Guest writer: David Vick Kitson Island

Kitson sland at the mouth of the Skeena River was our picnic area. We would reach the island aboard Inverness Cannery gill netters. Most often we were accompanied by the Poisson and the Closter families. These black and white photos were taken in 1945 and 1946.

This beach provided the one large area in our Inverness world where we as kids could run around safely and with total abandon. To go there was a special treat and a place of pure joy. At the end of the day we would return to Inverness fully worn out but happy.

One special occasion that I remember was the 1946 Dominion Day (now Canada Day). The Inverness Cannery gut scow, aptly named ‘The Honeysuckle’, was scoured out with fire hoses and Inverness employees climbed aboard for a Dominion Day celebration on Kitson Island.

Some forty years later, my mother, father and I returned to Kitson Island along with my wife Joan, sons Todd and Chris, my Aunt Marge and Uncle Karl Vick, my dad’s cousin Dick Hedstrom and his partner. Who says ‘you can’t go home again’?

In 1993 Kitson Island was designated a Provincial Marine Park.