Ganges Harbour is an embayment on the eastern coast of Salt Spring Island that extends five miles northwest from Captain Passage, about 35 miles (57 km) southwest of Vancouver and 15 miles (24 km) north-northwest of Sidney, British Columbia. Originally called Admiralty Bay, it was renamed in 1859 by Captain George H. Richards after HMS Ganges, which was stationed at the Pacific Station at Esquimalt on Vancouver Island from 1857 to 1860 under Captain John John Fulford. Salt Spring Island, one of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia, was named by James Douglas after he found salt springs on the island’s north end. The bedrock geology consists of sedimentary rock of the Nanaimo Group in the northern part and volcanic rock of the Saltspring Intrusive, Sicker and West Coast Complex in the south. The Nanaimo Group is a marine sedimentary sequence up to 2.5 miles (4 km) thick that developed during the Cretaceous period (about 100 million years ago) and consists of sandstone and conglomerate separated by mudstone and siltstone. The bedrock is covered by unconsolidated deposits of till, glaciofluvial gravel and sand, and glaciomarine clay more than 100 feet (31 m) thick in the lower valley regions.

Salt Spring Island is part of the traditional territory of several Salishan peoples, including the Saanich, Cowichan, and Chemainus First Nations. Aboriginal use of the Gulf Islands, based on shell middens, dates to 3,200 BC. Permanent settlements fluctuated, with the main prehistoric and historical population centers at present-day Fulford Harbour, Ganges, Long Harbour and Hudson Point. A major epidemic in the 1780s and subsequent warfare with northern peoples shifted resident populations to villages on Vancouver Island, Penelakut Island, and Valdes Island, from which families continued to access their ancestral lands and seasonal resources on Salt Spring Island. In 1849 the Hudson’s Bay Company established the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island. In 1859 Governor James Douglas in Victoria allowed access to unceded aboriginal lands by immigrants desperate for a place to settle. Among the settlers were Australians, Americans and Europeans who had come to Canada seeking gold. The early settlers also included former Hudson’s Bay Company employees and several Hawaiian islanders who had been brought to the Pacific Northwest as laborers. Some chose Salt Spring despite its isolation by water and rugged terrain covered by huge Douglas firs that had to be cleared.

The island has a detailed history because it was the first in British Columbia to allow settlers to acquire land through pre-emption: they could occupy and improve the land before purchasing it for one dollar per acre. The island became a refuge from racism for African-Americans who had lived in California but left in 1858 after the state passed discriminatory legislation; 26 families acquired land on the island. The first house on Salt Spring Island was built at Ganges in 1859 by the first group of 20 settlers who arrived that summer. Despite the settlements, internecine raids continued. In 1860 Ganges Harbour was the scene of the killing of eight Heiltsuk people from Bella Bella and the capture of three pioneer women and two boys by the Cowichans. During the 1960s the island became a refuge for American draft evaders during the Vietnam War. The community of Ganges, the main population center at the head of Ganges Harbour, is the island’s main service area, with grocery stores, restaurants, art galleries, banks and the Ganges Market. Read more here and here. Explore more of Ganges Harbour and Salt Spring Island here: