Around Swedish America in 
Day 5 - Campbell River
At one time Campbell River on Vancouver Island was the "sports fishing capital" of Canada and famous for its salmon. In the early days local native people, who guided the sportsmen in dugout canoes to catches in excess of 40 lbs., still remember when it "seemed as though you could cross the Discovery Passage on foot atop the teeming salmon."
Today the catches have shrunk dramatically and are therefore highly regulated. People instead come for canoeing, kayaking, skiing, climbing, Mountain Biking, Whale Watching and Salmon Snorkeling! The area is a vacation paradise for tourists and boasts a multitude of recreational opportunities including twelve parks, several marine parks, numerous historic sites, three golf courses, marinas, anchorages, boat launches and over twenty camping and RV parks, so one can be really proud that it was a couple of Swedes who founded the town.
As you remember from Day 1 of our trip, Charles and Fred Thulin founded the town of Lund across the Georgia Straight. In 1904 they were ready to expand and "went from Lund to Campbell River across the Strait with a load of timber, a wagon and a horse loaded on the barge. By the first of July we had built a hotel and had it ready for business", recalled Fred about the move thirty years later. The brothers had originally planned on building the hotel in Willow Point, but later decided on Campbell River after obtaining better property. They named the hotel after its originally chosen location. The Willows Hotel was two-storeys high and had thirteen rooms. The hotel in the wilderness where "there was not a single white man for miles around" soon attracted loggers to the area’s massive stands of timber. Settlers began to farm, and sportsmen the world over were lured by reports of huge salmon and abundant trout. The first Willows Hotel was quickly outgrown and replaced by a grand structure that remained a coastal landmark for half a century (and you can still see the entrance and lobby at the Museum at Campbell River). The original hotel became "the Annex" and served as a saloon and was eventually converted into suites. The second hotel burnt down in 1909 and was quickly replaced by a third Willows hotel building.
In 1910, a large party headed by BC’s Commissioner of Lands stayed at the surprisingly sophisticated accommodation before setting out on an exploratory survey of central Vancouver Island. Their expedition resulted in the establishment of BC’s first provincial park the following year. Beautiful Strathcona Park includes many icefields (also well-known Comox Glacier), the highest peak on the island (the Golden Hinde) and the highest waterfall in Canada (Della Falls).
The Willows Hotel is no more, but if you want to get a feel for it you should go to the Painter's Lodge and Resort that was built in 1929 and that has housed everybody from Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, to Susan Hayward and Goldie Hawn as well as the Prince of Luxemburg. In the upstairs Tyee Club Trophy Room there are wonderful photographs of the early days in Campbell River. And yes, the fishing lodge has guided row boats that take you to some of what is still perhaps the best salmon fishing in British Columbia. And centrally in town the Thulin Street will forever remind visitors of the Swedish connection.