People uprooted from Shawnigan Lake (8)

Shawnigan Lake was established by non-Indigenous settlers in the late 1880s. The Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway (E&N) was completed in 1886, built in part by Japanese immigrant workers who were also employed as loggers and miners. In 1890, the Shawnigan Lake Lumber Company opened the area’s first sawmill, employing up to 250 people, including many Japanese Canadian families.

The logging camp had a boarding house, general store, bunkhouse, cookhouse, laundry and a cluster of small dwellings. By 1900, Shawnigan Lake had become a popular cottage community and tourist destination. After a fire in 1930, the village re-established itself further from the waterfront.