Shawnigan District
Shawnigan is an anglicization of the Hul’qumi’num name for the area, “Shaanii’us”.1 The Hul’qumi’num used the area for cedar harvesting and salal gathering, as well
as hunting and spiritual bathing.2
The Shawnigan District was mapped as part of
Pemberton’s surveys of the southern
Vancouver Island during the 1850s, which can be seen on this map and another, both from 1859.
In 1862, the amount of arable land around
Victoria was becoming scarce, so
Douglas took prospective farmers upcoast to
Cowichan Bay aboard the
Hecate to give them the opportunity to stake land in the
Somenos, Shawnigan and
Quamichan districts.
3 According to the
British Colonist, in compensation for the land, the government gave the Indigenous people two blankets
per person for the land that they surrendered.
4
- 1. Ryan Evans, Julia Gardner, and Brian Thom, Shxunutun's Tu Suleluxwtst: In the footsteps of our Ancestors, Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group.
- 2. Ibid.
- 3. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Chronicle, 1847-1871 (Victoria: Discovery Press, 1977), 255.
- 4. The Cowichan Expedition, British Colonist, August 22, 1862.
Mentions of this place in the documents