Sidney Island Feature
Island - Land area surrounded by water or marsh. Off E side of Saanich Peninsula, N of Victoria, Cowichan Land District
Mapped Location
Sidney Island: The mapped location is an approximation and should not be used for navigation or wayfinding.
Information
General information on Sidney Island
- Feature Type: Feature
Official, historical, colloquial and alternative toponyms for Sidney Island
A brief list of names that this geographic feature has been named
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Sidney Island | Official |
Origin Notes and History of Sidney Island
References to Sidney Island that document the origin of its place name
Adopted in the 10th Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, 30 June 1911, as labelled on British Admiralty Chart #1911, 1865 et seq.
Labelled "Sallas Island" on 1849 edition of British Admiralty Chart #1911, from 1847 surveys by Captain Kellett, U.S.Exploration Expedition; labelled "Sidney Island" on 1865 edition of the same chart, reflecting more detailed hydrographic surveys in 1858 by Captain Richards, RN.
"Named Sallas Island by the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, circa 1850, and known by this name to the early settlers for years. On 22 May 1860 there was a sale by auction in Victoria of real estate on Sallas Island, offered by the HBC at the upset price of six shillings an acre.... (Victoria Colonist 24 May 1860). In the same newspaper, 1 June 1865, Sallas Island is said to be the property of Mr. George Hunter Cary, of Victoria, attorney general, and it was sold about that date to Messrs. Weissenberger and Schlosser for colonization purposes. Named Sidney Island in 1859 by Captain Richards, RN."
"... There was a Captain F.W. Sidney employed as a [hydrographic] surveyor during the years 1842-69..." (information from the Admiralty, sent via Commonwealth Records Office, London, to the Geographic Board of Canada)
Catherine Island was the Hudson's Bay Company name for Sidney Island. (from SHALE: Journal of the Gabriola Historial & Museum Society; Nick Doe editor)
A Selected Bibliography of Sidney Island, Feature
A compilation of essential readings detailing the history, geography, and culture of the region.
The story of Sidney Island's three names by Jim McDowell
Jim McDowell’s The Story of Sidney Island's Three Names traces the cartographic, linguistic, and political evolution of a prominent landform in the southern Gulf Islands by examining the layered origins of its designations. The text illustrates how corporate traders and imperial hydrographers progressively superimposed colonial designations—first as "Sallas Island" under the Hudson's Bay Company and subsequently as "Sidney Island" via British Admiralty surveys—directly over the ancestral W̱SÁNEĆ (Saanich) territory and ancient harvesting shores of SḰŦÁMEN (Sktamaen). McDowell details the changing logistics of island access and resource extraction, showing how an Indigenous marine domain defined by reef net fisheries and seasonal harvesting was re-engineered through colonial property surveys to facilitate settler pre-emptions, steam navigation in Haro Strait, and industrial brick-making operations at Sidney Spit. Ultimately, this toponymic chronicle demonstrates how successive colonial renamings functioned as deliberate instruments of spatial control across the Salish Sea, superimposing imperial administrative authority onto an enduring Indigenous archipelago.
65 pages : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 28 cm
Desiderata
Last updated: 2026-10-13