Hot Springs Cove

Hot Springs Cove lies within Hesquiaht territory on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Refuge Cove shelters the village from the open Pacific; the surrounding coast belonged to a network of Hesquiaht villages whose people travelled by canoe. Houses held their own inherited teachings, and woodworking furnished canoes and communal longhouses as well as ceremonial objects.

In 1774 Juan Pérez's Santiago anchored offshore on this coast. Nuu-chah-nulth paddlers, probably Hesquiaht, went out to the ship and traded fish. The encounter took place at sea, without a Spanish landing at the cove. Cook's visit to Nootka Sound in 1778 and the maritime fur trade that gathered pace from 1785 brought increasing overseas traffic to the wider coast. For Hesquiaht people, these ships entered an existing world of villages, kinship and sea travel. Sheltered coves and canoe journeys continued to connect households even as foreign vessels began to appear beyond the shore.