While Lund, British Columbia, was developing along the coast of Malaspina Strait, Charles Thulin, listed as the Postmaster there, applied for District Lot 1612 on November 20, 1894. This lot encompassed the entire waterfront of the two bays and the lake, where Thulin’s Wharf, originally built around August 2, 1890, on District Lot 1611 by Fred G. Thulin, was already in existence. The grant of this land led to the establishment of all the current buildings, stores, and hotels in the area.

Mr. John Alexander Humbird had ambitious plans. After receiving a Crown Grant for District Lot 1239, he began preparing for major logging operations. This lot, situated at the mouth of the Horseshoe Lake River, and in the coming months, Mr. Humbird started constructing a dam to sluice his logs down to the Gordon Pasha Lakes. He received his Crown Grant on June 6, 1894, and subsequently launched his operations.

Around Dodd Lake, Mr. James Maclaren took possession of District Lot 1368 on January 20, 1892. Seeing his success, the Hamilton Lumber and Manufacturing Company acquired District Lots 1369, 1370, and 1591 on August 20, 1894.

Islands were becoming the last open lands available for large tracts; Alexander Grant took control of a large section of Hardy Island, including District Lot 1486, on June 7, 1894. On Texada Island, Lot 23, which was the other side of Lime Kiln Bay, was granted to Donald Menzies on February 14, 1894.

On the coast of Malaspina Strait, letters were sent between the Department of Indian Affairs and the Fraser office. These letters were for setting aside a parcel of land occupied by “Louie” on the west side of Eagle Creek on the north shore of Malaspina Strait. Dated May 12, 1894, Mr. A.W. Vowell, the Indian Superintendent of Victoria, was making attempts that the lands in question had been lived on by an indian named “Louie” for 40 years. Mr. Louie had cleared land with 100 apple trees and about 5 acres.

Mr. Louie had been writing letters for two years, making claims that Mr. Sproat was setting aside Reserves. The discussion was that this land was too far away (17 Miles from Sliammon) and that he did not have time. Frank Desliu, Indian Agent, signed this letter. In letters between the Indian Superintendent A.W. Vowell and the Department of Lands and Works, the document was eventually sent by A.W. Vowell to the office of the Hon. P. O’Rielly.

On November 3, 1894, another letter was written, referencing the September 27, 1894, letter regarding this issue. Mr. Frank Devliu requested information on whether 160 acres had been removed from pre-emption. He asserted that Mr. Lioue should retain title to that land, even if it has to be designated as Reserve land, due to all the improvements he had made. Mr. Devliu received a response from Ottawa on October 31, 1895, confirming that the land was approved for retention in Mr. Lioue’s possession as the occupant. Today, this land lies between Palm Beach and Eagle River, along the Malaspina Strait.

When loggers were cutting, and miners were digging, the Province of BC was concentrating on the area from the southern tip of Texada Island to Sarah Point. The Crown Land Surveyors were taking notes of who was where. George Eaton, a logger, had a homestead in Malaspina Inlet, and Niles Frolander, listed as a Ship Carpenter, was settled in at Frolander Bay in the Malaspina Straits. Connecting all Timber limits in the area.

On August 4, 1894, the Monetary Times reported that a new logging railway was under construction at Grief Point, British Columbia. The Moodyville Company had worked in the area for some time. Still, it needed the railway to reach timber farther inland because it had already depleted the shoreline stands and could no longer find suitable timber there.

Mr. Cotton wrote in the Dominion Survey report of 1894 on January 7, 1895. With a view that Powell Lake becomes a place of firsthand discovery, it is vast, clear, and alive with game, yet stubbornly rugged and resistant to settlement. Mr. Cotton spoke as someone who has walked the steep trail from salt water, felt the rise in elevation, and seen the rocky bluffs closing in on deep water teeming with trout.

His description of the lake as both beautiful and demanding, a hunter’s haven, a surveyor’s challenge, and a future industrial asset whose timber will soon force government or private interests to tame its rough outlet stream. Even as he worked, he sensed the growing threat of bushfires and the fragility of the narrow strip of forest between lake and sea, giving his account the tone of a man recording a landscape on the cusp of change.

While speaking with the local Indians, he learned that a careless white man had started the last fire, and Mr. Cotton noted how dry the area was.

While Mr. Cotton was circumventing parts of Powell Lake, Mr. David George Kennedy was staking mineral claims on Goat Island. The Island sits in the middle of Powell Lake and is a large tract of land. Lot 4815A was applied for by the interested parties and received. The Brunette Sawmill Company was already on the Island, having been there since 1891.

Not to lose out on the abundant timber available on Powell Lake, Mr. Andrew Haslam made his claim to District Lot 1617 on the lake, making way for his historic entrance into the area. He later sold his stake to the Merrill Ring Lumber Company in 1923.

Lund was growing. Andrew Harding, a logger; Albert Hanson, a farmer; and Hans A. Hanson, another farmer, were clearing land, as was Charles Harding, who was now homesteading in Malaspina Inlet and growing food. Mr. Eric Jacobson opened a Blacksmith Shop in Lund, one of the first in the northern straits of Malaspina. There were so many people coming to settle in Lund that logging, which was there, was not the only industry; farming was becoming a large industry, and farmers like Charles M. Nelson settled in the area just for that reason.

Near the end of 1894, the Department of Indian Affairs wrote to the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs on September 5, 1894. In the letter, they wrote about the Indian Groups, lumping them all together. In the report, it was simple: the Ho-mal-ko, Klahoose, Sliaamon, and Seshelt have relied on hand logging as their primary means of livelihood, and they engage in a good deal of fishing and trapping.

Written by the Coastal Indian Agent Frank Devlin, gives a bleak, simple view of the First Nations. In the report of November 19, 1894, a response by Mr. P.O’Reilly states that the department has favorably considered applications for additions and extensions to the reserves originally allotted to them, and that those yet to be dealt with are lands at Sliammon on the west coast of the mainland. Copies of the reports were furnished by Messrs. Skinner and Devereux, together with detailed work schedules.

On October 12, 1894, The Victoria Weekly Times reported that Mr. W.E. Wrbb was organizing a search party to look for the Allen Brothers and Mr. Thomas Milburn. The group was last seen at the lime quarry on Texada Island on August 19, 1894, after having spent four weeks at Gordon Lakes.

The group set out for Powell Lake, and no further word ever reached the outside world. The Allen brothers were expert woodsmen and were equally careful on the water. A report was published in the newspaper that a local spiritualist held a séance in which the spirits revealed that the party was in trouble and that they were in a small cabin in the woods. The spiritualist also mentioned that James Allen is either dying or deceased.

Mr. W.E. Webb left Nanaimo, BC, on October 13, 1894, to travel to Powell Lake with the guidance of Chris Jacobson to ascertain news of the Allen Brothers. The Victoria Weekly News reported that if the searchers failed to find them, they would appeal to the City and organize a larger party to comb the surrounding country.

By the close of 1894, the Malaspina Strait and Powell Lake region stood at a decisive threshold. Crown grants, timber claims, and homesteads were rapidly consolidating control of land into the hands of settlers, logging companies, and industrial interests. From Lund’s emerging waterfront, anchored by Thulin’s early wharf and expanding commercial activity, to the interior lakes where Humbird, Haslam, and others positioned themselves for large-scale extraction, the landscape was being methodically transformed into an economic frontier.

Surveyors like Mr. Cotton documented not only the terrain’s physical challenges but also its immense potential, foreshadowing the inevitable push to harness its timber and mineral wealth. What had only recently been a difficult and relatively isolated environment was, within a few short years, becoming an interconnected network of industry, settlement, and speculation.

At the same time, the correspondence surrounding “Louie’s” land and the broader reports from Indian Affairs reveal a starkly different reality, one in which long-standing Indigenous presence and land use were acknowledged only when they intersected with colonial administration. While settlers secured titles and expanded operations, Indigenous individuals and communities were required to petition, justify, and defend lands they had occupied for generations. Even when recognition was granted, as in Louie’s case, it came through a framework that reduced occupation to an administrative exception rather than an inherent right.

Together, these parallel developments illustrate a region undergoing rapid transformation, where the foundations of modern settlement were laid alongside the systematic marginalization of Indigenous land tenure, setting the stage for enduring historical and political tensions that continue to shape the area today.