At the beginning of the year, the Province of British Columbia issued special cut-and-carry timber licenses to major companies focused on harvesting only large trees; those who applied for these licenses aimed to extract less profitable timber. Since drag logging roads and access to beaches were already established, it required less effort for them to operate. Mr. H.M. Cade was one of those applicants; on February 1, 1899, he sought permission to harvest timber from 1,000 acres near Mr. McEachern’s claim along the coast of Malaspina Strait.

Powell Lake, serving as the central hub for logging, hunting, and crown land applications, was an ideal location for industry. The Industrial Powell Company, which surrendered to Henry B. Thompson, received District Lot 1901 in April 1900, but they applied for 1901a on October 12, 1899, described as Powell Lake Outlet. The Pacific Coast Power Company pressed ahead with its plans, applying for permission to build a dam and securing approval on May 10, 1899. The decision reflected the company’s growing confidence and the region’s broader push toward industrial development. The dam was permitted to divert 48,000 inches of water from Powell Lake, and the Pacific Coast Power Company carried out this work under a certificate issued by the Canadian Industrial Company Ltd.

The Theodosia Inlet was not as well-known for timber or mining claims, but it still received some requests. In May 1899, Mr. John McKinnon received his grant of District Lot 1832, which included a mining claim named “Silver King.” District Lots 1832 to 1841 were all linked to mineral and mining claims, though limited information is available for each lot.

In the same district, the Sliammon Band (Tla’amin)  petitioned for permission to hire a white contractor with teams of horses to haul out the remaining logs they had already had authorization to cut for the new church. They explained to Mr. Devlin that they could no longer manage the final stages of the work: much of the timber lay half to three‑quarters of a mile from the boom, and the distance made hand hauling impossible. At that moment the boom already held 193,671 feet of timber, fourteen months of steady cutting. Many of the logs were shorter than ideal, but the Sliammon (Tla’amin) people noted that cutting them down was the only way to drag them out of the bush at all.

Mr. Devlin supported their request. He reported that the Sliammon Reserve (Tla’amin) was “not at all suitable for hand logging,” its flat, level ground offering none of the natural slopes that made moving timber easier elsewhere on the coast. Given the terrain and the distance to the boom, he recommended that outside assistance be approved so the Band could complete the hauling and move the church‑building project forward. On May 29, 1899, officials approved a white man and his horses to finish hauling out Sliammon’s (Tla’amin) remaining logs.

As the expansion of the project at Powell Lake was underway, the Industrial Power Company of British Columbia requested to purchase District Lot 767 on October 5, 1899. This lot, located on the westerly bank of the Powell River and adjacent to District Lot 450, comprised only 100 acres. Under the name Pacific Coast Power Company, the company established a townsite alongside the Powell River and named it “Malaspina”. 1,800 Acres of freehold land and an available 18,000 horsepower of water power available from the flows of Powell Lake to Malaspina Strait.

October 12, 1899, in the BC Gazette, the Tyhee and Whistler Mineral Claims were published on behalf of Mr. D.R. Dingwell, Mr. W.L. Challoner, Mr. Henry McLuskey and Mr. Calvin R. Miller for a Free Miners Certificate No. 20,988a, 8,531, 21,006a, and 59,631a located on Texada Island. in the same month, Mr Arthur W. Moore applied for Lot 174 known as the Lion Claim, granted on March 13, 1900.

As the area became more developed and settlements appeared where there were none just a year ago, the Province of British Columbia contracted Captain J.T. Walbran of the Dominion Government vessel S.S. Quadra to survey and map out Sturt Bay and Van Anda Cove. Chart 2078 was the very first nautical chart of the area with so much detail. On it, though, it showed the locations of Mines, Wharves, the Hotel in Van Anda, sawmills, and street names.

In 1899, Van Anda had several established streets, including Main Street, Copper Street, Queen Street, Wall Street, and Smelter Avenue, which was home to one of the first smelters on this side of the coast. During this time, there were no known roads across Malaspina Inlet, except for the one leading to Lund, BC.

The Dominion of Canada consistently sent out surveyors to assess the mineral deposits across the nation. In the 1899 Report of the Geological Survey of Canada, in its investigations and surveys, a survey was conducted on the north-east quarter section of Block 1 of Texada Island on behalf of Mr. Alfred Raper. This survey found only fine granular, massive pyrrhotite with faint traces of nickel. Elsewhere on the island, there was only a small output of copper, which at the time was a minor product of the mines on Texada.

Another yearly publication was Henderson’s Gazette Magazine, sold at newsstands, in stores, railroad stations, and the like. In 1899, the coast of British Columbia, particularly around the Malaspina Strait and Texada Island, was becoming increasingly well known, as were place names. Blubber Bay was a steamboat landing on Texada Island and part of the Comox route, which still exists in 2026. Bute Inlet was a fishing station, and Cades Landing was a logging camp, noted as 65 miles from Vancouver on Malaspina Strait.

When the Deighton family established the farm, it was named Froeck, and the Henderson publication recorded it as a logging camp at Myrtle Point. Further up the coast was Lund, noted as a settlement on the east side of the Gulf of Georgia. The postmaster was Mr. Chas A. Thulin, and the settlement had 42 listed residents, including loggers, miners, blacksmiths, engineers, shipwrights, lumbermen, and farmers. Lund featured the Hotel Malaspina, a general store, and even had its own notary public. Lund was no longer just a temporary settlement; it had become permanent, with roads and infrastructure, a steady steamboat stop, and a wharf.

From Douglas Bay, Greenwood Bay, both near Froeck at Myrtle Point, to Grief Point, to the Powell Lake Mining Company, there was even a place noted as Sliaman, as a logging camp on the east side of Malaspina Strait, opposite the northern end of Texada Island. The logging camp was to be occupied by the Moodyville Lands and Sawmill logging camp, with Mr. Harry Cook as the foreman logger.

In the Henderson Magazine, it writes of Texada City, opposite the townsite of Van Anda, which also had the post office. In Texada City, there was Hotel Texada, and Mr. A.W. Walters was the manager. There were the Marble Bay Mines, which Mr. William Christie, the townsite manager, managed. Mr. G.G. Palmer and Mr. F.W. McCrady were the managers of the mine. John Henry McConville was the local justice, and Mr. John P McKee was the clerk. Of the Puget Sound Iron Company, Mr. Lee was the manager of it as well as the Irondale. The publication recorded that Mr. W. L. Summers served as the sole fireman, with no additional personnel listed alongside his name.

Van Anda, a mining town, had Mrs. Annie E. Forbes as the local postmaster, John R. Abrams as the local engineer, and Mr. Alex Allen Forbes as the local physician.

Wulffsohn Bay, a recent placename, was a logging camp on Malaspina Strait. It was occupied in 1899 by the Moodyville Lands and Sawmill Company, with William McIntyre as the foreman.

In 1899, there was a strong global desire for knowledge, leading to the exploration of new maps, charts, and territories. Cartographers were diligently working to keep pace with the surge of new information. E. Gottschalck and G. Kirchner published a world atlas in that year, titled *Allgemeiner HandAtlas*. This Atlas was Part 50 of the fourth edition of *Andrees Allgemeiner Handatlas*, which had been released in 1898 by Velhagen & Klasing in Bielefeld and Leipzig and published in 56 weekly installments, each costing 50 Pfennig, allowing buyers to purchase a complete, high-quality world atlas gradually. The *Allgemeiner HandAtlas* became one of the most significant and influential German world atlases of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This Atlas contained a map of British Columbia, which clearly labelled Powell Lake. The Atlas also printed the names of other areas, such as Savary Island, Texada Island, and Malaspina Strait; however, the Gordon Pasha Lakes, Haslam Lakes, Goat Lake, and Khartouhm Lake were not named or identified. At that time, no other colonial charts or maps provided such detailed information about the area surrounding Powell Lake.

In 1899, the Malaspina Strait saw significant economic activity, with numerous mines, dams, and logging camps creating abundant employment opportunities. On December 21, 1899, a new mining company, the English Canadian Company Limited, was established on Texada Island. The company acquired Sections 38, 39, and 53 on the outskirts of Van Anda. Additionally, the Puget Sound Iron Company owned 2,700 acres on the southwest side of Texada Island and was one of the more productive mines that year.

It was the booming years for all mines on Texada, from the Copper Queen, Corwell, Van Anda Mines, and the Marble Bay mines, altogether mining over 19,000 tons of copper, fine silver, and gold, with a yield of over 8 million tons of ore yet to be mined. Yes, Texada Island was in a boom.

By the close of 1899, the Malaspina Strait region had transformed from a sparsely charted coastline into a corridor of accelerating industrial ambition. The year opened with the Province issuing special cut‑and‑carry timber licenses, drawing applicants like H.M. Cade to newly accessible tracts along the coast. Logging roads, beach access, and the centrality of Powell Lake made extraction efficient, while companies such as the Pacific Coast Power Company advanced even larger plans.

Their successful application to divert 48,000 inches of water for a hydroelectric dam signalled a decisive shift toward long‑term industrial infrastructure. Mining claims proliferated from Theodosia Inlet to Texada Island, where new grants, booming copper output, and the establishment of the English Canadian Company Limited underscored a region rapidly moving from frontier to enterprise.