Storm Bay through a smoky haze Storm Bay is found in the

Sechelt Inlet Sechelt Inlet formerly ''Seechelt Inlet'' is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. The inlet is significant in that it almost makes an island of what is instead the Sechelt Peninsula, whose isthmus is at the town of Sechelt at ...

of the Pacific Ocean, near the mouth of Narrows Inlet. It is accessible by boat or seaplane. Since the mid-1960s, the location has been home to a number of notable artists.

Ecology

Storm Bay is in the Coastal Douglas-fir Biogeoclimactic Zone of British Columbia, which consists of wet, mossy, dense

temperate rain forest Temperate rainforests are coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the temperate zone and receive heavy rain. Temperate rain forests occur in oceanic moist regions around the world: the Pacific temperate rain forests of North American Pa ...

History

shíshálh nation

Storm Bay has been inhabited by the shíshálh (or Sechelt) nation, specifically the téwánkw sub-group of ?álhtulich, stl'ixwim, and skúpa (Sechelt, Narrows, and Salmon Inlets), for around eight millennia. Existing

shell middens A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts ...

indicate ancient and long-term human habitation.

Early twentieth century

Storm Bay was logged intensively and homesteaded early in the twentieth century. In 1907, the Sechelt Brick & Tile Company Limited built a small brickworks in Storm Bay which closed after two years due to the poor quality of the clay. The Canadian government built a large brick plant in 1921 as a "returned men's project"; it too was short-lived.

1960s and 1970s to present day

Many people loosely associated with the

intentional community An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of group cohesiveness, social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, po ...

movement

settled A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a pioneer. Settl ...

in Storm Bay during the late 1960s and early 1970s, including the notable artists Kate Craig (who died in Storm Bay in 2002,) David Rimmer, Karen Jamieson, Hank Bull, and

Glenn Lewis Glennon Ricketts Jr. (born March 13, 1975), professionally known as Glenn Lewis, is a Canadian neo soul singer–songwriter. Lewis earned a Grammy Award nomination in 2004 and has also won a Juno Award out of a total of six nominations. Early li ...

. In 1980 a Royal Canadian Mounted Police member from the

Sechelt Sechelt (, Shishalh language chat'lich) is a district municipality located on the lower Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. Approximately 50 km northwest of Vancouver, it is accessible from mainland British Columbia by a 40-minute ferry ...

detachment could name only Storm Bay when asked about extant communes in the

Sunshine Coast Sunshine Coast may refer to: * Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia **Sunshine Coast Region, a local government area of Queensland named after the region **Sunshine Coast Stadium * Sunshine Coast (British Columbia), geographic subregion of the Br ...

region. Its inhabitants however eschew the word commune, and refer to Storm Bay as a neighbourhood.

References