The Campbell River Harbour is an exciting place. As a boy, l spent a lot of time here, fishing, playing, swimming, and getting out in my rowboat. It was a place where a young feller could find endless treasures and one was always having fun.
For many, many years the Coast Salish lived on the shores of the Campbell River area. This includes those on Quadra Island. Then in the early 1800s, they left these lands and moved to the Comox and Qualicum areas. The Kwakiutl First Nations from further north on the Island moved south. They moved in and occupied the vacated lands left by the Salish.
The Salmon and the Cedar were and are still very important to the First Nations people. The sea supplied more than salmon though and the people ate well from it, getting most of their food there. The Cedar was a tree that was looked upon as a wondrous gift from the great spirit, and it supplied them with materials for clothing, ropes, canoes, houses, totem poles and many other uses including medicine.
The abundance of food and other supplies left time for leisure and this developed into a rich culture full of dances and masks, today the Salmon is still very important to the First Peoples people of the region. The cedar is still a great gift and Carvers are still creating masks, canoes, poles, and big houses.
Our salmon and the surrounding forests will and have played important roles in our lives. At one time it was commercially by logging and fishing, but now we are migrating towards a tourist-based economy with hiking, biking, camping, fishing, and wildlife viewing of bears, whales, and many other wonders. There are many types of tours that can be accessed from the various harbours around town.
The harbours located in Campbell River are still very busy places, with all kinds of activities taking place, commercial and tourist-based. I have always enjoyed walking around the docks, chatting with the fishermen, and checking out some of the large yachts that have journeyed here from other parts of the world. The barge loading facility north side of town is always very busy.