History
of Bowen Island
Bowen
Island was originally inhabited by the Squamish First Nations
who used it as their hunting and fishing grounds.
Early settlers discovered shake dwellings and a smoke house in
Snug Cove. Bowen also served as a neutral meeting ground for the
Squamish and other First Nations, as well as a stopping place
on the way up or down the coast.
The
first preemption of land by a white settler was in 1874, by William
Eaton, who claimed 160 acres south of Killarney Lake.
Bowen Island was named in 1860 after Rear-Admiral James Bowen
(1751-1835), master of the HMS Queen Charlotte, the flagship of
Lord Howe. While on an exploration of the Strait of Georgia back
in 1791, the Spanish explorer Narvaez had already named this island
and the one to the west 'the isles of Apodaca,' after Spanish
naval official Sebastian Ruiz de Apodaca.