This is a blog article I wrote for Black Rock Oceanfront Resort, located in Ucluelet, BC.
Terrace Beach, located directly within Ucluelet, is in the traditional territory of the Nuu-chah-nulth and especially the Ucluelet First Nation. It’s deep cove and protected shore was used as a canoe beach landing and was used by people who have lived here for millennia!
Terrace Beach is a pebbled beach with protecting walls of rock on either side of the cove. The forest stands old and tall, almost like fortress walls around this sheltered beach. The water is calm, gently lapping up onto the shore as though it were a lake. It isn’t hard to imagine why the Ucluelet First Nations used this beach to launch and land their canoes.
These canoes were 3 metres and longer and used for hunting, gathering seafood. They also had dugout canoes over 10 metres long that were used for whaling, war, and voyages. Sea lions, whales and seas were hunted many miles offshore. Sometimes the largest canoes were rafted together in pairs and used to ferry house planks when people would move from one location to another, usually to hunt a seasonal resource like spawning salmon.
Can you picture the scene? Cedar dugout canoes are loaded with harpoons, rope made of kelp, and floats made of sealskin. Men are getting ready for a fishing trip. Meanwhile, others are scoping the shallow waters of Terrace Beach and gathering shellfish in open-weave root baskets allowing the sand and water to drain out of the bottom.
A fire is burning close by, smoking and drying fish and shellfish that have already been caught and cleaned. After it is completely prepared it will be carried along a short trail to hinapis, a small bay on the inside of the Ucluelet Inlet that is now called Spring Cove. Often, the canoes would be portaged through this trail, and from there it is a short paddle to the Hittatsoo settlement on the other side of the inlet from there. This shortcut was used since an ancient time, right up until the 1930s.
Terrace Beach is also an archaeological site and the site of an old First Nations midden. A midden is basically a dump for domestic waste of that time. Things like bone, shellfish, old tools, and botanical materials were dumped here. These complex middens can be difficult to excavate but do tell us a lot by what they leave behind.
Bone tools were found at the midden at Terrace Beach, including a sharp knife and a harpoon point.
Picture Left: “According to elder Barb Touchie, of Ucluelet First Nation, the small pointed tool above was used to gut and slice open the delicate flesh of herring. Then the first was turned inside out and hung on sticks for smoking.
Picture Right: The harpoon point has a broken tip. The base was wedged into a split pole, then wrapped with tree bark. Larger harpoon heads were used for whale hunting and smaller ones were used for seals and large fish. Artifacts are very frail and should never be disturbed.
To get to Terrace Beach: Follow Peninsula Drive south until you pass the Terrace Beach Resort. Turn left into the Hi-Tin-Kis parking lot and follow the signs for the Terrace Beach Interpretive Trail.
This is a great beach to explore history…and to have a picnic!
Until next time,
Amy Hancock