Strathacona Range

The Strathcona mountain country belongs to Vancouver Island in the forested Pacific Northwest. High ridges, lakes and river valleys lie inland from coastal communities. The wider area includes the traditional territory of the Mowachaht and Muchalaht peoples, whose relationships with land and water connect mountain country to the island's shores.

Before sustained European contact, Indigenous communities maintained territories, political institutions and ceremonial relationships across the wider region. Knowledge of routes and seasons enabled them to use different parts of the landscape. Maritime visits and expanding trade in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries brought new goods, disease and pressure to coastal societies, whose connections with the interior were already established.