The Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia are widely recognized as having unique ecological and climatic characteristics and outstanding natural beauty. The high shoreline to land area ratio of the islands and the sheltered waters of the Strait provide considerable opportunity for a variety of recreational activities. However the scenic and essentially rural environment of the islands is currently threatened by the proliferation of residential subdivisions. Existing development controls available to the seven Regional Baords having jurisdiction in the Gulf Islands study area, appear to be inadequate. The central task of this study therefore, is to propose an institutional arrangement called the Gulf Islands Trust, to implement a policy of controlled development for the islands. The observations and recommendations of the Provincial Legislature's Committee on Municipal Matters which studied the islands during 1973, were accepted as the terms of reference for this study. The methodology is as follows: 1. To document the background developments leading to the formation of provincial policy for the islands. 2. To analyze existing similar purpose land use legislation for its relevance to the Gulf Islands. 3. To prepare a model bill which defines the structure and powers of the Gulf Islands Trust. Five pieces of legislation are examined in detail: 1. U.S. Congress, Nantucket Sound Islands Trust Bill, I 97-3. 2. Hawaii, Land Use Law of 1961, as amended 1970. 3. Vermont, Environmental Control Law, 1970 (Act. No. 250 Vermont Laws). 4. Ontario, Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act, 1973. 5. Washington State, Shoreline Management Act of 19 7 1. These laws are analyzed on the basis of several criteria. From this analysis recommendations for an institutional arrangement are given which incorporate those structures and powers thought necessary to control development activities on the islands. At the same time the recommended provisions attempt to achieve certain objectives consistent with the normative assumptions of the author and provincial policy. The recommendations are embodied in a model bill for the Gulf Islands which describes the proposed institutional arrangement in terms of certain structures, powers, and functions. The land use laws analyzed in this study are characteristic of the trends towards increased provincial/state control over regional land use matters and the increased delegation of powers to special purpose bodies. Only some of the legislation analyzed seriously attempts to accommodate local citizen input to the decision-making process. The model bill proposed in this study includes mechanisms to protect the island environment and at the same time makes provision for the participation of individuals in the policy formulation, plan preparation, implementation and monitoring stages of the planning process. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This study examines changing conceptions of the Southern Gulf Islands, an archipelago on the coast of British Columbia, through the twentieth century. By drawing on ideas put forward by government officials, journalists, residents, and travellers it develops an explanation for how and why a conception of the Gulf Islands as a ‘special’ or ‘unique’ pastoral landscape emerged as a result of interactions between individuals and groups, and their political, social, economic, and physical environments. It then examines how these ideas in turn influenced the development of land-use policies and programs, and in particular how an innovative, overarching planning commission called the Islands Trust emerged in 1974 as a mechanism devoted to limiting development and defending the Islands as a pastoral landscape of leisure. More than reflecting such a pastoral depiction of the Islands, the initiatives undertaken by the newly formed Trust ascribed to the idea that a defining lifestyle, characterized by arcadian pursuits such as mixed farming, boutique logging, handicrafts, or the arts, was legitimate for such a landscape. By embracing such a conception of the Gulf Islands’ environment, the Islands Trust endeavoured to preserve and create this landscape through an agenda that supported farmland, forest, and open space retention, and encouraged those activities deemed to be in keeping with the unique ‘character’ of the Islands. The initial work of enshrining the pastoral ‘character’ of the Islands into land-use planning policies and programs by the Trust laid a framework for ongoing efforts to shape the landscape, economy, development, and identity of the region into the present day. / Graduate / 0334

Literary conventions in the writing of the Gulf Islands of the British Columbia coast have “invented” the islands as a distinct region. Lying at the centre of the Strait of Georgia urban region, the islands function as objects of pastoral desire: in representing escape from the city, they are perceived as “natural” by contrast. The landscapes of the Gulf Islands posit a version of “nature” radically different from that common elsewhere in Canada. The protected waters of inland sea and archipelago, benign climate, naturally-occurring alternation of forest and meadow, and defining liminal zone of the beach make the local landscape seem inherently pastoral. As does the pastoral mode, the tropes of discovery and settlement provide convenient, familiar frames for neo-colonial experience of nature and representation of landscape. Using a broadly historical approach, the thesis traces the longevity of local landscape conventions since Spanish exploration of the islands in 1791 and 1792. Rapid population growth intensifies the dominance of the pastoral, while tropes of discovery and settlement give newcomers and established residents the rhetorical means to claim origins in the Gulf Islands. The need to establish origins shapes community politics, which are codified in the Islands Trust, the provincially-funded body that oversees land-use issues in the islands. The thesis consists of ten chapters, the first two of which examine local conventions for defining Gulf Islands space and for writing the history of the islands. Chapters Three and Four discuss the tropes discovery and settlement, respectively, and Chapter Five focusses on characteristic narratives used to express the notion of “Gulf Island.” Chapters Six through Eight revisit the themes of the previous three chapters, inverting the order of discovery and settlement in the second cycle to reflect the ahistorical, simultaneous invocation of these ideas locally. Whereas Chapter Five demonstrates how one Gulf Island version of pastoral dominates the region’s presentation of itself in imaginative writing, Chapter Eight examines the consequences for local narrative when events cannot be articulated within the pastoral mode. As a counterpoint to analysis, in Chapter Four, of how settlement functions as a rhetorical device in Gulf Islands writing, Chapter Six examines aspects of the physical, settled landscape--specifically architecture and the ornamentation of holiday homes and homesites with objects gathered from the beach--as deliberate expressions of indigenousness. In a similar pairing, Chapter Seven examines nostalgic uses of the “discovery” trope intended to express local space, extending the scope of Chapter Three, which explicates attitudes toward the islands expressed through two “original” European voyages of discovery in the islands. Chapters Nine and Ten discuss the role of intertexts in Gulf Island writing: only very recently has the idea of a Gulf Islands “canon”--as indicated by intertextual references between Gulf Islands texts--become current, Gulf Islands writing continues to rely on intertextual references to imperial foundation texts to define, and determine significance in, local landscape. The “sketch” form, which permeates all genres and modes of landscape representation in the islands, in itself articulates the “natural” and thus expresses the condition of “Gulf Island.”

I sampled the plant communities associated with Garry oak (Quercus garryana) in British Columbia in order to develop a classification for use in resource management. Garry oak ecosystems have been designated as critically imperiled in British Columbia. My methods employed some quantitative aspects, but were largely subjective in order to assemble a numerically-adequate data base, apply a landscape approach and include a wide geographic coverage. Although some facets of my study were influenced by European phytosociology, both methodological affinities and the results of objective comparisons place the classification in a scientific context with other studies from the Pacific Northwest oak woodlands. Forty-three (43) plant communities were identified and are described in detail. They consist of 27 communities in a category named for native plant species and 17 communities named for introduced species, organized in two categories of previous disturbance. Similar plant communities are recognized from the literature on other oak woodlands in the Pacific Northwest. The ecosystem relations of the plant communities are depicted on a subjective basis from the collected field data, supplemented with objective results at a broad level. Ecological hypotheses are suggested, along with management interpretations for each of the plant communities. Preservation and active management are emphasized in a management strategy presented for the Garry oak habitat as a whole. / Graduate

Literary conventions in the writing of the Gulf Islands of the British Columbia coast have “invented” the islands as a distinct region. Lying at the centre of the Strait of Georgia urban region, the islands function as objects of pastoral desire: in representing escape from the city, they are perceived as “natural” by contrast. The landscapes of the Gulf Islands posit a version of “nature” radically different from that common elsewhere in Canada. The protected waters of inland sea and archipelago, benign climate, naturally-occurring alternation of forest and meadow, and defining liminal zone of the beach make the local landscape seem inherently pastoral. As does the pastoral mode, the tropes of discovery and settlement provide convenient, familiar frames for neo-colonial experience of nature and representation of landscape. Using a broadly historical approach, the thesis traces the longevity of local landscape conventions since Spanish exploration of the islands in 1791 and 1792. Rapid population growth intensifies the dominance of the pastoral, while tropes of discovery and settlement give newcomers and established residents the rhetorical means to claim origins in the Gulf Islands. The need to establish origins shapes community politics, which are codified in the Islands Trust, the provincially-funded body that oversees land-use issues in the islands. The thesis consists of ten chapters, the first two of which examine local conventions for defining Gulf Islands space and for writing the history of the islands. Chapters Three and Four discuss the tropes discovery and settlement, respectively, and Chapter Five focusses on characteristic narratives used to express the notion of “Gulf Island.” Chapters Six through Eight revisit the themes of the previous three chapters, inverting the order of discovery and settlement in the second cycle to reflect the ahistorical, simultaneous invocation of these ideas locally. Whereas Chapter Five demonstrates how one Gulf Island version of pastoral dominates the region’s presentation of itself in imaginative writing, Chapter Eight examines the consequences for local narrative when events cannot be articulated within the pastoral mode. As a counterpoint to analysis, in Chapter Four, of how settlement functions as a rhetorical device in Gulf Islands writing, Chapter Six examines aspects of the physical, settled landscape--specifically architecture and the ornamentation of holiday homes and homesites with objects gathered from the beach--as deliberate expressions of indigenousness. In a similar pairing, Chapter Seven examines nostalgic uses of the “discovery” trope intended to express local space, extending the scope of Chapter Three, which explicates attitudes toward the islands expressed through two “original” European voyages of discovery in the islands. Chapters Nine and Ten discuss the role of intertexts in Gulf Island writing: only very recently has the idea of a Gulf Islands “canon”--as indicated by intertextual references between Gulf Islands texts--become current, Gulf Islands writing continues to rely on intertextual references to imperial foundation texts to define, and determine significance in, local landscape. The “sketch” form, which permeates all genres and modes of landscape representation in the islands, in itself articulates the “natural” and thus expresses the condition of “Gulf Island.” / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The goal of this study was to characterize the ecology and recreational boating activity at two popular anchoring sites located in the waters of the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve of Canada (Sidney Spit and Tumbo Island). The three components of the study were to characterize the distribution of eelgrass (Zostera marina L.). build an inventory of anchoring/mooring activity, and characterize the benthic infauna at each site. These observations were used to evaluate the impact of anchoring on the eelgrass and invertebrate communities. No visible loss of eelgrass was documented, but the results at one of the two sites support the hypothesis that benthic communities in high anchoring intensity areas are in poorer health than those in low anchoring intensity or mooring areas, a characteristic of communities residing in disturbed and fragmented eelgrass beds. Recommendations for site management and long-term monitoring are proposed based on these results.

Pollen and charcoal analyses were used to reconstruct the Holocene vegetation and fire history of Pender Island (48°46’59” N, 123°18’11” W), located in the southern Gulf Islands on the south coast of British Columbia. A 9.03 m sediment core was retrieved from Roe Lake, a small, deep lake on Pender Island. Four AMS radiocarbon ages, the stratigraphic position of the Mazama tephra and a series of 210Pb ages were used to produce an age-depth model that estimated the base of the sediment core to be 9880 ± 126 calendar years before present (cal yr BP). The vegetation history from Roe Lake is similar to other paleoecological studies from the region. The early Holocene (10,000-7500 cal yr BP) was characterized by mixed woodlands with abundant Pseudotsuga menziesii and a diverse understory that included abundant Salix shrubs and Pteridium aquilinum ferns in these open canopy communities. An open Quercus garryana-dominated community with Acer macrophyllum and Arbutus menziesii in the canopy and xeric associations in the understory occurred from 7500-5500 cal yr BP. By 3500 cal yr BP, modern mixed Pseudotsuga menziesii forests with an increasingly closed canopy were established on Pender Island. Charcoal analyses of the uppermost sediments revealed low charcoal accumulation in the Roe Lake sediment core over the last 1300 years with a mean fire return interval of 100 years for the period before modern fire suppression, suggesting that fire was not a major control on plant community composition on Pender Island on this timescale. Fires were more frequent (i.e., every 47 years on average) during the Medieval Climate Anomaly with warm, dry conditions facilitating a higher fire frequency. Few fires (i.e., every 141 years on average) occurred between 1200-1850 AD, coinciding with the Little Ice Age. As climate was cooler and wetter during the Little Ice Age, fires during this time may reflect intentional burning by First Nations. In general, changes in vegetation and fire dynamics on Pender Island correlate well with changes in climate throughout the Holocene period, suggesting that climate change was likely the principal mechanism driving plant community composition and changes in the fire regime. / Graduate

The purpose of this thesis is to propose a methodology for the estimation of demand for services and facilities for marine recreation. An attempt is then made to provide a methodological translation of these demands into, physical facilities for marine recreation in the Gulf Islands and the San Juan Islands, study area. Each of the major components of the proposed methodology is discussed in a chapter and applied to the study area. Chapter I introduces the scope and purpose of the study and hypothesizes that a comprehensive method is needed for planning for marine recreation development. The methodology should have both descriptive and prescriptive components if it is to, be successful. Chapter II studies methods of projecting the growth of the boat population, of a region. This, component has been refined to a high level of sophistication by previous studies. Human population growth, changes in income levels, and human population density are the parameters most useful for the projection of boating growth. Data obtained from a Federal Department of Public Works study on boating in the Georgia. Strait are reworked using, the method of a study done by .the State of Washington for Puget Sound in order to obtain consistent data for the international study area. Chapter III looks at how the number of trips taken in a region can be broken down into trips to and from an area within the region, and concludes that, at this time, the origin destination type of study is the most satisfactory method. Projection, of the distribution, of trips is based on the assumption that the number and type of trips taken by one boater will remain constant. Thus, the number of trips taken to an area can be projected by expanding the present trip distribution by a factor equal to, the projected growth of the boat population. For the thesis, trip, distribution data was obtained from a survey made of boat awning yacht club members. Chapter IV studies the demand for a range of facilities used by boaters. This is done in terms of the uses made of a facility on a type of trip by a type of boat; sail, inboard, or outboard. It is concluded that, except for certain specific facilities such as launching ramps for outboards, the use of a facility does not vary greatly between different types of boats. The thesis has carried this section of the methodology further than other studies have done by quantifying demands for a wide range of facilities associated with marine recreation. Previous attempts have only been concerned with primary boating facilities such as moorage and launching ramps. A final section takes the demands in terms of uses per trip and converts them into demands for space. Chapter V states the need for a prescriptive component in the methodology. This enables the planner to make decisions in respect to what amount of services should be provided. Data limitations precluded the application of this component to the study area. A number of locational constraints were stated which should, be recognized in the planning of future facilities. Based on these constraints, possible areas for different types of development were mapped. In Chapter VI it is concluded that the use of a descriptive methodology for the examination and determination of demand for different facilities for marine recreation is feasible and desirable. A prescriptive component is needed for the planning methodology. This component will require a statement of regional goals and extensive site and ecological, evaluation before it can be used for planning. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This thesis was prepared in response to growing public concern over potential problems of groundwater development within newly subdivided areas of the Gulf Islands. These "problems" stem from provincial regulations which permit large scale subdivision of residential lots over 18,000 square feet without reference to water supply. The Study strives to resolve conflicting opinions presented on behalf of the public, planners and other government officials as to what constitutes an appropriate policy for water servicing within vacation areas of the Gulf Islands. A chief problem in this regard is the lack of official posture defining objectives for vacation lot subdivision. While the focus of this investigation is primarily groundwater supply and the question of standards for vacation areas, the writer was necessarily drawn into several related areas of concern; namely, those environmental problems arising from water use and waste water disposal; development plans of lot owners and associated preferences for servicing; and inevitably, the legal-bureaucratic hoops and powers which comprise the subdivision process. Study findings support the thesis hypothesis that "organized systems of water supply are an appropriate requirement for those lands which are being subdivided for vacation use purposes". The sub-hypothesis that "the servicing requirements for such systems should be sufficiently flexible to permit if not encourage rudimentary systems if water supply was vindicated also--but only on the condition that groundwater supplies are relied upon and on-site disposal systems are in use. The underlying concern with "rudimentary" servicing is based upon the realization that such servicing policies can be most instrumental in restraining year around development and the urban transformations usually implied. The thesis is based on the belief that the vacation use function and the life style and environment implied can only be preserved if distinctive servicing policies are introduced by regional districts concerned. Their responsible involvement would enable people to continue "to go to a place which is different from the place they left". / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

The Salt Spring dollar is a community currency founded Salt Spring Island, a Gulf Islands community located in the Salish Sea between Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia. Currency use in 2018, nearly two decades after its release in 2001, has declined but remains a means of devising alternatives to the dis-embedded market and environmental degradation, as well as a way of re-embedding social concerns and relations in the exchange of money. This thesis is a case study of this alternative currency and examines how it compares to other alternative currencies. It also examines the reasons the use of the Salt Spring dollar has declined since its inception. The Salt Spring dollar illustrates that monetary exchange and participation in the market is not merely an economic act but is also social and political. While the currency was designed with the purpose of promoting local production and exchange, it also was designed to ground money in community and social relations. / Graduate