Sunrise came sliding over the high hills of Saturna and slanted into the harbor as I sat on deck sipping morning coffee. Quiet saturated the warming, golden air, broken by the occasional cry of a gull and happy laughter from the campground nearby. A man and several children, well-bundled in life preservers, left the crowded marina floats and cruised past in their dingy, bound on some planned adventure.

Though we hadn't visited tiny Port Browning in many years, we'd slipped in to anchor at dusk the evening before. As the small family cruised past, I looked up from my book, remembering. We had come to Port Browning often when the children were young. Though our three weren't adverse to splashing in the saltchuck till the goosebumps dimpled their skinny arms and their fingers turned blue, the lure of the heated pool kept them clamoring to return each year as soon as we put American waters astern. It was here that we planned gatherings with other cruising families.

Here the boys had first donned the big old wooden waterskis, and skidded over the water pulled by "Sing A Wing," our old canary yellow aluminum skiff.

The elapsed years suddenly telescoped as I recalled short hikes with the kids around the neighborhood and to the small deli up the road. Longer excursions took us to the well-known archaeological digs near the canal. On one hike through Prior Park, we encountered our first elusive Indian-Pipe. Though years had passed, the bay hadn't changed much since those early visits. Houses had rimmed the shore then, too.

What could it have been like, I wondered, for newly wed Jeannie Hamilton in 1888 as she sat alone on the gently curving beach overhung by madrona and fir? At least she had been delivered by rowboat from a passing steamer. Then, horses and cattle were shoved unceremoniously from the lower decks and expected to get themselves ashore.

As she sat, surveying the lovely but lonely bay, Jeannie Hamilton probably wouldn't have known about the generations of first peoples who found snug quarters within Shark Cove just down the beach. Excavations at the midden site there evidence native habitation for well over five thousand years.

Nor would Jeannie have visualized the armies of goldseekers who rowed and sailed past Browning Harbour on their way to the Cariboo goldfields. Perhaps enthusiastic argonauts had camped on the very beach on which she sat, resting during their backbreaking voyage across the Strait of Georgia from Victoria to the mouth of the Fraser.

Jeannie might have been frightened to know that twenty-five years before, two American hunters encamped inside Shark Cove had been attacked at night in their tent by natives. One suffered a fatal wound, but the other had managed to row and sail to Victoria to report the incident. And, in time, the murderers were apprehended and hanged.

Just six years earlier, Jeannie's stonecutter husband Alexander had come out from their native Scotland to follow his trade. While working at John Mortimer's Pender sandstone quarry near the site of the old Indian portage, Alexander had discovered the lovely spot just south of the present marina and pre-empted a quarter section there. Then he'd gone home to claim his bride. By then, Alexander had established a gravestone business in New Westminster, so the family spent only summers in a small log cabin on the Pender property. Their five children rode a horse- drawn stoneboat over hill and dale from Port Washington while the adults walked alongside. The original cabin burned and was replaced by a small frame house built by a New Westminster friend, Alexander Brackett. Brackett favored the small point north of the present marina and purchased property there. When New Westminster burned in 1898, both families moved to Pender permanently.

In 1888, only a handful of families lived in isolated locations around Pender, though a close-knit community had developed which included many settlers from surrounding islands.

Transportation was limited to woodland pathways, narrow cart tracks, infrequent steamers or oar and sail. Folks thought nothing of a quick row across Plumper Sound or Navy Channel, or even as far as Sidney. Some Pender residents kept a communal boat in Hope Bay to carry livestock and produce to market in Nanaimo. Lucky babies were delivered by midwife, though one native son, whose family didn't perfect the timing, literally arrived in a rowboat!

By the time the Hamiltons arrived to stay, a few more settlers had arrived. There was at least one wharf at Port Washington, enabling easier export of goods. But the Bracketts and Hamiltons and others sometimes hitched rides to Mayne Island and other destinations with the Harris brothers. These industrious fellows, who lived first at Shingle Bay and later at Hope Bay, are credited with bringing the first power boat to the island in 1902. Built in New Westminster, Pearl was thirty feet long and had canvas curtains which could be lowered against the weather. She was instrumental in helping the Harrises start an inter-island trading business.

The community included a fair number of bachelors, many of whom knew each other from early days in England. In their free time, the men busied themselves with hunting and fishing, cockfighting, hockey, cricket and endless rounds of poker. Settlers opened their homes for both planned and impromptu musicals and everyone gathered for building bees and picnics. After races and games and venison steaks roasted over the campfires, weary revelers walked home over the trails, their way often guided by homemade lanterns called "bugs."

Alexander Brackett erected a high bar and swing for the children and offered his big wagon for community hayrides. He also installed a huge bell, with which he alerted all surrounding neighbors that lunchtime had arrived. The bell, depending on individual rings, also served to summon family members, neighbors and to ring in the new year.

The Hamiltons witnessed many changes through the windows of their home called "the Knolls." In 1903, a canal was dug through the isthmus between Shark Cove and Bedwell Harbour, effectivly dividing the island in two. This eliminated the frequent necessity of portaging small craft between Browning Harbour and Bedwell and enabled the rickety old steamer "Iroquois" to avoid the treacherous passage round Teece Point during winter storms. Coastal explorer Francis Barrows was among the first to use the new route in April 1903. After a second wharf was built in Hope Bay, allowing better steamer service, a post office and store also opened there.

Newcomers arrived on the bay. William Hoosen settled down towards Razor Point with his son John. The musical pair were often known to row out into the bay and break into song. Beachcomber Arthur Gardom homesteaded at Razor Point; a cultured man who had the first gramophone on Pender, his beachcombing paid off in more than sawlogs when he managed to sail off with the daughter of a disapproving Mayne Island widow in an exciting elopement.

And so the years passed, punctuated by occasional intrigue and excitement. Even Alexander Hamilton could get lost amid the dense woods of the island, alerting his family by means of hearty calls from the vicinity of Mortimer Spit. One Hamilton daughter recalled a small grey-bearded man called "Auld Burke" who appeared annually after the sheep were shorn. He always rowed in at dusk, clad in a long black coat and slouch hat to collect the rolled fleeces and smuggle them south. Jeannie herself caused some stir when she ran for school board in 1913. And, during Prohibition, Pender proved a good exchange point for rumrunners who ferried liquor to the thirsty United States.

No, Browning Harbour, as the early settlers called it, hadn't changed much. As we got into our dingy and motored ashore, we appreciated the modest homes still rimming the quiet bay, unlike some other harbors overwhelmed in scale and feel by huge modern mansions. A hike up the road delivered another pleasant surprise. Where the old deli once stood we found a tasteful gathering of shops, including bank, gift store, good bakery and restaurant as well as a well-stocked grocery and liquor outlet. Fueled by tasty pannini sandwiches from the bakery we set off down Razor Point Road, crossing what must have been Brackett's old pastureland. Cows, horses, snake fences and old barns lent a country feel. At the old government wharf, across from the marina an old cod boat lay on her side, left to the whims of the tide. Yes, we decided, in Browning Harbor age arrives gracefully. We were pleased, if only briefly, to be part of the process.