Halloween is lurking around the corner, and it’s a great time to travel back into the past to some of Vancouver’s spooky past, like the history of Deadman’s Island, located near Stanley Park.
What is now known as the HMCS Discovery, a Royal Canadian Navy Reserve division, was once Deadman’s Island, which many locals still refer to it as.
To say that this part of Vancouver has a dark history may be an understatement.
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According to Forbidden Vancouver, which offers a tour of Stanley Park that reveals some of the park’s darker past, including Deadman Island, it is one of the most haunted islands in North America.
“The island is home to too many bodies to count,” Forbidden Vancouver adds.
Where does the name originate?
Vancouver Museums and Planetarium Association
It’s no accident that this Vancouver location was called Deadman’s Island. As we’ve alluded to, its name is attributed to a past filled with death.
According to the Government of BC’s archives, the locale was called Deadman’s Island by early settlers “because [Indigenous People] put their dead there, usually on scaffolds or shelves up in the trees.”
“It was also the burial place of some of the early [non-Indigenous] residents of Burrard Inlet, the nearest proper cemetery being at New Westminster, until Mountainview opened in 1887.”
Forbidden Vancouver says, “The Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) people call the place the ‘Island of Dead Men.’ A long time ago, it’s said it was the site of a fierce battle. Mohawk poet and writer E. Pauline Johnson captured the tale as her friend Chief Joe Capilano recounted it.”
Legends of Vancouver states, “The island was an ancient burial site for First Nations’ people who laid their dead to rest in cedar boxes perched up high in the tall trees.”
A now-archived website from the Government of Canada sheds more light on the island’s history.
“The early white settlers along Burrard Inlet during the 1860s and 1870s and early 1880s used this island along with Brockton Point as a burial ground or cemetery. It was not until just after Vancouver had become a city that in 1887, the Mount Pleasant Cemetery was opened,” Richard E. Allen states.
“The island, which had in turn been a bloody battleground, an Indian Tree burial ground and finally a cemetery for the early white settlers, is, then, rightfully referred to as Deadman’s Island,” Allen adds.
Forbidden Vancouver also notes that in the late 1800s, the island was used as a quarantine zone for people who were inflicted with smallpox:
“Catching the illness was akin to a death sentence. Those who fell ill were sent to the isle for quarantine. If they got better, they were allowed to return home. If not, they never left.”
Hauntings at Deadman’s Island
Vancouver Museums and Planetarium Association
Various publications have shared alleged accounts of a lingering spiritual presence at Deadman’s Island, which today is closed off from the public.
Forbidden Vancouver says, “The list of spectral sightings and strange phenomena continues to grow.”
It continues, “Loud clanging noises ring out in the dead of night. Hurried footsteps pace back and forth. The unearthly moan of a young woman’s sobs fills the still air.”
The Little House of Horrors, a paranormal storytelling website, says, “Most of the paranormal phenomena are experienced by reservists.”
Ghosts of Vancouver, a publication whose name says it all about what it covers, alleges that some reservists have heard “disembodied voices, footsteps, and other unexplained sounds.”
Whether or not these supposed hauntings today are accurate, it’s an important piece of the history of Vancouver and Vancouver’s Indigenous People.