Port Essington, British Columbia

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Port Essington was a cannery town on the south bank of the Skeena River estuary in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, between Prince Rupert and Terrace, and at the confluence of the Skeena and Ecstall Rivers. It was founded in 1871 by Robert Cunningham and Thomas Hankin (father of the interpreter Constance Cox) and was for a time the largest settlement in the region. During its heyday it was home to an ethnic mix of European-Canadians, Japanese-Canadians, and members of First Nations from throughout the region, especially Tsimshians and especially Tsimshians from the Kitselas and Kitsumkalum tribes.

In 1888, the anthropologist Franz Boas visited Port Essington, interviewing Haida and Tsimshian individuals and establishing a working relationship with Odille Morison, the Tsimshian linguist, who lived in Port Essington.

Port Essington's importance as a town began to wane when the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway along the Skeena was completed in 1914, on the opposite bank from Port Essington. Rail supplanted the riverboat commerce that had been the community's lifeblood.

According to Harris (see below), in the early twentieth century Port Essington's population fluctuated between around 1,000 and, in the winter months, about a quarter of that.

By the 1940s, all of Port Essington's canneries were inactive. Through the 1950s the population plummeted. Port Essington burned down in a series of fires in 1961 and 1965 and is now a ghost town (despite its continuing to appear as a populated settlement in many maps and atlases). It sits today on an Indian reserve jointly administered by the Kitselas and Kitsumkalum bands.

In the Tsimshian language, the site of Port Essington is called Spaksuut or, in English spelling, "Spokeshute," which means "autumn camping place." This also became the Tsimshian name for the town of Port Essington. It sits on the traditional territory of the Gitzaxłaał tribe, one of the nine Tsimshian tribes based at Lax Kw'alaams.

Currently there are attempts to shape what remains of Port Essington into a tourist attraction.

[edit] Prominent Port Essington residents

[edit] Bibliography

  • Bowman, Phylis (1982) Klondike of the Skeena! Chilliwack, B.C.: Sunrise Printing.
  • Harris, E. A. (1990) Spokeshute: Skeena River Memory. Victoria, B.C.: Orca Book Publishers.
  • Large, R. Geddes (1957; reprinted, 1981) The Skeena: River of Destiny. Sidney, B.C.: Gray's Publishing.
  • Pedelty, Donovan (1997) "Constance Cox." In Pioneer Legacy: Chronicles of the Lower Skeena River, Volume 1, ed. by Norma V. Bennett, pp. 227-230. Terrace, B.C.: Dr. R. E. M. Lee Hospital Foundation.
  • Rohner, Ronald P. (1969) The Ethnography of Franz Boas: Letters and Diaries of Franz Boas Written on the North-West Coast from 1886 to 1931. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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