This story first appeared in Looking Back feature article in the Campbell River Mirror newspaper, published February 20, 2025.

If our landscape could talk, it would tell us a riveting story of eruptions, collisions, and erosion that shaped it into what we see today. 

Studying the distant geological past is challenging. The earth’s crust constantly changes, and tectonic plate movements push it up to make mountains or down towards the earth’s center to be recycled into magma. As soon as land masses form, erosion starts eating away at them. These processes often erase evidence of the earth’s distant past.

It is no surprise then that all of the details regarding how Vancouver Island was formed are still unknown. Yet, enough evidence remains for geologists to agree on the major steps that gave us the land we live on today.

The oldest rocks discovered on Vancouver Island likely originated about 400 million years ago somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Volcanic activity on the seafloor spewed ash, which piled up and eventually spread out, creating a plateau in shallow water. For a time, the plateau supported coral reefs teeming with life. Species of brachiopods and crinoids (a flower-shaped group of animals) populated the reef. Geologists call this specific fragment of the earth’s crust Wrangellia.

Subsequently, more volcanic activity added layers of lava on top of this plateau. For reasons still uncertain, the plateau sunk deeper despite the added layers of lava. New reefs appeared, once again supporting life. 

Another wave of volcanic activity began and deposited more layers of lava which eventually breached the water’s surface. Some of the magma making its way through the layers of rocks could not quite reach the surface, solidifying underground instead.

Through all these cycles of volcanic activity, erosion, and the crust fragment shifting up and down, Wrangellia was on a collision course with North America, albeit very slowly. By about 100 million years ago, Wrangellia collided with North America creating mountains and valleys, compressing, folding, and pushing up some of the rock. 

A sea formed between Wrangellia and North America, roughly where the Strait of Georgia sits today. Erosion brought layers upon layers of sediments to the sea. Fascinating fossil discoveries, like the Trent River’s  Plesiosaur and Hornby Island’s Pterosaur, were recently made among these sediments.

Near the shore, lowlands rich in vegetation accumulated organic matter in a low-oxygen environment. Later subjected to heat and pressure, these carbon-rich layers eventually transformed into coal. 

Later, a few more crust fragments collided with the southern end of Vancouver Island, deforming further the Island’s rocks. Recently (in the last 2.5 million years), glaciations also played a part in affecting the landscape, carving out massive inlets, carrying the sediment along with it to deposit the sediments elsewhere.

All this activity left the Island’s ground rich in all sorts of minerals and rocks. We know through archeology and oral history that humans recognized the cultural and economic value of such materials from the very beginning.

On Vancouver Island, like in other regions of BC, Indigenous people carved symbols into rocks, called petroglyphs.  The beaches near C̓akʷalutən on Quadra Island, amongst many others, have numerous petroglyphs visible at low tide. 

Ocre was used to make paint; stones were carved into a variety of tools. Extensive trade networks were created to access and distribute materials unavailable on Vancouver Island, like obsidian and jade. The naturally occurring pure form of copper was used to make ƛ̓ak̓ʷa (or`tłaḵwa), called Copper in English, a ceremonial belonging holding great importance for many First Nations peoples. 

The ancient lush swamps, by now turned into coal, attracted European mining interests to Suquash, near Port Hardy, spurring the creation of Fort Rupert in 1849. The coal seams of Nanaimo and Cumberland were exploited next. Occasionally, the land reminded the miners of its origin as plant fossils were found in the mines. Campbell River followed later with the Quinsam Coal Mine opening in 1988. By then, coal had already fallen out of favour, both economically and from an environmental point of view, and the mine ceased its operation in 2019. 

Yet coal is far from the only ancient sediments to have been exploited. The coral reefs of Wrangellia, long since transformed into limestone, were used to make lime by heating the limestone in the kiln. Sometime before 1947, a brief small-scale lime kiln was in operation in Open Bay, exploiting the surfacing limestone seam. This layer, too, reminds us of its origin about 225 million years ago. Fossils of ammonites, one of the creatures that inhabited the reef, can be found in the limestone.

More famously, copper mining has been extensive in our area. From the 1900s to the early 1920s, copper, silver, and gold were extracted from the Lucky Jim Mine on Quadra Island. What is often called the Myra Falls Mine produced gold silver, copper, lead, and zinc from 1966 to 2023. Both mines were associated with igneous rocks resulting from Wrangellia’s volcanic activity.

Smaller mining operations are ongoing in our region today even if we don’t think of them as such.  Gravel and sand pits are numerous in the area, taking advantage of the sediments deposited during glaciations. 

In a way, our landscape does indeed talk. Until June 2, 2025 the Museum is hosting a travelling exhibit showcasing the evidence of this past. Local fossils and geological samples were added to the Royal BC Museum’s exhibition Dinosaurs of BC. These local specimens bear witness to Wrangellia’s formation. Come visit and connect with this distant past and perhaps learn to read our landscape.