Deadman's Island (Vancouver)

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Deadman's Island (c.190?), showing squatters' houses.

Deadman's Island in 2006

HMCS Discovery on Deadman's Island.

Deadman's Island is a small 3.8 hectare island to the south of Stanley Park in Coal Harbour in Vancouver, British Columbia. The naval station/museum, HMCS Discovery, is stationed there and the RCSCC Captain Vancouver and NLCC Captain Rankin have their weekly parades at the HMCS Discovery.

[edit] Early History

The island was used as a rendering station by whalers in the 1860s.^[1] One of Vancouver's first white settlers, John Morton, visited the island in 1862. Morton discovered hundreds of redcedar boxes lashed to the upper boughs of trees and one had evidently fallen and broken to reveal a jumble of bones and a tassel of black hair. The island was the tree burial grounds of the Squamish First Nation. Undeterred, Morton took a fancy to the island and attempted to acquire it. He changed his mind when Chief Capilano pointed out that the island was "dead ground" and was a scene of a bloody battle between rival tribes in which some two hundred warriors were killed. It's said that "fire-flower" grew up at once where they fell, frightening the foe into retreat.^[2] The macabre name of the island is thought to reflect this history.^[3]

Settlers continued to use Deadman's Island as a cemetery prior to the 1887 opening of Mountain View Cemetery. Between 1888 and 1892, Deadman's Island became a quarantine site for victims of a small pox epidemic and burial ground for those who did not survive.^[4]

[edit] The Ludgate Affair

This small islet again became the site of conflict when Theodore Ludgate leased the island from the federal government in 1899, to the chagrin of the mayor and other civic officials who assumed that it was included in the original Stanley Park land grant. Mayor Garden, with police accompaniment, tried to prevent Ludgate from clearing the land by reading the riot act after a showdown between Ludgate's men and the police. Ludgate escaped arrest, and police guards were left on the island, but the protracted legal battle that followed gave Ludgate the opportunity to proceed with his plan to build a saw mill and log the island. By 1911, Ludgate had won his case, cleared the island of both trees and the squatter community that lived there. Ludgate was subsequently unable to meet the terms of his lease, and Deadman's Island reverted to the Dominion government. In 1930 the island was offered to the city by the federal government to be used as a park, but a park never materialized, and it was instead turned into a naval station in 1944.^[5]

[edit] Future of the Island

The city's current lease of Deadman's Island from the federal government expires in 2007^[6] Mayor Sullivan "envisions it as the home for a ferry shuttle from downtown, a maritime museum and a building to celebrate the island's aboriginal heritage." The Musqueum First Nations band, however, claim the island as part of its land claim in the area..^[7] The Island's future thus remains uncertain and its status controversial as it has through much of Vancouver's history.^[8]

[edit] Notes

^ Mark Leier, Red Flags and Red Tape: The Making of a Labour Bureaucracy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995, 58.
^ Richard E. Allen, "Deadman's Island lives on in history" from HMCS Discovery [website]
^ The Greater Vancouver Book claims the island's graveyard past is the reason for its name. According to Pauline Johnson the Squamish name is "Island of the Dead Men" because of the massacre that took place there. See: Pauline Johnson, "Deadman's Island," Legends of Vancouver, at Project Gutenburg. According to Major J. S. Mathews, its name in Squamish is Squt-sahs. City Archives, Naming Opening and Dedication of Stanley Park. Vancouver: City Archives, City Hall, 1964, 55.
^ Heather Conn, "The Origins of Stanley Park" and Roger Parton, "Islands of Greater Vancouver," in Chuck Davis, ed., The Greater Vancouver Book: An Urban Encyclopaedia. Surrey, BC: Linkman Press, 1997, 52 and 169.
^ Mark Leier, Red Flags and Red Tape: The Making of a Labour Bureaucracy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995, 59; Eric Nicol, Vancouver. Vancouver: Doubleday, 1970, 114-115; W. C. McKee, "The History of the Vancouver Park System, 1886-1929," MA thesis, University of Victoria, 1976, 51; Heather Conn, "The Origins of Stanley Park," in Chuck Davis, ed., The Greater Vancouver Book: An Urban Encyclopaedia. Surrey, BC: Linkman Press, 1997, 52; Joe Swan, A Century of Service: The Vancouver Police, 1886-1986, Vancouver: Vancouver Police Historical Society and Centennial Museum, 1986, 27.
^ [1] City of Vancouver Mayor's Office [website] "Mayor Sullivan discusses arts, economic development and Deadman's Island with federal Ministers in Ottawa," 25 April 2006.
^ [2]Alexandra Gill,"Vancouver's glorious green space," Globe and Mail [online], 3 June 2006.
^ For the controversy over the island's status in the late 19th century, see "Correspondence and Papers in Reference to Stanley Park and Deadman's Island, British Columbia," Ottawa, 1899. Available on microfiche at Vancouver Public Library, Special Collections.