Nootka Sound Explored: A Westcoast History

Ann Turner is Financial and Budget Manager, University of British
Columbia Library.

This carefully researched and documented study is part of a larger
project commissioned in 1987 by the West Coast Committee of the Regional
District of Comox-Strathcona. The purpose of the project is to document
and record the historical development of the Nootka Sound and Kyuquot
Sound regions on the west coast of Vancouver Island, from the time of
contact by British and Spanish explorers to the present day. This area
is perhaps best known for its eighteenth-century international
connections as the site of Captain Cook’s landing, the source of a
lucrative fur trade, and the focus of talks between Spain and Britain
over territorial rights in the Pacific Northwest. But the region’s
communities also wished to have their more recent local histories
investigated and preserved, both for their own sake and to document the
part they have played in B.C.’s economic development. Jones has been
actively employed in gathering and organizing historical information
about the region since 1985. Her bibliography of sources includes
unpublished manuscripts, personal papers, corporate and association
records, and dozens of oral-history interviews with community residents,
now preserved on audio- and videotape. She uses quotations from these
interviews extensively to present highly personal views of life and
events in the coastal communities. Combined with an abundance of
historical photographs, they bring the chronological facts to life very
effectively.

This printed history is the project’s second major publication. A
90-minute video with the same title was completed in 1988.