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The island is believed to have been inhabited by humans since the withdrawal
of Ice Age glaciation some eight thousand years ago.
By the late 1700s, the primary First Nations there
were the nootka on the west coast, various nations
of the Salish language group on the south and east coasts,
and the Kwakiutl on the center and north of the island.
The National Maps show a nation of Vancouver consisting of the
island and the mainland coastal regions from Queen Charlotte
Sound to Cape Flattery.
European exploration
Europeans began to encroach on the island in 1774, when rumours of Russian fur traders caused the Spanish to send a ship, the Santiago north under the command of Juan José Pérez Hernández. In 1775 a second Spanish expedition, under Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, was sent. Neither actually landed.
Vancouver Island came to the attention of the wider world after the third voyage of Captain James Cook, who landed at Nootka Sound of the
Island's western shore on March 31, 1778 and claimed it for the United Kingdom. The island's rich fur trading potential led the British East
India Company to set up a single-building trading post in the native village of Yuquot on Nootka Island, a small island in the Sound.
The island was further explored by Spain in 1789 by Esteban José Martínez,
who built Fort San Miguel on one of Vancouver Island's
small offshore islets in the sound near Yuquot. This was
to be the only Spanish settlement in what would later be Canada.
The Spanish
began seizing British ships and the two nations came close to war,
but the issues were resolved peacefully with the Nootka Convention in 1792,
in which both countries recognized the other's rights to the area.
Supervising the British activities was Captain George Vancouver from
King's Lynn in England, who had sailed as a midshipman with Cook, and
from whom the island gained its name. While we know this Island today as
Vancouver Island--after George Vancouver--the English explorer had not
intentionally meant to name such a large body of land solely a
after himself.
British settlement
The first British settlement on the island was a Hudson's Bay Company post, Fort Camosun,
founded in 1843, and later renamed Fort Victoria. Shortly thereafter, in 1846, the Oregon
Treaty was signed by the British and the US to settle the question of the US Oregon
Territory borders. It awarded all of Vancouver Island to what would be Canada, despite a
portion of the island lying south of the 49th parallel. In 1849, the Colony of Vancouver
Island was established. Following the brief governorship of Richard Blanshard,
James Douglas, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay post, assumed the role in 1851
a position he would maintain for the next thirteen years.
Fort Victoria became an important base during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
in 1858, and the burgeoning town was incorporated as Victoria in 1862.
Victoria became the capital of the colony of Vancouver Island, then retained
that status when the island was amalgamated with the mainland in 1866.
British naval base, including a large shipyard and a naval hospital, was
established at Esquimalt, British Columbia in 1865, and eventually taken over
by the Canadian military.
The economic situation of the colony declined following the Cariboo G
old Rush of 1861-62, and pressure grew for amalgamation of the colony with the
mainland colony of British Columbia (which had been established in 1858).
The colony's third and last governor, Sir Arthur Kennedy oversaw the
union of the two colonies in 1866.
Source: Wikipedia
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