Qualla: Benson Island

Benson Island: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Tseshaht people carry their origin in their name. Tseshaht means 'people of Ts'ishaa,' and Ts'ishaa is their word for this island -- a 43-acre outcrop on the northwestern edge of the Broken Group in Barkley Sound, known on colonial charts as Benson Island. According to Tseshaht oral history, the supernatural being Kapkimyis created the first Tseshaht man and woman here. Archaeological evidence dates human occupation of the site to more than 5,000 years ago. For most cultures, origin stories are metaphors. For the Tseshaht, theirs comes with a shell midden stretching nearly a thousand feet along the shoreline to prove it.

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Benson Island: Blood and Breath at the Beginning

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The creation story, as told by the Tseshaht, begins with a girl called Nasayilim -- 'Sky Day' -- who was awakened to see two figures: an old man and a shaman. The old man cut his left side, and the shaman collected the blood that flowed from the wound. He blew on it, creating wha...

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Benson Island: Five Thousand Years of Shoreline

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Benson Island is small and irregularly shaped, roughly half a mile at its longest points, with a rugged shoreline broken by two rock beaches on the northeast and southeast sides. A blowhole on the west side hisses and spouts during high tides. The northeast beach holds the remain...

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Benson Island: Captain Benson's Hotel

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By 1865, British Admiralty charts labeled the island as Hawkins Island. In 1893, a sealing captain named John W. Benson purchased it and built a large home on the east side. The home eventually expanded into a small hotel for visitors. A 1922 report in the Victoria Colonist descr...

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Benson Island: Sacred Ground Reclaimed

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1970, most of the Broken Group islands were folded into the newly designated Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, and Benson Island became a popular destination for sea kayakers and recreational sailors. But the island's deeper significance was never forgotten. In 2009, Parks Ca...

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