Richard E. Wells has recalled the pioneer days of settlers between Port Renfrew and Barkley Sound in There's A Landing Today (Sono Nis Press, 1988), focussing on David Logan, a Scottish settler at Clo-oose in 1894.

Having grown up on the West Coast, Wells has also chronicled the 1896 shipwreck that further encouraged the construction of the West Coast Trail in The Loss of the Janet Cowan. The trail was created in 1889 as a telegraph line connecting Victoria with Bamfield. The federal government made improvements to the path so that it could serve as a lifesaving trail after the 1906 wreck of the SS Valencia north of the mouth of the Klanawa River, during which 126 died. It then became known as as Shipwrecked Mariners Trail. [See also Fred Rogers.] Other shipwreck-related titles by Wells are Guide to Shipwrecks: Cape Beale to Cox Point (Sono Nis, 1984), Guide to Shipwrecks Along the West Coast Trail (Sono Nis, 1981) and A Guide to Shipwreck Sites Along the Washington Coast. He also wrote The Vancouver Voyages of the Barque Pamir (Sono Nis, reprinted 2004). He lives in Sorrento, B.C.

[BCBW 2004] "Maritime" "Disaster" "Local History"