Historically they would use the warmer spring and summer months to travel to resource gathering sites and move from their permanent winter villages.

Into the 20th century Bowen Island was actively used by Squamish people for deer and duck hunting, fishing and, later, wage jobs.

In conversations with Vancouver archivist Major Matthews in the 1950s, August Jack Khatsahlano recalled knowing several Squamish who worked for whalers on the island at the turn of the 20th century.

[citation needed] When Spanish explorers arrived on the west coast of Canada, they named many of the features of what is now the Strait of Georgia.

George Henry Richards renamed the island after Rear Admiral James Bowen, master of HMS Queen Charlotte.

[11][12] In 1871, homesteaders began to build houses and started a brickworks, which supplied bricks to the expanding city of Vancouver.

These companies provided steamer service to Vancouver, and the Horseshoe Bay - Bowen Island Ferry began in 1921.

When the Union Steamship resort closed in the 1960s the island returned to a quiet period of slow growth.

Smith, Jack Shadbolt, Eric Nicol and Malcolm Lowry, who finished his last book, October Ferry to Gabriola, there.

Bowen Island is served by a number of small businesses including marinas, cafes, gift shops, grocery stores, a post office, pharmacy, restaurants, electric bike rentals, kayak rentals, garden and flower shops, and a building supply yard.

Bowen Island is home to the Canadian branch of L'Abri, a communal Christian retreat centre where visitors come for self-directed study.