island (British Columbia): The Village Under the Beach

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0. Because there were other names, and other people. Midden deposits on Portland Island mark a long-abandoned First Nation village: layers of shell, charcoal and fire-cracked rock built up season after season on a shoreline that offered everything a settlement needs. Middens are pat...

Image: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Portland Island (British Columbia): Princess Bay, Royal Cove, Shell Beach

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Qyd assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. Portland Island is reachable only by private boat or marine charter, and its anchorages carry the names the royal gift left behind. There are dinghy docks at Princess Bay and Royal Cove and a stern-tie ring at Princess Bay; paddlers land on the beaches at Princess Bay, Arbutus Po...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Qyd assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Portland Island (British Columbia): Six and a Half Kilometres Around

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0. A loop trail follows the shoreline the whole way around the island - 6.5 kilometres, about three hours at a reasonable pace, accessible from any of the three campsites. Cross-island forest trails cut the circuit down to roughly an hour for anyone who wants the shape of the place ...

Image: Michal Klajban | CC BY-SA 4.0