The Province of British Columbia submitted a Survey Map for final approval by the Parliament of Canada; it was surveyed and drawn by E.M. Skinner, 1888-1889. [Signed by P. O’Reilly, Indian Reserve Commissioner, no date.] [Approved by F.G. Vernon, Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works, April 28, 1891.] Based upon the district name in the plan title, this land was originally part of the Coast Land District. Map showing Reserves in the area around the Strait of Georgia, including Sliam-Mon Reserve No. 1; Harwood Island Reserve No. 2; Pau-Ke-A-Num Reserve No. 3; Toquana Reserve No. 4; To-Ke-Natch Reserve No. 5; and Kahk-Ay-Kay Reserve No. 6. A reference map is also included as an inset map showing the key plan location of all the reserves in this area. Land cover and features described on the map includes graves and the types of land, soil, and timber.

The year 1891 marks the point at which the reserves for the Sliammon (now Tla’amin) people were formally recognized and brought under the Indian Act and the Joint Indian Reserve, within the legal framework of the Dominion of Canada, and the surrounding lands were correspondingly confirmed as Crown lands.

In the Sessional Papers Volume 13 of the Third Session of the Sixth Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, published in 1889, there was a report from Mr. Agent McTiernan. He informed Parliament that there was a serious epidemic of measles and whooping cough in the village of Sliammon. This epidemic was prevalent for an extended period, leading to the deaths of many children. This report, dated October 22, 1888, was sent to Parliament by P. O’Reilly, who was the Indian Reserve Commissioner.

On August 6, 1888, Peter O’Reilly presented Reserves No. 1, No. 2, No. 4, No. 5, and No. 6 to Parliament during that session. He sent Mr. Skinner to confirm the surveys. On December 8, 1888, the Sliammon Reserves were confirmed: No. 1 contained 1,930 acres, No. 2 (Harwood Island) contained 2,075 acres, No. 3 (Pauk-o-a-num) contained 200 acres, No. 4 (To-kiva-na at the head of Theodosia) contained 430 acres, No. 5 (To-ke-natch) contained 50 acres, and No. 6 (Kahk-ay-kay) contained 36 acres. Mr. P. O’Reilly also reported that the few white men residing in the district spoke highly of the Sliammon tribe, noting that they were industrious and readily found employment in the logging camps and canneries along the Fraser River.

In 1889, according to the Sessional Papers, Volume 10 of the Fourth Session of the Sixth Parliament of 1890, Mr. Skinner, a Dominion Surveyor, returned to Sliammon after leaving Victoria on April 9. He surveyed the remaining reserves in May of the same year, measuring Reserve No. 4 at 300.40 chains, No. 5 at 113.90 chains, and No. 6 at 117.80 chains, for a total of 6 miles.

May 26, 1890, Mr. O’Reilly pens a letter to the Honorable Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works notifying the office that he requires the final approval for the reserves surveyed, including Sliammon. Mr. O’Reilly writes another letter on May 4, 1891, stating that the office of Lands and Works approved the setting of the reserves and the alterations and adjustments of the reserves as defined by the late Reserve Commissioner Mr. Sproat. On the same day, he pens a letter to the Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs and forwards all the relevant documents.

In 1891, the Dominion conducted a census of the Sliammon people. It published the results in the Sessional Papers, Volume 10 of the Second Session of the Seventh Parliament of the Dominion of Canada. The census recorded 79 individuals and identified them all as Roman Catholics.

The earliest surviving traces of colonial land administration in the coastal region of British Columbia emerge in the early 1870s, when the Crown began issuing formal grants to settlers in the New Westminster District. In 1891, 20 years after British Columbia entered Confederation, the Crown conveyed Lot 921, Group 1, to Alfred Raphen.

This grant, like others of the period, was anchored to a hand‑drawn survey plan shaded in red, a visual assertion of ownership imposed upon a landscape long inhabited and governed by Indigenous nations. The grant’s language, reserving mineral rights, road allowances, and public works access, has not changed in the 20 years and reveals the legal architecture through which the colonial state asserted layered authority over land, even as it transferred surface title but not ownership to private individuals. These early grants set the administrative template for the decades that followed, shaping both Texada Island and the mainland coast.

By the late 1880s, survey activity intensified across the region. On the mainland north of Powell River, surveyor E. M. Skinner mapped the Sliammon (Tla’amin) reserves in 1888–1889, producing a detailed plan of Reserve No. 1 that recorded timber quality, underbrush density, and stony terrain. Although framed as technical observations, these annotations reveal the colonial gaze: Indigenous land was assessed not for its cultural or historical significance but for its economic potential and suitability for settler agriculture and resource extraction.

A set of inland lakes, 10 miles south of Grief Point, is the Gordon Pasha Lakes, 3 interconnected lakes with a magnificent river system that flows out into Malaspina Strait. Mr. John White must have been impressed with the area and the lakes when he applied to lease the Second Gordon Pasha Lake for lumber purposes. Mr. White was not shy with the amount of land he wanted in his lease, applied for in September of 1891 and published in the October edition of the Victoria Weekly, nor the amount of timber he wanted to take from it, as all the lands described contained 9,000 acres, more or less.

At the same time, across the Strait on Texada Island, surveyors such as James L. Stanford delineated lots for future alienation. Working at a scale of twenty chains to the inch, they carved the island into numbered parcels—Lot 14, Lot 16, Lot 17, each awaiting eventual transfer into private hands. In 1891, the Crown accelerated this process by granting key holdings.

In November, it issued the 640-acre Lot 16 to John Irving, accompanied by a survey plan depicting a long lake bisecting the property, a feature that later shaped settlement and resource use; earlier, on August 6, it granted Lot 17 to James Leonard Stamford, completing a cluster of large holdings on the island’s western side. Though geographically dispersed, these surveys and grants formed part of a single administrative project, the rapid privatization and settlement of Texada’s interior lands and the systematic conversion of Indigenous territory into a grid of commodified land during a period of heightened interest in mining, timber, and agricultural potential.

The early 1890s marked the peak of this transformation. In 1891, multiple Crown Grants were issued to William Downie for Lots 796 and 797 in the New Westminster District, each accompanied by ornate legal documents bearing the provincial seal. These grants, like those before them, preserved extensive Crown rights to minerals, timber, and infrastructure corridors, underscoring the state’s intention to retain strategic control even as it encouraged settlement.

Meanwhile, ledger books from the New Westminster Land Recording District reveal the bureaucratic machinery behind these transactions. Entries from 1891 list auction purchases, file numbers, and the names of grantees such as Johann Wolfsohn, Catherine Gregson, and George Palmer. These records show a pattern of half‑lot divisions, estate transfers, and repeated annotations, evidence of a dynamic land market shaped by speculation, inheritance, and administrative oversight.

Contemporary newspapers such as The Daily Columbian vividly capture the region’s social and economic context alongside these administrative developments. Issues from 1890 portray New Westminster as a bustling hub of real estate speculation, surveying firms, and financial agents. Advertisements for land surveyors, auctioneers, and real estate brokers appear alongside notices of public sales and legal proceedings.

Settlers in search of land and timber fortunes eagerly sought out these newspapers, purchasing them the moment they appeared on the stands. Driven by the desire to be first in line for land grants, many rushed to secure passage by boat, chasing the promise of wealth, fame, and opportunity. In this way, a rush for resources helped spark the early industrial development along the west coast of the Malaspina Strait.

Settlers in search of land and timber fortunes eagerly sought out these newspapers, purchasing them the moment they appeared on the stands. Driven by the desire to be first in line for land grants, many rushed to secure passage by boat, chasing the promise of wealth, fame, and opportunity. In this way, a rush for resources helped spark the early industrial development along the west coast of the Malaspina Strait.

The newspapers reveal a society deeply engaged in land acquisition and development, where surveyors like Woods, Turner & Gamble or brokers such as Rand Bros. played central roles in translating Crown policy into everyday economic activity. These commercial rhythms, though seemingly distant from the remote lots of Texada or the Sliammon coast, were in fact the urban engine driving the expansion of settler landholding across the region.

By 1891, the administrative landscape had fully matured. Crown Grants, survey plans, and ledger entries formed a tightly interlocking system that structured land ownership from Powell River to Texada Island. Indigenous reserves, such as those surveyed by Skinner, stood as small, bounded spaces within a rapidly expanding grid of settler property. The documents from this period of maps, grants, ledgers, and newspapers together tell a story of transformation.

This shift involved denying Indigenous stewardship and accepting only colonial administration, from fluid territorial use to rigid cadastral boundaries, and from local land relations to a bureaucratized system of ownership embedded in provincial law. Within all this, settlers came- from farmers to loggers to promoters- and those who were only looking to make enough money to get to another place. On the coast of Malaspina Strait, development was beginning to take hold.