Lasqueti Island Oceanfront for sale: (Listed 2010-01-12)

09429

$369,000

Lot: 3 Pl: 19592; LD: Nanaimo [32]; Section 27 & 31; Narrative LASQUETI ISLAND; PID: 003-740-056

$2,451.80 (2009)

Islands Trust

Gravel boat launch.

This oceanfront property is located in protected Sparrow Bay within False Bay on the West side of Lasqueti Island. It is beautifully treed near the water and includes a gravel boat launch. The beach in the bay is filled with clams and oysters ready for you to harvest. There is approximately 1.5 acres fairly level with good organics suitable for gardening/farming.

Islands Trust allows a main house of any size & a guest cabin up to 600 sq ft. Located within close proximity to the store/hotel/pub/restaurant.

Lasqueti is approximately 8 km wide and 22 km long, with an area of 73.56 km2. About 350 permanent residents call Lasqueti home. It is accessible by foot passenger ferry service only, or by private boat or plane.

Lasqueti Island is the least developed of the major Gulf Islands. Its roads are mostly unpaved, and it is the only one of the larger Gulf Islands that is not connected to BC Hydro's electrical power grid. Solar, wind, micro-hydro and fossil fueled generators power the island.

Lasqueti is a major enclave of Canadian counter culture. It has a yearly Arts Festival on Canada Day Weekend, featuring local painters, sculptors, poets, fiction writers and historians. Aquaculture includes Lasqueti Clams (see geoduck) (difficult to obtain in BC because they are exported to Japan, where they are highly valued) and prawns. Land crops include shallots and garlic. The island is divided between two micro-climates, rain forest and temperate -- some old growth rain forest trees still exist, as well as cacti, arbutus and succulent plants. Soils for the most part form shallow, stony deposits over bedrock which is almost entirely igneous and largely basaltic.

It’s sailing and sea kayaking is among the finest, but also among the most challenging, in lower British Columbia. Tides and currents may become foreboding without warning -- the winter weather down the Strait of Georgia has been responsible for various mariners' deaths.

Lasqueti is neither tourist friendly nor tourist hostile. There is a hotel and a restaurant in False Bay, where the ferry arrives and departs. There is also a pizza parlour open at odd hours. The cookie stand operates on an honour system and is always worth checking out. There are at least two B&B's on the island, but business is seasonal. Transportation on the island is limited. Should you desire to visit the island it is recommended that you be somewhat self-sufficient.

In False Bay on Lasqueti Island. Lasqueti Island lies in the Georgia Strait, north of French Creek (on Vancouver Island), and southwest of Texada Island.

This oceanfront property is accessible by ferry running from French Creek harbour on Vancouver Island to False Bay on Lasqueti Island. Pay parking is available at the marina. The trip takes approximately from 50 minutes to over an hour. Passengers and freight only no cars. This ferry service is run by Western Pacific Marine group. Please follow this link for sailing fares & schedules.

None.

Fishing, kayaking, hiking, diving, wildlife watching.

Lasqueti Island was named in 1791 by Spanish Naval officer José María Narváez, commander of the Santa Saturnina.[1] The island had a population of 359 in the Canada 2006 Census, down 2.2% from the 2001 census[2] and a land area of 73.57 km² (28.4 sq mi).

Cretaceous marine fossils present in the Lasqueti Island area have been shown to be 100 million years old! Beside this, the recent incursions of humans on the island seem very recent indeed.

Much later, First Nations people from the Pentlach Band lived here, and later still, in 1791, Spanish explorers arrived to explore Lasqueti and nearby Texada islands. They were taken with the peoples they found living there, finding them to be “much more docile and tractable”…..

White settlers arrived in the 1860’s, raising sheep which were then taken to market in Nanaimo. One hundred years later, farmers tried to raise beef cattle, with little success. More recently, farmers have been more successful with the growing of fruit trees and garlic.

Much of Lasqueti’s fine stands of huge red cedar were logged prior to the 1950’s.

Mail, until 1913, was brought by rowboat from Nanaimo, and then delivered on foot through miles of trails – a two day proposition. A fire on the beach indicated when there was mail to be picked up and a lookout at False Bay would row out to collect it. As on the Penders, two areas on Lasqueti wrestled for commercial dominance – in this case, False Bay and Tucker Bay.

Tucker Bay won first round with the first dock built in 1912, and the provision of steamship service. The post office, school and store were then erected here. In 1916, however, the power shifted to False Bay with the opening of a salmon cannery and the shifting of the population toward the subsequent jobs. Tucker Bay’s harbour was deemed unsafe for the regular public transportation when one of the boats hit a reef there, thus furthering Tucker Bay’s decline.

Eventually a school, post office, store and steamship service were added at the victorious False Bay. It became and still is the island’s centre.