People uprooted from Read Island (6)

Read Island (Reid Island), part of the Discovery Islands, was established by non-Indigenous settlers in the 1880s. The first settlement, at Evans Bay, had sixty residents by 1883. Small-scale fishing and logging were the primary industries on the island, and there was a fish saltery and canning plant on the south beach. The Tanaka family ran a small logging operation from Evans Bay alongside the Lambert family.

In 1894, the Read Island school was the first to be established within the Discovery Islands group. In 1912, a floating post office opened in Surge Narrows followed by another school in 1927. In the late 1920s, the Surge Narrows store building, with a standing pier and floating dock, was established and used to access other local community amenities.