Floathouse in Echo Bay. © Alexandra Morton.
Echo Bay
Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw territory (Broughton Archipelago) is a region of astonishing natural beauty – forested islands, rocky inlets, soaring cliffs and sheltered ocean passages.
The archipelago has supported human life for ten thousand years. A large, white beach or ‘midden’ at the head of Echo bay is made up of layers of clam and barnacle shells from a thousand First Nations feasts over 10,000 years.
Raincoast Research was established in Echo Bay in Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw territory 1984. The tiny community lies on Gilford Island in the archipelago, between Kingcome and Knight Inlets northeast of Vancouver Island.
In 1984, 200 people lived in Echo Bay, including fishermen, loggers, artists, homesteaders and a DFO patrolman. After 30 salmon farms set up in the archipelago, only eight people remain.
Echo Bay children. © Alexandra Morton.
When Raincoast Research founder Alexandra Morton first arrived, the mail arrived three times a week by seaplane. Alex took her children to the one-room school by rowboat. There were no roads, ferries or telephone landlines.
While the school has closed and the community has dwindled, the Salmon Coast Field Station attracts young biologists from British Columbia, Canada and around the world –keeping the love affair between people and this place alive.
Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw Territory