Description of Historic Place

One of the Southern Gulf Islands, D'Arcy Island is located at the southern entrance to the Salish Sea south of Sidney Island in Haro Strait, British Columbia. The island is twenty kilometres northeast of Victoria and ten kilometres south of the town of Sidney. The entire island is located within the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve and is approximately 80 hectares (200 acres) in area; the adjacent marine waters are also protected. Native plant communities include Garry Oak and Douglas-fir forest, alder, meadows and coastal bluffs. The island is known for its bird populations and is a popular recreation destination.

Heritage Value

D'Arcy Island has considerable social, historical, political and scientific significance, through its unique amalgamation of physical qualities and its former use as a lazaretto or quarantine station for Chinese Canadian patients suffering from leprosy.

D'Arcy Island has historical, cultural and scientific value as one of only two leprosy isolation sites in Canada, and the only one specifically set aside for Chinese Canadians. Established in 1891, the place is significant for being emblematic of the discriminatory social policy of the time in B.C., and especially in the City of Victoria, which sought to segregate both Chinese Canadians and those with contagious diseases such as leprosy.

The island is important as a physical reminder of the perceived connection between cases of leprosy and lack of hygiene, a notion popularized by stereotypical images and caricatures representing Chinese Canadians as disease-ridden, unclean, and a threat to the health of others. The isolation and relative abandonment of Chinese Canadians suffering from leprosy is symbolic of particularly strong exclusionary practices based on erroneous medical science combined with a social policy of discrimination against Chinese Canadians.

The island has historical value as a record of the history of the regulation and treatment of leprosy in Canada. Established in 1891 by the City of Victoria, the site provided poor living conditions in wooden shelters, no medical treatment, and a supply boat only once every three months. Pressure from the province of B.C. led the federal government to pass the Leprosy Act and take over operations on D'arcy Island in 1906. These administrative changes resulted in marginally better care, reasonably fresh food, better shelters, a caretaker, an interpreter and a repatriation policy to return the leprosy patients to their homeland. Yet D'Arcy Island remains an example of a lazaretto based on discriminatory practices against Chinese Canadians. It remained in operation until 1924, when operations were moved to Bentinck Island near William Head on Vancouver Island.

Although the only indications of D'Arcy Island's past use are trails, traces of orchards and gardens, burial mounds, and a few artifacts, the place has an enduring social value for British Columbians as a powerful symbol of the humanity of those people suffering from leprosy who, despite their exile, worked together communally to build shelters, plant gardens and bury their dead.

Today D'Arcy Island is valued in part as a beautiful and tranquil place and a favourite destination for boaters, as well as a place of remembrance. The natural landscape is reclaiming the small areas that were disturbed when the quarantine station was operating, providing opportunities for research in a number of scientific disciplines. A bronze memorial has been placed on the island by the City of Victoria, and the provincial Parks Branch has commemorated the leprosy patients through a pictorial display of their lives.

Source: Province of British Columbia, Heritage Branch

Character-Defining Elements

Not applicable.