Historical Letter Highlights Indigenous Women's Role in Early Hornby Island Settlement

community · Hornby Island

A letter to the editor highlights the often overlooked contributions of Indigenous women in the early settlement of Hornby Island, specifically referencing George Ford's Indigenous wife and their role in farming and sustaining families.

This is the archive, not the newspaper. Between 2018 and 2026 this site compiled these items automatically from public community sources — chiefly The Islands Grapevine, regional news feeds and community groups. They were not written by a reporter and were not held to the standards this publication now applies. The archive is kept because it is a useful dated record of what happened on Denman, and it is labelled because pretending otherwise would be the first thing we would tell you not to trust. Current reporting is at The Denman Firestarter.

Sources

• “Dear Editor: Just for the record… Craig Baird’s article, “Settling Hornby Island”,...neglected to mention that George Ford, the first settler on Hornby had a wife, an Indigenous wife...They and their relatives knew how, where and when to hunt and fish...They most certainly were major and indispensable contributors to the splendidness of farms such as the Fords’.” — The Islands Grapevine – April 1st, 2021 (April 1st, 2021)

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