Willy Island is the largest of the Shoal Islands, a small group in the estuary at the mouth of the Chemainus River on the southeast coast of Vancouver Island, about 36 miles (58 km) southwest of Vancouver and 21 miles (34 km) northwest of Sidney, British Columbia. The Shoal Islands are barrier islands of Late Cretaceous Nanaimo Group shale, sandstone and conglomerate. They sit at the seaward edge of the Chemainus River estuary, sheltered from the currents of Stuart Channel by extensive tidal mudflats and salt marsh. The marsh grades from salt-tolerant grasses and rushes to sedges and glasswort at its seaward edge, blue-green algal mats trap the sediment that builds the flats, and the delta is an important resting and wintering ground for migratory waterfowl, with salmon spawning in the river above. The island is part of the historical territory of the Halalt people of the lower Chemainus River valley.

The Halalt First Nation is affiliated with the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group, founded in 1993 to negotiate a treaty with British Columbia and Canada. Its other members are Cowichan Tribes, Lake Cowichan First Nation, Lyackson First Nation and the Penelakut Tribe. The Stz’uminus First Nation withdrew from the group in 2019. Hul’qumi’num creation narratives place the emergence of some First Ancestors at the mouth of the Chemainus River. The Halalt trace their origins to the village of xeláltxw, meaning “marked” or “painted” houses, a reference to its decorated houseposts. The village was located in the Cowichan Valley, where the Silver Bridge now crosses the Cowichan River at Duncan. According to Cowichan oral history, the ancestors of both the Cowichan and the Chemainus peoples (Siyóletse and St’éts’en) came from this village.

The village’s residents later moved to a settlement at the north end of Willy Island, perhaps in the early 19th century, taking the name xeláltxw with them. Historical records indicate that at least five or six houses were located there. A reserve commissioner’s plan of 1877 shows the island as Reserve No. 1, and it officially became Halalt Island No. 1. The village was abandoned in the 1920s and its people moved to Halalt No. 2 at Westholme, on the lower Chemainus River. The Halalt still hold both reserves that total 408 acres (165 ha) but only Halalt No. 2 at Westholme is occupied; Willy Island itself is uninhabited. Willy Island remains an important part of the Halalt First Nation’s cultural and historical landscape, and maintain traditional land-use practices such as shellfish harvesting on the beach adjacent to the historical village site. Read more here and here. Explore more of Willy Island and Chemainus River estuary here: