In between council meetings, committee appointments and community events, one Richmond city councillor regularly makes time to visit the City of Richmond Archives and to consult with local history buffs.
And the fruit of his labour is his fourth book about the history of Richmond, this time about Sea Island.
The island, now dominated by the second largest airport in Canada, was once a bustling agricultural and fishing community, and this is the history that Coun. Bill McNulty wants people to learn about in Sea Island British Columbia: The Beginning of Richmond.
The book contains anecdotes such as three boys skating along the river from New Westminster to Eburne – where McArthurGlen is now located – in 1909, which was a very cold winter.
He tells of farming activity, such as peas and potatoes being grown in 1913 by the Hoggards and gives details about the six canneries on Sea Island and the many Japanese who worked in them, and boat builders such as Shunpei Baba.
And then there was the secession attempt by Sea Islanders, an initiative that made it to the provincial legislature – where it promptly withered and was never mentioned again.
Heritage society wanted its history recorded
Two and a half years ago, McNulty was approached by the Sea Island Heritage Society. They wanted to get their history down on paper in a book format, so McNulty volunteered to write the book and self-publish it as he has with his others.
“Now they’ve got a book,” he told the Richmond News, adding it contains 400 illustrations, some from the City of Richmond Archives, others from the Sea Island society, as well as other sources.
In its early post-colonial history, Sea Island was the busiest area of Richmond.
And Richmond got its start on Sea Island: 25 farmers signed a petition to incorporate Richmond, and, on Nov. 10, 1879, Richmond, Delta and Surrey were incorporated. Three of the first five councillors and the reeve came from Sea Island.
“They did all the business of setting up everything from the charter to the taxes to how they were going to run government, et cetera. It was all done on Sea Island,” McNulty explained. Hence, the title of his book, the “Beginning of Richmond.”
Sea Island was a successful and prosperous community in the early part of the 20th century. It was fully cultivated and, along with its canneries, contributed significantly to Richmond’s tax base while much of Lulu Island was still bogland.
It was also the first area to be dyked in Richmond.
McNulty described the Sea Island of 100 years ago as “thriving.”
“You would see a lot – a very thriving community, you would see 300 families at Acme Cannery, Japanese families with the fishing industry, you would see the Grauer Store, which is the largest retail store in the province of British Columbia at the time,” McNulty said.
Dreams of the 'Corporation of the District of Sea Island'
In 1921, the residents of Sea Island felt they could go it alone and asked to secede from Richmond and incorporate its own municipality.
This was, nevertheless, voted down by city council.
Next, the would-be secessionists collected signatures on a petition and a Private Member’s Bill was introduced in the provincial legislature to establish the Corporation of the District of Sea Island.
McNulty recounts in his book, however, that the bill didn’t get anywhere and that was the last time Sea Island residents spoke of secession.
Many residents have heard about Sea Island elementary, which closed in 2019. They might have also heard of the Cora Brown school, in the now-razed Cora Brown subdivision.
But many might not have heard of the Sea Island Japanese School, which was established in 1920.
The building and equipment were supplied by the Japanese families who worked at the Vancouver Cannery on Sea Island, but the teacher’s salary was paid for by the school board.
Sea Island 'perfect' for airport
In the late 1910s and 1920s, planes were flying from Brighouse and Lansdowne Parks, but Sea Island was recognized as the prime spot for the growing aviation industry, and that would change everything for the island.
The City of Vancouver bought property for the airport, took over farmland and eventually the federal government expropriated land.
“It was perfect for an airport… and there was no place for an airport in Vancouver,” McNulty said.
The Boeing plant was established on Sea Island in 1941 and the Burkeville and Cora Brown subdivisions were built to accommodate factory workers as well as veterans when they returned from the war.
During the war, there were military barracks on Sea Island, which became a training ground for pilots before they set off to Edmonton to learn how to fly fighter planes.
However, with aviation growing, the Cora Brown subdivision was needed to make room for another runway at YVR, and, in 1977, the last family was expropriated.
Very little evidence is left of the farming, fishing and airplane manufacturing on Sea Island.
A few vestiges of the once-bustling community include Burkeville with its 300 homes, Sea Island School and some pilings that are remnants of Vancouver Cannery and Sea Island Cannery.
With people moving to Richmond from across Canada and around the globe, McNulty thinks it's important to tell these early stories so residents know how the community came to be what it is today.
“Sadly enough, people … don’t think about where they came from and what it was like before, and if you don’t know where you came from, you sure don’t know where you’re going, in my opinion,” McNulty said.
“We can learn a lot from the past, and I think we can appreciate what we have today,” he added.
McNulty has also written other books about the history of athletics and schools.
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