Gabriola Island is a small island among many in the Gulf Islands located thirty nautical miles west of Vancouver, British Columbia, in the Strait of Georgia. Its population during the winter is around 4000, swelling in the summer and early autumn with an influx of seasonal tourists to upwards of 5000 permanent and semi-permanent inhabitants.

The island is home to two provincial parks as well as numerous other scenic attractions. Gabriola Sands Provincial Park in the north has become known for its expansive beaches, while Drumbeg Provincial Park in the south offers much the same. The Mallespina Galleries are a grouping of sandstone ledges made remarkably smooth by erosion, near Drumbeg Park. Petroglyph Park is home to an interpretive centre and examples of stone carvings dating back thousands of years; Orlebar Point in the northwest is a volcanic beach made up of curved rock formations, and has spectacular sunsets as well as being ideal for scuba diving.

Politically it is neither large nor well-organised enough to have municipal status, so it is part of the Island Trust, an organisation which governs many of the small communities in the Gulf Islands. It has representation in the Nanaimo Regional District, and island education (it has a primary school of its own; secondary students must take their courses at a high school in nearby Nanaimo) falls under the jurisdiction of the Nanaimo School Board. It also boasts its own RCMP detachment. The island newspaper is called the Gabriola Sounder, and is published and distributed on a weekly basis.

Gabriola is as of now readily accessible through float plane service directly from the Vancouver Airport, but most choose to travel via the service offered by BC Ferries from downtown Nanaimo. The ferry only runs from seven in the morning until eleven in the evening, however, and should you need to come or go outside operating hours water taxis are also available at a modest cost for shuttling people and things between Gabriola and Nanaimo, or to other islands nearby.

Unofficially, it has come to be nicknamed "Petroglyph Island" because of the many stone carvings made by its indigenous inhabitants, the Snuneymuxw (Nanaimo) First Nation. The most famous of these is a depiction of a killer whale, located near the shore at Degnen Bay, at the southeast end of the island. In excess of fifty other petroglyphs have been discovered, hidden underneath hundreds of years' worth of thick moss grown over the rocks, at Jack Point, Weldwood, and Lock Bay. An interpretive centre is located at Petroglyph Park, also in the south of the island.

As evidenced by the petroglyphs, people have lived on Gabriola for thousands of years; the first European contact was not made until the late eighteenth century, however, during the Spanish explorations of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

This time period was still early in terms of exploration of the western half of North America; great cities had sprung up along the East coast, wars had been fought, and the United States had declared its independence from Great Britain and the colonies of British North America, which themselves had not yet been united into a single dominion and would not be for nearly another century. Spanish explorers had been making their way slowly up the west coast from Mexico and California, and had now reached the Pacific Northwest; these were heady days of venturing off into the unknown after the promise of great colonial wealth had been realised in New Spain. British and French explorers were themselves rapidly closing in on the west coast from overland expeditions as the fur trade expanded to include the interior and the furthest reaches of Rupert's Land. The Spanish, however, held little interest in the prospect of trading and building up an economy slowly; it was gold and precious gems that they sought.

In the summer of 1791 a Spanish schooner called the Santa Saturnina split off from the second Spanish expedition to this area, sailing up the mainland coast of what would come to be known as the Gulf of Georgia. Without realising that the string of islands in the strait were separate from each other and from the mainland, the schooner with crew sailed north and west alternately, naming geographical features as they came across them: Isla di Texada, Point Lazo, Bocas de Winthuysen. Rounding the northwest tip of Gabriola (which they christened Punta de Casatilli after the Marqués de Casa Tilly, now called Orlebar Point), they anchored off the northeast coast of the island, the site of a Snuneymuxw settlement. The captain of the schooner, José Maria Narvaez, named what he saw looking southwest Punta de Gaviota (Seagull Point) before sailing back across the Gulf to rejoin the rest of the fleet. There is no record of a landing being made.

Historians believe that the name "Gabriola" came about through a writing error made by Narvaez in drawing a map of his explorations: the "t" in "Gaviota" was not crossed as it should have been, and the point acquired a meaningless name, "Punta de Gaviola". To ease pronunciation this was later corrupted into "Gabriola" and applied to the entire island.

The Spanish did not actually set foot on Gabriola until the year following its discovery, 1792. A third Spanish expedition set out from their makeshift headquarters at Nootka Sound, charged with searching for the fabled Northwest Passage, this time from the west as previous attempts made by the British and the French from the east had proved unsuccessful. The Spanish fleet encountered a British fleet, led by Captain George Vancouver, who extended an invitation for co-operative exploration of the north; the Spanish ships, technologically inferior to the British, fell behind and were forced to seek refuge in the Gulf Islands. The first island they came across was Gabriola; they anchored in a sheltered bay in the northeast of the island, which they named Cala del Decanso; literally translated, "Bay of Rest".

Several expeditions to the interior of the island were made by crew members while repairs were being made to the ships. The native inhabitants of the island were found to be suspicious despite Spanish attempts to put them at ease; one of the men involved in the expedition as an artist in a professional capacity, José Cardero, made several sketches of the island and its natives before the fleet returned home to Nootka. These sketches survived, reproductions of which can be viewed at the island's museum.

Permanent residents of Gabriola are understandably proud of their island's history, and would probably relate it for you if you bothered to ask. Many of them are artisans by trade, creating and selling furniture, textiles, and artwork. The island has little night life apart from a pub near the ferry dock and another further inland, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone; after dusk the island shuts down almost entirely, and the utter lack of light pollution makes for spectacularly brilliant stars. The quiet tranquility and stillness then are enough to make you believe that you are the only person left in the world.

Sources:
http://www.island.net/~gm_chin/
http://www.ohwy.com/bc/g/gabriola.htm
http://www.gabriola.org