Over 50,000 visitors, predominantly from British Columbia, visit Hornby Island each summer. The main attraction is the sand beaches, in particular Tribune Bay, the largest sand beach in the Gulf Islands. Some come to sun, some to swim and some, sadly, mainly to party. They come by car and come by boat.
There are two sand beaches and numerous rocky beaches with abundant intertidal life. A necessary part of every trip to Hornby Island is a walk around Helliwell Provincial Park with its cliffs and magnificent panorama to its original Douglas fir forest. There is a public dock, now locally operated , at Ford Cove. Tribune Bay is a well-used anchorage.
Most of the housing and human activity on the island is located on flat land around the periphery, on what was once farm land. For the uplands, which rise to 1000 feet at the west of the island, the uses of highest value are recreation, groundwater capture and letting the forest recover. Past logging has left a network of roads and trails now extensively used by bicyclists, walkers and naturalists. The occasional giant Douglas fir and alpine fir, and hemlocks in one wet valley, show what the forest once was, and hopefully will be again.
Farming, once the mainstay of the community, has become a specialty. We have organic produce, specialty seedstock, specialty roses, new vinyards and wineries, a meadery, and a demonstration "old-time" farm, not to mention the fibre crops which prompt the annual RCMP garden tour with their annoying helicopters.
A population of about 1000 permanent residents are the effective trustees of this land and its facilities, which is thus available for the use of the summer visitors. This strange tribe of farmers, ecologists, artisans, musicians and retirees from all walks of life have forged a unique culture. Hornby Island was a strong force in the recognition of the Gulf Islands as having unique requirements for land zoning, and indeed the first chair for the Islands Trust was a resident of the island. The island is a world leader in the recycling of domestic waste. Our Recycling Depot and Free Store are now 25 years old.
The island believes in self-governance and indulges in democracy to a fault. Although not an organized community in the legal sense, we operate many of the facilities normally carried out by municipal governments, such as fire protection and waste disposal, and we demand a right to criticize everything else.
In 2003, the islanders raised over $300,000 as seed money to lever the purchase of the last large piece of private land in the uplands forest, which includes the face of the island you see from the ferry (see picture on first page of this site). This is now Mount Geoffrey Escarpment Provincial Park, an important example of the once abundant coastal dry fir forest.
Potters, poets, painters, photographers, PhotoShop choppers, silversmiths, blacksmiths, wordsmiths, weavers, welders, sculptors in concrete, wood and metal, candlemakers, boatmakers, festivals, fiddles, blues and jazz. Art galleries, fibre arts and even a resident luthier. This is a fertile ground for creative endeavours, even web page editing. Any activity which requires creativity and skill, and does not require living in the city, is represented here.
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