Qualla: Lasqueti Island

Lasqueti Island: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vancouver_de.png: User:Nikater derivative work: LasquetiRonnie (talk), Public domain. Lasqueti Island has no electrical grid. That is not a temporary condition or a crisis waiting to be resolved. It is a choice. The roughly 498 people who live on this 73-square-kilometre island in the Strait of Georgia generate their own power from solar panels, wind turbines, micro-hydro systems, and diesel generators. They are the only major Gulf Island community that has declined BC Hydro's offer to connect, and they seem perfectly content with the arrangement.

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Image: Vancouver_de.png: User:Nikater derivative work: LasquetiRonnie (talk) | Public domain

Lasqueti Island: A Spanish Name, a Rebel Spirit

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LasquetiRonnie, CC BY-SA 3.0. Spanish naval officer Jose Maria Narvaez named the island in 1791 while commanding the Santa Saturnina, honoring fellow officer Juan Maria Lasqueti. That European formality sits oddly on an island that has since become one of Canada's better-known counter-culture enclaves. Roads ...

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Image: LasquetiRonnie | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lasqueti Island: The Bolting Brassicas and Other Traditions

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vancouver_de.png: User:Nikater derivative work: LasquetiRonnie (talk), Public domain. Every Canada Day weekend, Lasqueti Island holds an arts festival that showcases its creative community. Local painters, sculptors, poets, and fiction writers display their work alongside performing artists. The Bolting Brassicas, a marching band named after the vegetable gardener...

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Image: Vancouver_de.png: User:Nikater derivative work: LasquetiRonnie (talk) | Public domain

Lasqueti Island: Arbutus, Cacti, and Feral Sheep

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vancouver_de.png: User:Nikater derivative work: LasquetiRonnie (talk), Public domain. The island's landscape splits between dry zones characterized by native arbutus trees, cacti, and succulents, and wetter areas dominated by red cedar. Pockets of old-growth forest survive, providing habitat for a distinctive mix of species. The geology underneath is almost entire...

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Image: Vancouver_de.png: User:Nikater derivative work: LasquetiRonnie (talk) | Public domain

Lasqueti Island: Treacherous Waters, Quiet Shores

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vancouver_de.png: User:Nikater derivative work: LasquetiRonnie (talk), Public domain. Lasqueti has earned a reputation among sailors and sea kayakers for offering some of lower British Columbia's finest paddling, along with some of its most dangerous. Tides and currents in the Strait of Georgia can shift without warning, and winter storms barreling down the strait...

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Image: Vancouver_de.png: User:Nikater derivative work: LasquetiRonnie (talk) | Public domain