Qualla: Texada Island

Texada Island: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0. Van Anda once had an opera house. It also had a Chinatown, a smelter belching copper fumes, and investors with names like Rockefeller and Mackenzie pouring money into holes punched through the island's bedrock. By 1917, a series of fires had leveled the townsite. Today, Texada Island -- the largest of British Columbia's Gulf Islands at 300 square kilometers -- is a place where the southern half has no permanent residents, the single dirt track connecting it to the populated north deteriorates a little more each year, and the forest is slowly erasing what industry built and abandoned.

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Image: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Texada Island: A Name Borrowed Twice

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0. Spanish naval explorer Jose Maria Narvaez originally gave the name Isla de Texada to what is now Lasqueti Island, honoring rear-admiral Felix de Tejada during the 1791 expedition of Francisco de Eliza. When Eliza and Juan Carrasco drew their maps later that year, the name migrate...

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Image: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Texada Island: Boom, Bust, and Brimstone

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Copper changed everything around 1898 when Olive and Harry Treat discovered the Cornell Mine, rich in copper and gold. A smelter and tramway went up almost overnight, and the settlement named for Carrie Van Anda -- wife of mining capitalist Edward Blewett -- swelled into somethin...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Texada Island: An Island Split in Two

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0. Geography tells the story of modern Texada as clearly as any census. The three settlements -- Gillies Bay, Blubber Bay, and Van Anda -- all cluster on the northern half, connected by two paved roads that meet rural highway standards. South of there, the island is another world en...

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Image: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Texada Island: Predator-Free No More

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paul Hamilton, CC BY-SA 2.0. Texada has historically lacked the wolves, cougars, and bears found on neighboring islands and the mainland. Without predators, black-tailed Sitka deer multiplied until they became a fixture along the island's roads and a draw for fall hunters. That ecological exception may be en...

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Image: Paul Hamilton | CC BY-SA 2.0

Texada Island: The Quiet That Followed

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0. With a permanent population estimated at roughly 1,200 and shrinking, Texada has settled into a quieter identity. BC Ferries runs ten daily sailings from Powell River to Blubber Bay. The Texada/Gillies Bay Airport offers a 3,000-foot paved runway for private and charter aircraft....

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Image: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada | CC BY 2.0