Page "West Coast Trail" Paragraph 5

The reefs and breakers off the west coast of Vancouver Island had long posed a serious danger to navigation, and at the start of the 20th century lifesaving infrastructure on the sparsely populated island was still primitive in spite of heavy coastal traffic that serviced the Pacific coast between San Francisco and Alaska.

One source cites almost five hundred wrecks around Vancouver Island alone.

Although some plans were already underway to improve the infrastructure, the public outcry which followed the wreck of the SS Valencia in January 1906 spurred the Canadian government to undertake a comprehensive plan for improvements.

The resulting trail was called the " Dominion Lifesaving Trail ", sometimes misidentified by modern sources as " The West Coast Lifesaving Trail ".