A Union Steamship resort that became a neighbourhood, with 1920s summer buildings, a Nation-owned boat ramp and a 91-lot housing build in progress.
Where Selma Park sits, and the other places we attend
around Davis Bay. Every name on the map is a link.
An official community name inside a 1986 municipality
Selma Park lies on the Strait of Georgia shore between the original Village of Sechelt and Davis Bay. BC Geographical Names carries it as feature 3402, a community, adopted and official since 13 May 1983, on map sheet 92G/5, categorised as unincorporated rural. It is inside the District of Sechelt. The village incorporated on 15 February 1956; the unincorporated ground on either side of it was added in 1986, and Sechelt became a district municipality on 30 June that year. A substantial block of Selma Park is shíshálh Nation land administered by the Sechelt Indian Government District, a separate local government, so which administration applies depends on the parcel.
Two local governments on one hillside
The 91-lot subdivision at Selma Park is on shíshálh Nation lands and is run by the Sechelt Indian Government District. It was planned as 85 single-family homes, two duplex lots and four quadruplex lots, with sewer, water, electricity and roads run to every lot, and Selma Park Road widened for access. Phase one covers 45 lots and costs about $10 million; the full project is 180 housing units. Eagle and other bird nests delayed it in 2023. Councillor Alvina Paul put the Nation's housing list at approximately 180 members, and about 700 Nation members live on the Coast. Some houses arrived by barge. Building permits, road maintenance and the dock are Nation business on that land and District business on the fee-simple side.
The oldest buildings were put up for a steamship resort
Selma Park began as a Union Steamship Company resort. The company's estates manager, George H.R. Aman, built a house on the Sunshine Coast Highway here in 1928, painted in the company's black and yellow, with a front window seat and an enclosed porch upstairs. He ran the company's stores, hotels, pavilions and bath houses, and kept the precipitation records for Sechelt. He lived there from 1931 to 1941, and the house then passed to Isobel Gilbert, daughter of the Sechelt merchant Herbert Whitaker. What the resort left on the ground is small lots carrying summer buildings from the 1920s and 1930s, some still seasonal, all of them older than any code the District now enforces.
The boat launch, and what has been taken from it
On 18 October 2023 the Selma Park boat launch was closed after heavy rainfall. The road down to the dock and the ramp had been undermined by the volume of groundwater, and it was unsafe. The closure went out as a shíshálh Nation alert and the Nation's public works crew completed the repair and reopened it the following week. The slope holds enough water to take out an access road in one storm, and District notices do not cover this ramp. At 6:30 a.m. on 25 June 2024 a 26-foot cabin cruiser was stolen from the launch and recovered at Snickett Park; the same investigation covered a container break-in and a kayak taken on Chelpi Avenue. An F350 pickup went overnight from Selma Park Road that week. In November 2024 a construction site at 5330 Smaylilh Way, off Selma Park Road, lost copper cable, a generator and tools on two consecutive nights.
A 4:45 a.m. fire during Stage 4 water restrictions
On 7 November 2022 Sechelt Fire Department was paged to the 5100 block of Pam Road at 4:45 a.m., with the first engine on scene at 4:54. The occupied house and two vehicles were a total loss, a neighbour's siding was damaged, and the cause was undetermined. It was the biggest structural fire the department fought that year, three months into Stage 4 restrictions during the drought emergency.
We were tested as we've never been tested before on November 7.
Dean McKinley, Sechelt fire chief, at the 31 May 2023 meeting reviewing the fire
The SCRD had advised there was enough water for hospital, essential residential use and fire until at least mid-December. All reservoirs were refilled the day after. In February 2023 a Selma Park mobile home burned at about 1 a.m., 60 per cent involved eight minutes after the call, its owner subletting it while living in Duncan.
What a check in Selma Park covers
Boats, trailers and outboards on the lot, and the launch approach road after heavy rain
Slumping, standing water and fresh movement on the slope below and behind the building
Doors, windows, porches and original hardware on pre-war summer buildings, tried rather than looked at
The furnace running and the house holding temperature, or everything drained and the main shut
Tools, copper, generators and fuel, including anything stored on an adjoining lot
The driveway culvert and the roadside ditch, which is what most of this hillside drains into
Whether the house is on the District sewer or still on a septic field, with the tank lid checked accordingly
Mail, parcels and delivery cards left at the door or in the box
A dated, photographed record of everything on this list, filed the same day
Most household insurance makes cover on an empty dwelling conditional. Through the heating season it has to be looked at by a competent person at stated intervals, four consecutive days being a common limit, or else the water shut off and the system drained. The permitted gap differs by insurer. Read the wording you hold rather than assuming the usual figure applies.
What it costs
A scheduled check at Selma Park is
$55 a visit, plus
$10 travel. The travel charge is the same
everywhere between Gibsons and Egmont. There is no minimum term and no joining fee.
See the full price list.
Where these facts come from
Every figure, date and quotation on this page was taken from one of these. They are
listed so you can read them yourself.
