Native Americans have been visiting Calvert Island off the Canadian coast for more than 10,000 years. (Credit: Pacific Northwest Sailing/Shutterstock)

Humans have long found comfort on Calvert Island, just off the coast of mainland British Columbia. For millennia, they have climbed the island’s rocky outcrops, walked through its rainy conifer forests, and waded through its chilly intertidal pools to collect crabs, mussels, and other marine life.

There, in 2014, a group of Canadian researc