Montague Harbour Marine Provincial Park, located on the southwest side of peaceful Galiano Island, is rich in natural and cultural history. Named for a naval officer, Montague Harbour first appeared on a British surveying chart around 1859.
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The arrival of the Spanish explorer, Dionisio Alcalá Galiano, in 1792 marked the European discovery of the Gulf Islands.
Montague Harbour Marine Provincial Park, located on the southwest side of peaceful Galiano Island, is rich in natural and cultural history. Named for a naval officer, Montague Harbour first appeared on a British surveying chart around 1859. Gray Peninsula, that comprises the south west portion of the park, was settled in the late 1890s by Captain Gray, who cultivated an orchard that supplied fruit to residents in Victoria. Remnants of this old orchard can still be found.  White shell beaches, open meadows, tidal lagoons, towering forests and craggy headlands are just a few of the things that attract visitors to this park. Naturalists and bird watchers enjoy a climate and ecology found nowhere else, making Galiano Island a haven for many rare and protected plants and more than 130 species of birds.
 The waters around Montague Harbour attract flocks of wintering birds including diving ducks like scoters, buffleheads, goldeneyes and mergansers. Great blue herons, glaucous-winged gulls, black oystercatchers, northwestern crows, belted kingfisher and bald eagles can often be seen scavenging and soaring over the seas in search of a meal. Acorn barnacles grow in intertidal zones, together with the giant barnacle, edible mussel and Japanese oyster. At low tide scores of ochre sea stars can be seen on the rocks, feeding on barnacles, mussels and sea snails such as the whelk and periwinkle.
On the northwest edge of Gray Peninsula is a spectacular rock ledge that was carved into rippling patterns by the movement of glaciers thousands of years ago. The park also features a salt water marsh between the main campground and Gray Peninsula, and evidence of First Nations culture that dates back more than 3,000 years.
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Montague Harbour's white shell beach on the north side of the park marks one of several shell middens - castaway shells left by centuries of harvesting form berms on the foreshore in many areas of the park. Wave action erodes the middens, crushes the shells and redeposits them to create the white shell beaches. Archaeological excavations of these protected middens have unearthed arrows, spearheads and stone carvings, helping to unravel the stories of earlier cultures. by Tammy Liddicoat
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