Colonial Despatches

Steveston is a town located at the mouth of the Fraser River, near Vancouver. According to Scott, the first European family in the area was that of Manoah Steves, his wife, and his seven children.1 In 1889, the eldest son, William Steves, developed a town called Steves on the family land that served as a market for the many farms and canneries that lined the Fraser River.2

The town developed strong boat-building and salmon-canning industries, and local promoters nicknamed it “Salmonopolis” in the late 1800s.3 Eventually, the name Steveston rerred to nearby Steveston Bar and Steveston Island.4 Today, Steveston is inside of the city of Richmond, and it is home to the Gulf of Georgia Cannery, a national historic site.5

• 1. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Placenames (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 566.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. Ibid.
• 4. Ibid.
• 5. Ibid.