Skwtsa7s is an island in Coal Harbour next to Stanley Park in Vancouver. In the Squamish language, the word “skwtsa7s” means “island”.
The Squamish peoples used Skwtsa7s as a tree-burial ground. They would place their dead loved once in red cedar boxes and hang the boxes in the trees there. In 1862, one of the first European settlers to the area, John Morton, wrote that there were hundreds of these boxes in the trees at Skwtsa7s. There is also a story of Skwtsa7s being the site of a big battle between the Squamish and their rivals, where over 200 warriors were killed. After colonization, Skwtsa7s was used as a quarantine site for people who were sick with smallpox, a burial site for non-Indigenous people, and since 1944 it has been a Royal Canadian Navy Reserve site and training facility.