June 2018

168 169 CAMPBELL RIVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA AN ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE C ampbell River, a city of about 32,000 people, halfway up the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, was named after Dr. Samuel Campbell, ship’s surgeon on the HMS Plumber, an 8-gun, wooden screw sloop of the Royal Navy that plied Discovery Passage, the narrow channel that separates Vancouver Island from Quadra Island, and further east, the rugged Coast Mountain range of mainland British Colum- bia, around 1859. Campbell River is known as the “Salmon Capital of the World,” because the Campbell River, itself, which the city is named for, is a salmon-bearing stream for all five species of fish: the Chinook, the Coho, the Sockeye, the Pink, and the Chum. Of these, Chinooks that weigh 30 or more pounds, and known by the Indian name, Tyee, which means “The Chief,” are the most prized. Indeed, sports fisherman had travelled to the area as early as the 1880s, and especially after the late 19th century publication of Sir Richard Musgrave’s tales of the excellent fishing he had off the mouth of the Campbell River, over several seasons. The Tyee Club, which was formed in 1924 over BRITISH COLUMBIA