DOUG CRANMER'S BIRTHPLACE

Doug Cranmer was born in Alert Bay in 1927. 'The Bay,' as Alert Bay residents call it, is about 180 miles north of Vancouver, on Cormorant Island near the north end of Vancouver Island. Cranmer moved back to the Bay from Vancouver in 1976, and now lives with his wife, Vivien, in a beachhouse near his studio.

Originally, the 'Namgis, one of the many Kwak'wala speaking nations in British Columbia, lived at the mouth of the Nimpkish River on Vancouver Island.¹ They were "talked into" moving to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island after 1870 when they were offered work in the fish canneries there.

¹Kwak'wala is the language spoken by this group of people who are called Kwakwaka'wakw. They lived in village groups and each village group had a name which differed from the name of the village itself. Doug Cranmer belongs to the Namgis people who lived in a village at the mouth of the Nimpkish river.

First Nations Map of B.C.

(Map courtesy Museum of Anthropology, 1995)