To many mariners either inbound or outbound Discovery Island is a turning point marking the start of Haro Strait or the beginning of Juan de Fuca Strait. To historians Discovery Island was named after Captain Vancouver's flagship H.M.S. Discovery. To Victorians of an earlier time Discovery Island was synonymous with the name Captain Ernest Godfrey Beaumont a person of aristocratic bearing and philanthropic generosity. Beaumont was born in London, England in 1876 the youngest son of Lt. Col. G. W. Beaumont. After attending Saint Pauls preparatory school in London and boarding school at Windsor, he went to the Royal College of Science for two years and then to Cambridge. Sports was a major priority and it was a sports injury that stopped Beaumont from entering the Royal Navy as a career path. However, there was a spirit of adventure that encouraged him to row the major rivers of Europe and ride a camel across the Shara Desert before emigrating to Victoria, British Columbia.

In 1918 Beaumont bought one hundred and fifty acres on the southern part of Discovery Island and there built a home and assorted out buildings along with a boat dock and other facilities. Married in 1925 he and his new bride returned to Victoria and took up permanent residence on the Island.

Over the years Beaumont had several boats to get to and from the island but his pride and joy was the Discovery Isle built in Hong Kong in 1925, from the design plans of Thomas Halliday a prominent Vancouver marine architect. According to Lloyds Register of Yachts for 1930, Discovery Isle was built at the Hong Kong yard of Quan Lee using teak, oak, mahogany and other hardwoods. She was forty-eight feet long with a beam ten and one half feet, headroom of seven feet and a draft of five and one half feet. Powered with a Diesel engine, that gave her a cruising speed of eight knots. During his stay in Hong Kong Beaumont enrolled in a seamanship course. Upon completion and with the appropriate piece of paper in hand, he assumed the rank of Captain. After Discovery Isle was completed she was brought across the Pacific as deck cargo on one of the Blue Funnel Line freighters and unloaded at Victoria.

Discovery Isle's engine room was amidships and could be shut off from the wheelhouse by heavy doors. A pantry and galley were forward while the dining saloon and sleeping quarters were all aft. A novelty for the day was a shower stall in the same area as the head. For the era Discovery Isle had an unusual rudder system...the McNab-Kitchen manoeuvering rudder or Clam Shell rudder, which enclosed the propeller. When travelling ahead, there was a clear passage aft of the propeller stream but when moving astern the two plates of the rudder closed to from a cone behind the propeller so that the stream of water was forced forward thus driving the boat astern. In other words Discovery Isle had no reverse gear, just this strange contraption, which in fact would contribute to the loss of the boat some years later. One calm sunny morning in 1930, two members of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club were working on their boat at the end of the long float that ran out from the dinghy house. Aware that the Discovery Isle was fast approaching they suddenly saw "Beaumont burst out of the wheelhouse door, waving his arms and shouting, "Stop her! Stop her!" Stop her? How? "As all forty-eight feet sped along the float face they looked with dismay, realizing that at the state of the tide Discovery Isle would run under the dinghy house, probably knock it off its pilings and or clean off the wheelhouse, Beaumont's masts, funnel and all." Luck was on Beaumont's side. The tide as so low that the Discovery Isle, her engine going full blast, crunched onto the bottom and stopped inches away from the dinghy house. On this occasion the infamous "Kitchen rudder" had stuck! But why didn't Beaumont just cut the engine? (1) Legend has it that Beaumont's chart reading skills were none too accurate because over the course of the boat's life he encountered a number of rocks and reefs, always surviving mind you. These hard knocks were probably not helped by the fact that Discovery Isle always travelled everywhere at full speed! He was known to have commented to his guests while travelling out to Discovery Island, "I know where all the rock are. I've bumped into all of them. And every once in a while, I bump into them again, just to remind myself of their presence!"(2) The boat made one epic trip to Alaska and back, was used for cruising the surrounding Gulf Islands but mainly was a water taxi from the Royal Victoria Yacht Club to the Island and from Victoria's inner harbour to the Island.

Although the Beaumont's had no family of their own, they had many city children visiting the Island, in fact it has been estimated that during the course of their long stay there, they had over 20,000 thousand youngsters on the Island throughout the years. This was the Captain's passion and pleasure and he and his wife enjoyed every moment of these visits. The children were from Service clubs, Scouts, Sea Cadets, Church groups and so on. A friend of mine who was a Sea Cadet remembers spending several nights under canvas on Discovery Island. He figured that there were twenty-four cadets plus a number of officer chaperons. They had their own Whalers with them, which were towed out to the Island by the Discovery Isle from the old Oak Bay Boat House dock. Their actual campsite was some distance from the Beaumont's house so that they could explore the property at their own free will. The highlight of my friend's stay was being invited into the Beaumont's house for cake! Can you imagine a whole group of sea cadets wandering through the house and scattering cake crumbs everywhere? However, this was typical of their hosts generosity towards all their young visitors. Everyone who visited the Island came back with special memories.

Discovery Isle carried on her duties until December 5, 1950. On this day Beaumont departed the Inner harbour bound for Discovery Island. A southeaster was blowing and the seas were increasing in size. With him was a recently hired ships engineer. Rather than going outside Trial Island the Captain steered for Enterprise Channel, which is on the inside of the Island. While going through the channel a stick got stuck in the Clam Shell rudder jamming it and rendering it totally useless. As a result Discovery Isle lost all steerage. With the wind direction being what it was there was little hope of saving the boat. Drifting helplessly towards the rocks she eventually foundered and ended up being broken up by the pounding action of the waves on the rocks. The Captain and his crew abandoned ship into a small dinghy, which in turn was swamped with the end result that the crew person was lost. Battered and bruised Beaumont some how made it to shore! After being rescued by the Oak Bay police and a short stay in hospital he returned to live many more days on Discovery Island. This was a sad ending to a fine boat with a strange rudder system.

At the age of ninety-one years, the Captain died. Before his departure he willed to the Province of British Columbia all his property on Discovery Island, the land that he had at Bedwell Harbour on South Pender Island and a large parcel of land near Fraser Lake west of Prince George. This writer, while working at the Royal British Columbia Museum, had the job of going out to the Beaumont's house to see what was left after vandals had wrecked the place. I ended up with several boxes of paper documents, a rowing shell and a number of artifacts destined for the Royal Victoria Yacht Club. Subsequently British Columbia Parks razed all the buildings to stop any further vandalism. There is no doubt that over the years countless boaters and campers have appreciated the Beaumont's generosity.

Copyright 2004
Robin Patterson