Genoa Bay lies between Separation Point and Mount Tzouhalem on the north shore of Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island, about 33 miles (53 km) southeast of Nanaimo and 5 miles (8 km) east-southeast of Duncan, British Columbia. The bay takes its name from Giovanni Baptiste Ordano, an Italian trader who spotted it in 1858 and named it after his birthplace, Genoa. Ordano, who had left Italy as a boy a decade earlier, went on to open the first store in the district, at Tzuhalem, trading with Austrian, French and Greek fishermen along the coast.

Cowichan Bay served as the gateway for European settlement of the Cowichan and Chemainus valleys from the early 1860s. In 1984 the province set aside 44 acres (18 ha) on Mount Tzuhalem as an ecological reserve, protecting its remaining Garry oak stands and wildflower meadows after a campaign by local naturalists who discovered a subdivision had been staked out on the site. The Tzuhalem area was long used by Coast Salish peoples to harvest camas; controlled burns kept the habitat open and boosted yields, a practice still evident in the reserve’s ecology today.

Mount Tzouhalem rises 1,759 feet (536 m) and was originally named Shkewetsen, meaning “basking” or “warming in the sun.” Legend holds that local inhabitants fled to the mountain during a great flood, and when the waters subsided they spotted a frog warming itself on a rock later called Pip’oom. The mountain was renamed for a formidable Quamichan chief whose combative reputation, including an 1844 standoff with Fort Victoria, likely helped make Quamichan the largest and wealthiest Cowichan village. Banished by his own people for his frequent killings, Tzouhalem lived out his final years in a cave on the mountainside until 1859, when he was killed in a dispute on Penelakut Island. Read more here and here. Explore more of Genoa Bay and Cowichan Bay here: