Campbell River Flowers

Campbell River is at the south end of Discovery Passage. Campbell River claims a population (2006 census) of 29 572 and has long been known as the salmon capital of the world.

The first settlers were members of the Kwakiutl First Nations and Weewaikai (Cape Mudge) and Wewaykum (Campbell River) tribe members of the Laich-kwil-tach First Nations.

The town is served by an airport (YBL), a seaplane base called YHH at Campbell River Harbour, a BC Ferries route to Quadra Island, and highways which connect it to neighbouring towns such as Courtenay, The Village of Sayward, Gold River and Port Hardy.

Captain George Vancouver reached Campbell River in 1792 aboard the ships HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham. The channel between Quadra Island and Campbell River is named Discovery Passage after HMS Discovery. The captain and his botanist, Mr Archibald Menzies, discovered a small tribe of 350 natives who spoke the Salish language.

A Lekwiltok or Laich-wil-tach (Kwakiutl or Kwaguilth Native Indian Band) war party, heavily armed with European rifles, paddled south from Johnstone Strait in the middle of the 19th Century and were in control of the area when the HMS Plumper came through on a cartography mission under Captain George Henry Richards around 1859. Dr Samuel Campbell was the ship surgeon, and historians believe his name was given to the river by Richards.

The community took the name of "Campbell River" when its post office was constructed in 1907 Likewise, the name of HMS Discovery’s First Lieutenant Zachary Mudge is preserved in the nearby Cape Mudge. Sports fishermen travelled to the area as early as the 1880s, especially after the tales from noted anglers such as Sir Richard Musgrave and Sir John Rogers. The formation of the Campbell River Tyee Club in 1924, over concern regarding over-fishing of the salmon stocks, actually served to increase the popularity of the area. E.P. Painter, for instance, moved to Campbell River the following year and opened his Painter's Lodge in 1929.

Commercial fishing was a large industry for many years. The town's magistrate Roderick Haig-Brown purchased a fishing cabin on Campbell River and wrote some books on flyfishing that are influential and well-loved around the world. Industrial logging took off in the 1920s with Merrill Ring and Company, Bloedel, Stewart and Welch and Comox Logging. A large forest fire started near Buttle Lake and burned much of the valley in 1938. Rock Bay, Menzies Bay, and Englewood all were big logging camps.

Campbell River prospered after 1912 and it became a supply point for northern Vancouver Island, Quadra Island and Cortes Island. The E and N Railway was surveyed to Campbell River, yet it only reached Courtenay, forty miles south. After the Second World War, Campbell River became a boom town and industrial centre with the building of the Elk River pulp mill, and nearby mills in Tahsis and Gold River. Logging and mining in the area prospered.

There is a lead zinc mine nearby, and coal mines, while a large copper mine operated to the north.