Port Alberni Flowers

Port Alberni is the seat of the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District.

The city has a total population of 17,743, and the census agglomeration area a total of 25,396. Port Alberni lies within the Alberni Valley at the head of the Alberni Inlet, Vancouver Island's longest inlet.

The other end of the inlet is located on Barkley Sound. Port Alberni was once dubbed the "Salmon Capital of the World" but declining salmon numbers have tarnished this reputation. During the 1990s, a confluence of negative environmental impacts on salmon habitat resulted in a great and rapid depletion of local salmon populations.

These salmon populations have not recovered. Public concern over the negative effects caused by industrial effluent deposits in the Inlet and unsound forest harvesting practices along creeks where salmon spawn continues to the present.

Port Alberni is the sister-city to Abashiri in northern Japan. Each year many students participate in student exchange programs between the two cities.

Before Europeans came, Alberni and the West Coast of Vancouver Island was the traditional territory of the Tseshaht and Hupacasath First Nations of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council. The Nuu-chah-nulth were previously called the Nootka. Many place names in Port Alberni have a Nuu-chah-nulth origin, such as Somass (washing), Kitsuksis (log across mouth of creek), Pacheena (foamy), and Nootka (go around).

Ancient petroglyph carvings can be found at Sproat Lake. In 1787, Captain Charles William Barkley of the Imperial Eagle, explored Barkley Sound, which now bears his name. Barkley traveled with his 17-year-old bride, Frances, the first European woman to visit what is now British Columbia. Frances Barkley is also the name of one of the two vessels that makes trips down the Alberni Inlet from Port Alberni to Bamfield and Ucluelet. The other is the MV Lady Rose. In 1856, Adam Horne, a Scottish fur trader employed by the Hudson's Bay Company, was directed to locate a land route across Vancouver Island. There were stories that the natives used a trail starting at Qualicum.

Adam Horne found this trail leading to the Alberni Valley and it became known as the Horne Lake Trail. Many other settlers used this trail to get to the Alberni Valley.