Parksville is a beautiful city on Vancouver Island, British Columbia,
Canada. Often called The Jewel of Vancouver Island, it is located along
provincial highway 19A, 150 kilometres (94 miles) North of Victoria,
and 37 kilometres (23 Miles) North of Nanaimo, lying between
breathtaking Englishman River and French Creek.
For thousands of
years the area was inhabited by the Coast Salish First Nations people
and was left undiscovered by Europeans until 1792 when Captain George
Vancouver sailed by. It is said that in the early 1850s an Englishman
died crossing an unnamed river, and soon after the entire area was
known as "The River" or "Englishman River". Later in the 1860s a trail
was pushed North from Victoria to Comox, opening the area up to
settlers. It was not until 1886 that the first family arrived, lead by
John Hirst. Parksville was named officially named in 1877 after the
area's first postmaster, Nelson Park, in 1877 and was not incorporated
as a village until June 19, 1945. Parksville became a Town on April 1,
1978 and a City on June 1, 1981.
Today Parksville is a buslting tourism and retirement hub, with over
10,000 full-time residents. With two world famous sandy beaches,
Parksville Beach and Rathtrevor Beach (part of Rathtrevor Beach
Provincial Park), innumerable public parks, an expanding downtown core
and a vibrant social scene, it's no wonder that that this amazing
little city has experienced it's unprecedented growth year after year.
