Helen Point sits on the northwestern tip of Mayne Island and features a light and range marker that guides vessels through Active Pass, about 32 miles (52 km) southwest of Vancouver and 14.5 miles (23 km) north-northeast of Sidney, British Columbia. The Helen Point Peninsula holds the oldest recorded evidence of human settlement in the Southern Gulf Islands.

Mayne Island spans about 5,184 acres (2,098 ha) and lies in the southern Gulf Islands, midway between the British Columbia mainland and Vancouver Island. Its highest point, Mount Parke, rises 837 feet (255 m). Low, wooded ridges separated by narrow valleys characterize the island’s terrain, shaped during the Pleistocene by glacial erosion and deposits of glacial and fluvioglacial sediment.

Archaeological excavations at Helen Point reveal three distinct occupations of the site in prehistoric times, each separated by periods of abandonment; the earliest likely dates to about 5,000 years ago. Today the peninsula forms the Helen Point Reserve of the Tsartlip band of the Saanich First Nation.  Read more here and here. Explore more of Helen Point and Mayne Island here: