An Introduction to Hornby Island

 

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ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

DATA AQUISITION

PROCEDURE

DISCUSSION

FUTURE STUDIES

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

LINKS

 

Hornby Island is approximately 200 kilometers North of Victoria, British Columbia. It is one of the Northern Gulf Islands and is located on the East side of Vancouver Island between Nanaimo and Courtenay, adjacent to Denman Island in the Northern end of the Straight of Georgia. It is approximately 3,000 hectares in area. Its highest point is 330 meters and most prominent feature, is Mount Geoffrey (Carlyle et al. 2000). The peak of the mountain is at the southwest corner of the island, from which the land slopes gently to the north and east, but has a nearly shear drop to the west and steeply sloping drop to the south. St John’s Point, the finger, is a secondary prominence on the island.

There are several beautiful sandy beaches which include Tribune Bay, Little Tribune Bay, and Whaling Station Bay that attract many tourists to the island during the summer months. At this time, the island experiences long periods of very hot and dry weather. The majority of precipitation on the island occurs during the winter months. Due to the combination of magnificent summer weather and beautiful sandy beaches the population fluctuates with the seasons. Year round, there are approximately 900 permanent residents living on the island, while during the peak season, July and August, the summer population on any typical day increases by at least six fold to approximately 6000 people (Carmichael et. al. 2000).

The majority of the residences, both summer and winter, are located near the perimeter of the island within four highly developed areas; Sandpiper, Galleon, Phipps Point/Shingle Spit area and Whaling Station Bay/Anderson Drive Subdivision (Christie 1999). During the 1970's, subdivisions of many half acre lots were developed for vacation properties without planning for them ever to becoming permanent residences. Water retrieval and sewage disposal were not taken into consideration at the time of subdivision. The complications of that ill-considered process are now very apparent; this raises concern for the residences in protecting their natural groundwater resource.

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This website has been created by Heather McGuff and Adriana McMullen as a presentation format for our GIS 470 term project, presented in the 2004 fall term at the University of British Columbia.

We gratefully acknowledge Islands Trust, Natural Resources Canada, The BC Ministry of Water Air, and Land Protection, The Hornby Island Water Advisory Committee, and the UBC Geography department for data and assistance provided.