The southeast part of the island has one of the warmest climates in Canada, and since the mid-1990s has been mild enough in a few areas to grow Mediterranean crops such as olives and lemons.

Other notable cities and towns on Vancouver Island include Nanaimo, Campbell River, Courtenay, Port Alberni and Parksville, all on or near the east coast.

Indigenous peoples have inhabited Vancouver Island for thousands of years,[6] long before the arrival of Spanish and British naval expeditions in the late 18th century.

The Spanish and British conjointly named it Quadra's and Vancouver's Island in commemoration of the friendly negotiations held in 1792 between the Spanish commander of Fort San Miguel in Nootka Sound, Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, and British naval captain George Vancouver, during the Nootka Crisis.

The Nuu-chah-nulth speak a Southern Wakashan language and are closely related to the Makah of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington state and the Ditidaht.

Europeans began to explore the island in 1774 when rumours of Russian fur traders caused Spain to send a number of expeditions to assert its long-held claims to the Pacific Northwest.

By 1776, Spanish exploration had reached Bucareli Bay including the mouth of the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington, and Sitka Sound.

Maritime fur trader, John Meares arrived in 1786 and set up a single-building trading post near the native village of Yuquot (Friendly Cove), at the entrance to Nootka Sound in 1788.

Asserting their claim of exclusive sovereignty and navigation rights, the Spanish force seized the Portuguese-flagged British ships.

Vancouver insisted the entire Spanish establishment be turned over, but Bodega y Quadra held that there were no buildings seized in 1789, and the only possible land was a tiny and useless cove nearby.

[14] A settlement was not successfully negotiated and ownership of the island remained in dispute between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Spanish Empire in the early 1790s.

The fort was located at the Songhees settlement of Camosack (Camosun), 200 m (660 ft) northwest of the present-day Empress Hotel on Victoria's Inner Harbour.

Following the brief governorship of Richard Blanshard, James Douglas, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay post, assumed the role in 1851.

[9] Fort Victoria had become an important base when prospectors, miners and merchants began arriving for the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858.

[22] Today, as CFB Esquimalt, it is the home port of the Maritime Forces Pacific and parts are designated as National Historic Sites of Canada.

[26] The Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca are now officially part of the Salish Sea, which also includes Puget Sound.

Vancouver Island is mostly made up of volcanic and sedimentary rock which were formed offshore on the now disappeared Kula oceanic plate.

Around 55 million years ago during the Paleogene Period, a microplate of the Kula Plate subducted below the North American continental margin with great strain.

These terranes were subjected to extreme warping from continued subduction of the Kula plate, leading to the formation of the distorted Insular Mountains.

Much of the central mountainous region around Strathcona Park is part of the Karmutsen Formation, which is a sequence of tholeiitic pillow basalts and breccias.

For example, mountain goats, moose, coyotes, porcupines, skunks, chipmunks, and numerous species of small mammals, while plentiful on the mainland, are absent from Vancouver Island.

After near-total extirpation by fur traders in the 18th and 19th centuries, sea otters (Enhydra lutris) were protected by an international treaty in 1911.

[52][53][54] In recent years the government of British Columbia has engaged in an advertising program to draw more tourists to beach resorts in places such as Tofino and Ucluelet.

Sport fishing, whale watching, hiking, scuba diving, surfing, and skiing are just a few things for which tourists visit Vancouver Island.

Bakeries, dairies, food processing plants, breweries, wineries, of varying size and scope, are found all along the island.

Agriculture is confined primarily to the fertile soils found in low-lying areas on the southern and eastern portions of the island.

The ICF established a contract with Southern Railway of British Columbia (SRY) to move all rail freight on the Island to and from the Lower Mainland.

SRY assumed operational control from RailAmerica in July 2006 and currently only offers local freight service on the Nanaimo segment of the Victoria–Courtenay mainline (called the Victoria Subdivision by the railroad).

Because of the extreme depth and soft seabed of the Georgia Strait, and the potential for seismic activity, a bridge or tunnel would face monumental engineering, safety, and environmental challenges at a prohibitive cost.

They offer a variety of direct flights of short and medium distances including to and from Seattle, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Whitehorse and Toronto.