First Nations Island Towns and Villages in BC

Phil Leng, of Kirkland, WA gave me an idea for my Blog this morning. He wrote about Native Indian place names in Washington State.

I want to share with you a fascinating island called Village Island that housed a now-abandoned community called Mamalilaculla, here in beautiful British Columbia.

Located in the Broughton islands, Mamalilaculla, which was originally built on a midden, is an abandoned First Nations community with the remains of an old totem pole rotting away on the ground. Bear scat is often evident near the bushes and the last time I was there (as a teenager) some of the old delapidated buildings from the 1920's still remained. I was told that one of the buildings served as a hospital, but I don't know how true that was.

In recent years a Native Indian, whose family had lived on the island, gave guided tours of the village. Many of the artifacts from these villages are now on display in Native Museums on Quadra Island, Alert Bay and the Campbell River Museum.

The whole area at the mouth of Knight Inlet is very popular with boaters and kayakers and now we have just sold our boat I wonder if I will ever get the chance to go back to those wonderful solitary islanda of Knight Inlet.