Cowichan Valley.
4 candidates, one seat.

Cowichan Tribes, which names itself Quw'utsun, describes its people as Hul'q'umi'num people, meaning people who speak the Hul'q'umi'num language. Its history page says archaeological evidence dates its existence back 4,500 years, and that its historical memory says it has been here since time immemorial. The Nation says its ancestors Syalutsa and Stutsun were the first to settle the region. It places its traditional lands around the Cowichan Lake and river drainage, the Koksilah River drainage, Cowichan Bay and Maple Bay, and says some estimated its population at 15,000. Its core traditional territory measures 376,308 hectares. It lists seven traditional villages, among them Quamichan (Kwa'mutsun), Comiaken (Qw'umiyiqun), Koksilah (Xwulqw'selu), Clemclemaluts (Lhumlhumuluts') and Khenipsen (Xinupsum).

Other Nations name their own places in the district. Halalt First Nation says its people come from the village xeláltxw, which means marked houses or painted houses, once at the place where the Silver Bridge crosses the Cowichan River at the edge of Duncan. Its residents later moved to Willy Island, off the mouth of the Chemainus River, and in the 1920s to the Westholme reserve (Halalt No. 2). BC Geographical Names gives Kaatza, translated as the lake, as the Hul'q'umi'num name for Cowichan Lake. It also records Láyksen as the Hul'q'umi'num name for Valdes Island, the traditional homeland of the Lyackson First Nation.

BC Geographical Names records that Hudson's Bay Company officers named Cowichan Bay in or near 1850 after the Coast Salish Nation living there. The geographic board adopted the name Cowichan Harbour on 30 June 1908 and changed it to Cowichan Bay on 8 October 1924. The same office records that a settler named Thomas George Askew, who arrived in 1856, first applied the name Chemainus to the district, and that a post office opened at Chemainus on 1 July 1871.

The Cowichan Tribes history page says Governor James Douglas arrived in Cowichan lands with military forces in 1853 and 1856, and that in 1862 a group of settlers, which the Nation puts at 100, came to the valley with a gunboat. The Nation says smallpox, measles and other illnesses killed 90 per cent of Cowichan people, and that Douglas promised payment for the occupied land. In its words, "Governor Douglas' promise to us remains dishonoured to this day." BC Geographical Names records that William Chalmers Duncan reached Victoria in May 1862 and was one of the settlers Douglas brought to Cowichan Bay that August. His farm, Alderlea, later gave Duncan its name.

The Municipality of North Cowichan was incorporated on 18 June 1873 and is the fifth oldest municipality in British Columbia, according to the municipality. The Canadian Encyclopedia says a sawmill was built at Chemainus in 1862. BC Geographical Names records that the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway opened in August 1886 and that the level crossing near William Duncan's farm was named Duncan's Crossing. The railway opened Duncan's Station there the following year, and a post office named Duncan's Station opened on 1 October 1899.

The Encyclopedia of British Columbia says Mount Sicker was the site of three copper mines and two townsites between 1897 and 1907. Henry Croft built a smelter at Osborne Bay in 1902. BC Geographical Names records that the Crofton post office opened on 1 May 1902 and that Croft had laid out the townsite. The City of Duncan was incorporated on 4 March 1912, and Kenneth Duncan, the son of William Duncan, became its first mayor. North Cowichan's own history page says the urban part of the district separated that year to form the city.

Canada's Historic Places register records that the Empire Lumber Company founded the Youbou Mill on the north shore of Cowichan Lake in 1913, and that the mill and its community employed many South Asian Canadian immigrants, more of them after 1947. The Province of British Columbia recognized the site as a heritage site on 7 February 2020. BC Geographical Names records that a post office opened at Lake Cowichan in 1890 under the name Sutton Green, became the Cowichan Lake post office in November of that year and took the name Lake Cowichan Post Office on 1 December 1922. The village of Lake Cowichan was incorporated on 19 August 1944.

A timeline in The Discourse records that the Crofton pulp mill opened in 1957 under BC Forest Products, which projected 300 employees and chose the site after a three-year survey of water supply from the Cowichan River. In 1963 the company announced an $18.5 million expansion. The BC Forest Discovery Centre says its founder, Gerry Wellburn, opened a museum to the public in Duncan on 24 May 1965. It drew 16,881 visitors that year, took the name British Columbia Forest Museum in 1976 and has had its present name since 1999.

The Chemainus Festival of Murals Society says five murals appeared on the walls of local businesses in the summer of 1982. It says the town's sawmill, its main employer, closed in 1983, that Chemainus won a New York downtown revitalization award within a year, and that the Festival of Murals Society was formed in 1987. The society says Mayor Graham Bruce and businessman Karl Schutz led the effort, and the town now has more than 70 murals and sculptures.

The Youbou Mill closed in 2001, according to Canada's Historic Places register. The Discourse reports that Domtar announced on 2 December 2025 that it would permanently close the Crofton mill, citing "poor pricing for pulp and a lack of access to affordable fiber in B.C." The mill employed 350 people. The article, dated 26 February 2026, says the mill closed in 2026 and that a small maintenance team stayed on past April 2026 for environmental compliance.

BC Geographical Names records that the name of Kuper Island was changed to Penelakut Island on 29 June 2010, to reflect traditional usage proposed by the Penelakut Nation. The traditional Halkomelem name, Puneluxtth, refers to a village on the northeast side of the island, and the record says archaeological evidence shows people lived there for 4,500 to 9,000 years before Europeans arrived. The Penelakut Tribe describes itself as a Hul'qumi'num speaking community with 1,001 registered members, half of them on reserve and half off reserve. Its reserves include Penelakut Island, Tsussie, Tent Island and the northern tip of Galiano Island.

The Kuper Island Industrial School operated from 1890 to 1975, Al Jazeera reported. In July 2021 the Penelakut Tribe said in a statement that more than 160 undocumented and unmarked graves had been found at the site. BC Geographical Names records that Captain Richards of the Royal Navy named Valdes Island in 1859 after the Spanish naval officer Cayetano Valdes, who explored these waters in 1792. In 2023 the commission placed Thetis, Penelakut and Valdez Islands, as its report spells the last, in Cowichan Valley because of their links with Chemainus.

The Province lists the Hul'q'umi'num Treaty Group as five Nations: Cowichan Tribes, Halalt First Nation, Lake Cowichan First Nation, Lyackson First Nation and Penelakut Tribe. The BC Treaty Commission records that the group signed the Transition to Stage 5 and Treaty Revitalization Agreement on 26 August 2019, and that the parties are in Stage 5 negotiations. The Province also lists an Incremental Treaty Agreement with the Ts'uubaa-asatx First Nation, as Lake Cowichan First Nation is also known, dated 2023.

On 7 August 2025 the Supreme Court of British Columbia gave its decision in Cowichan Tribes v. Canada. The plaintiffs were Cowichan Tribes, Stz'uminus First Nation, Penelakut Tribe and Halalt First Nation. The court declared Aboriginal title to part of the land claimed on Lulu Island in Richmond, the site of the Nation's village, and recognized a right to fish for food on the south arm of the Fraser River. In a statement dated 2 March 2026, the Province and five Cowichan chiefs said the Nation and the Province are negotiating, and that both sides are continuing their appeals to the British Columbia Court of Appeal.