The Schools of Squirrel Cove

At the beginning of the 1900s, Squirrel Cove on the east side of Cortes Island was a hub of activity for homesteaders, loggers, fishermen, miners, and trappers. They came from all the surrounding islands for supplies, groceries, mail, repairs, radios, and dances in the hall. There were two stores, a post office, church, hall, two machine shops, a boatworks, a marine ways for hauling boats out to repair them, and a big dock where the Union Steamships stopped regularly.

The first school classes in Squirrel Cove were overseen by parents and held in a little one-room tar-paper shack right behind the store that still exists today, though the shack is long gone. The first official Squirrel Cove School, built in 1916 by locals, was located at the top of the hill going west towards Gorge Harbour. Every small settlement on Cortez Island wanted their children to attend school in their own