“The Last Great Battle”

No one now knows if it is true or not, but there is a story that in the late 1800s when T.A. Wood first saw the property which became his home (and is now MBYC), the beach was lined with skulls on poles.  What we do know from historical sources is that Maple Bay was the site of a great battle when “the water became red with the blood of the slain”.

Photo Courtesy Paul Delange

For many, many summers the Kwakiutl swept down from the north to raid the villages, kill the men and take the women and children into slavery.  About 1860,  the bands of the south decided to unite against this enemy.  Warriors from the Salish tribes; Cowichan, Malahat, Songhee, Saanich and Sooke all came together to await the summer arrival of the Kwakiutl.

The defenders dug camouflaged pits in the forest to hide the women and children and then all the men gathered at Maple Bay.  When scouts arrived with news that the Kwakiutl had been sighted, the warriors hid their big canoes under the trees which “grew thick around the water”.  Three canoes of Cowichan warriors disguised as women were sent out into the bay.  The Kwakiutl pursued the three canoes which turned and paddled back to shore.  Suddenly, out from the trees came the Salish canoes to surround the Kwakiutl.  A fierce battle ensued – some say “without intermission for four days and nights”.

In the end not one Kwakiutl survived, they were all slain or drowned.  After a brief rest, the Salish took the canoes of their vanquished foe and paddled north.  The first settlement they approached was Satlotlq (now Comox).  When the Comox women saw the canoes they believed it to be their warriors returning with bounty from their raiding and they began to dance and sing the song of welcome.  As the canoes landed the Satlotlq perceived their mistake and tried to run away and hide but their village contained a fifth column.  The many Salish slaves saw their countrymen arriving in the canoes and prevented the escape.  The Satlotlq women and children were taken into slavery and the village burned.  The canoes then continued north to Cape Mudge and Alert Bay to seek the same revenge.  It is said that the prisoners were sold as slaves to the Clallam tribe in Washington and never again did the Kwakiutl raid the settlements of the Salish.

If you’re lucky and have a good eye you may still happen upon an arrow head on our beach after the high tides of winter.

(Sources:  N. DeBertrand Lugrin  “Indian Saga: Heroic tales from the golden age of the Indian’s supremacy on the West Coast” Maclean’s Magazine December 15, 1932 p.38.

“Report on the Ethnology of the South-eastern Tribes of Vancouver Island. British Columbia” The Salish People, The local contribution of Charles Hill-Tout Volume IV: The Sechelt and the South Eastern Tribes of Vancouver Island.  Talonbooks 1978 p.160 .)