Talk:Piers Island

History references
I've read in a few places about the Doukhobor internment on Piers Island, but I'm unsure how to put in the reference within a wiki page.

Here are some sites that have references:
 * http://edocs.lib.sfu.ca/projects/Doukhobor-Collection/PiersIsland.htm
 * http://www.doukhobor.org/Schaarschmidt.htm
 * http://www.liread.com/piers.htm

Once I know how to establish references (by example, hopefully!) I will update the Doukhobor and Sons of Freedom (political group) pages to include a reference to Piers Island. --Quadrastreet (talk) 00:55, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * There's also a List of internment camps out there....what do you know about the Doukhbor camp at Agassiz Mountain Prison (now Kent Institution?). As I understand it that was a protest camp, not an internment (except for those few interned inside teh prison, of course...).  We visited it when I was young; a sea of tarpaper shacks, tens and dust...and people....Skookum1 (talk) 01:07, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't really know much about Doukhobors at all. I just finished reading Pierre Burton's "The Promised Land" and he had a chapter about the Doukhobors first colonies in the prairies.  That came as a surprise!  All I knew previously about them was that they ran around naked and lit things on fire in BC. I had heard or read a long time ago about the camp on Piers. --Quadrastreet (talk) 01:16, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Google up "Brilliant Suspension Bridge" although I think that's on the doukhobor.org site.....Skookum1 (talk) 01:19, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

The notes from the BCGNIS site, "One-time Leper colony. Large scale map of Piers Island, 1933, indicating location of men's and women's compounds on file S.2.33 Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office" used as a reference for the island being used as a leper colony are most likely incorrect! The men's and women's compounds were for Sons of Freedom Doukhobor internment... not lepers! --Quadrastreet (talk) 01:00, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, are you sure it wasn't both? i.e. the 1933 internment - was that for Doukhobors, or was it the Doukhobours were interned there later or before?  Wasn't it D'Arcy Island that was a leper colony in the same area - but a Chinese leper colony, i.e. I suspect there may have been a racial-segregation issue with leprosy treatment, as so little was known about the disease back then.  Anyway I'll look at your Doukhobor dates to  see if they "jibe" with 1933; but my gut feeling is that this had been both a leper colony (earlier) and a Doukhobor internment site....Skookum1 (talk) 01:05, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It could be... but I think I would have heard something about it being a leper as late as the 1930's. Piers is very close to the Saanich Peninsula. --Quadrastreet (talk) 01:08, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I just googled, nothing on Piers Island + leper colony that's not a wiki clone, or not that I can see anyway...but on another search for British Columbia + leper colony I found this site which is a fedgov committee report and says:
 * ''c) 1891-1956: Imprisonment of Lepers, mostly Chinese, on two Victoria Area Islands;
 * D'Arcy Island is certainly one, and the more famous; I suspect the other being referred to must be Piers; are they near each other by any chance?Skookum1 (talk) 01:16, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The Gulf Islands are all very close to each other and the smaller ones are not identified very well on Google Maps (they have Piers Island labeled as Portland Island!) From what I can tell, they're about 15 to 20 miles from each other.  There are dozens of "Victoria Area Islands", and any one could have been the second island. http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/bc/gulf/carte-map-fl_e.asp --Quadrastreet (talk) 01:22, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, but Piers Island is the only one for which there is any reference to a leper colony, and that that reference happens to be BCGNIS tends towards teh authoritative, although I know of certain interpretations or accounts of events and individuals I might want to dispute, if there were latitude to do so; but facts of this kind they're pretty in-depth-core-knowledge about; the provincial geomatics branch is a branch of the Lands Branch, whose records dal with what different properties/places were used for and licensed for over BC's existence. There don't seem to be any other web references to Piers Island as a leper colony; but if your'e in Victoria as your name indicates when you're downtown sometime maybe ask at the library; nobody at hte Museum is qualified to know these days, maybe at the provincial archives someone there might know precisely, and if there were other leper colonies as well; although there are only two mentioend in the federal report, this is because that report is in connection with Chinese and other minority human rights claims/govt wrongdoings; there could have been yet other leper colonies, there were many, many all up and down the WEst Coast as other refs in google will tell you.....Skookum1 (talk) 03:00, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yup, I'm definitely close to downtown here in Victoria. Looking at their service hours, I'll only be able to go when my contract job takes me downtown (about once a month.) This will be fun -- I've never been to the archives.--Quadrastreet (talk) 19:03, 21 November 2008 (UTC)