Driving into Port Alberni, B.C., it’s hard to miss the looming face of Mount Arrowsmith.
The mountain’s prominence has made it an important fixture in the small Vancouver Island community, located around 200 kilometres northwest of Victoria, known for its fishing and resource economy, which caused it to become one of the highest-paid communities in Canada at one time.
Once stoked with timber and fish, Port Alberni’s resource industry has suffered mill closures and mill shift curtailments. The burgeoning fishing industry is no more. But local leaders are now looking to Mount Arrowsmith and its surroundings to anchor a future in adventure tourism.
The peak’s significance has a long history, extending much further past the time in the mid-1800s when English settlers, according to the local museum, named it after cartographers Aaron Arrowsmith and nephew John Arrowsmith.
The Tseshat and Hupačasath First Nations of the area, both part of the …