D’Arcy Island, part of the Southern Gulf Islands in Haro Strait, covers approximately 205 acres (83 ha), about 30 miles (48 km) west of Anacortes and 10 miles (16 km) north-northeast of Victoria, British Columbia. The island lies 2.3 miles (3.7 km) west-southwest of the international border and is included in the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve. Named after John D’Arcy, a mate on HMS Herald in 1846, the island gained its name during a survey of the British Columbia coast conducted by the Herald and HMS Pandora following a boundary dispute with the United States. The island, known in the local Tsawout language as Ćteseu, means “arrive” and refers to the point where salmon first reach when heading for the Fraser River to spawn. It is composed of sedimentary bedrock of the Nanaimo Formation, which formed during the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 90 to 65 million years ago. Differential erosion of the bedrock has created north-to-south ridges of resistant sandstone and conglomerate, separated by channels of weaker shale and mudstone. The landscape was further reshaped by glacial erosion, particularly during the last major ice advance of the Fraser Glaciation.

D’Arcy Island served as a leper colony for Chinese immigrants from 1891 to 1924. This infamous chapter began when police and health officers in Victoria conducted a routine sweep through Chinatown. They discovered five men showing clear signs of leprosy in a small shack behind a store on Fisgard Street. In response, Victoria’s municipal government swiftly secured provincial support to expropriate D’Arcy Island, converting it into a leper colony. Over the next 33 years, the small islet functioned as a lazaretto, housing 49 men in total. All but one were Chinese. Their only contact with the outside world was a quarterly visit from a supply ship that included a doctor. The lepers cultivated a garden about one acre (0.4 ha) in size and formed a cultural organization to care for each other. D’Arcy Island ceased functioning as a leper colony in 1924 when the federal government shut it down and moved the remaining residents to Bentinck Island near Race Rocks. This new location was closer to medical quarantine facilities and operated until 1957.

From 1920 to 1924, during American Prohibition, bootlegger Roy Olmstead exploited D’Arcy Island’s proximity to the United States border to smuggle Canadian liquor, primarily whiskey, into Washington State. His operation transported liquor from Victoria, British Columbia, to islands in the Haro Strait, including D’Arcy Island. There, smaller craft would pick up the contraband during rough weather, making it harder for the Coast Guard to detect. D’Arcy Island was declared a marine park in 1961 and became part of the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve in 2003. Read more here and here. Explore more of D’Arcy Island and the Southern Gulf Islands here: