| Feature Type: | Island - Land area surrounded by water or marsh. |
| Status: | Official |
| Name Authority: | BC Geographical Names Office |
| Relative Location: | Just N of Swartz Bay ferry terminal in Satellite Channel, between Saanich Peninsula and Saltspring Island, Cowichan Land District |
| Latitude-Longitude: | 48°41'59"N, 123°25'00"W at the approximate centre of this feature. |
| Datum: | WGS84 |
| NTS Map: | 92B/11 |
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Origin Notes and History:
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Piers Island (NOT Pier Island) was adopted 1 March 1910 on Ottawa file OBF 0177. Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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Named c1858 by Captain Pender, RN, after Henry Piers, RN ( - 1902), surgeon aboard HMS Satellite, Captain Prevost. Staff surgeon, 1850; surgeon on the Investigator, Captain M'Clure, when the Northwest Passage was discovered, 26 October 1850; served on the Pacific station, 1857-60; deputy inspector, Hospitals and Fleets, retired, 1873; died 1902... (see Walbran for additional biographical details.) Source: Walbran, John T; British Columbia Coast Names, 1592-1906: their origin and history; Ottawa, 1909 (republished for the Vancouver Public Library by J.J. Douglas Ltd, Vancouver, 1971) |
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One-time Leper colony. Large scale map of Piers Island, 1933, indicating location of men's and women's compounds on file S.2.33 Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |