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Preceded by Basque fishermen, Jacques Cartier arrived at Île Brion in 1534; he named it in honour of the great French admiral. He christened the islands "Les Araynes" (arènes is a French poetry word for sand) because of the endless beaches of sand. Later French fishermen called them Îles Ramées.

With the Haida Gwaii, Vancouver Island forms part of a partially submerged chain of the Western Cordillera and is a continuation of the US coastal mountains.

Galiano Island, 5787 ha, is one of BC's GULF ISLANDS, named for Spanish navy commander Dionisio Alcalá-Galiano, who explored the area in 1792. It has the driest climate of the islands.

Valdes Island is one of a range of islands on the outer edge of the Gulf Islands in the Str of Georgia, off the SE coast of Vancouver I, BC. The long, narrow island is heavily wooded and has a few farms. A reserve occupies a third of it and there are several Indigenous burial grounds.

The Truelove Lowland area of the island has diverse vegetation and wildlife, an abundance of soil water in the summer owing to blocked drainage, and greater precipitation and higher summer temperatures (4° to 8°C), with more clear days than other parts of the island.

Saltspring Island, BC, 182 km2 is the largest of the Gulf Islands, a group lying in the Strait of Georgia off the southeastern corner of Vancouver Island.

Despite its minute size, a favourable climate and abundant cod stocks induced French entrepreneurs to establish a seasonal fishery operation there in the 1600s. Simon Denys obtained seigneurial title (1674); his son Pierre had a chapel erected, soon thereafter razed by fire (1690).

Manitoulin Island, 2,765 km², the largest island in the world located in a lake, is part of an archipelago at the top of Lake Huron straddling the Ontario-Michigan border. Its northern shore encloses the North Channel, which leads to the St. Mary's River at Sault Ste Marie. An extension of the Niagara Peninsula, Manitoulin Island has an irregular, rocky shoreline and many interior lakes.

Lying north of mainland Canada, the Arctic Archipelago consists of 94 major islands (greater than 130 km2) and 36,469 minor islands covering a total of 1.4 million km2. Apart from Greenland, which is almost entirely ice covered, the Canadian Arctic Archipelago forms the world's largest High Arctic land area.

Thousand Islands (Ontario part), an 80 km long section of the St Lawrence River, extending downstream from Lake Ontario between Kingston and Brockville and containing over 1000 rocky, wooded islands which range from several square kilometres to barely emergent rocks and shoals.

Partridge Island is located in the Bay of Fundy, about 1 km from the shoreline and the city of Saint John, New Brunswick. The island was set aside as a quarantine station in 1785 and operated as such between 1830 and 1941. Many immigrants arriving to Canada by ship, including thousands of  Irish in 1847, were isolated on the island before being allowed to enter the country. This was done in an effort to prevent the spread of infectious diseases common on overcrowded vessels. In 1974, the Partridge Island quarantine station was designated a national historic site. Other important events are associated with the island, including the installation of the world’s first steam-operated fog alarm in 1859 (see also Robert Foulis).