Piers Island
Piers Island | |
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Piers Island Location of Piers Island in British Columbia | |
Coordinates: 48°42′00″N 123°25′00″W / 48.70000°N 123.41667°WCoordinates: 48°42′00″N 123°25′00″W / 48.70000°N 123.41667°W | |
Country | Canada |
Province | British Columbia |
Piers Island is an island in British Columbia, Canada, located on the boundary of Discovery Passage, a waterway which with nearby Haro Strait forms the section of the United States-Canada border separating the Gulf Islands in British Columbia, of which Piers is a part, and the San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Name
The island is named for Henry Piers (d. 1902), a Royal Navy surgeon who served on the HMS Satellite and HMS Investigator and at the Pacific Station (Esquimalt), later Deputy Inspector of Hospitals and Fleets.
History
In the early 1930s a portion of the island was a penal colony used to house Sons of Freedom (a group of Doukhobor extremists.)