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Captain George Richards of the Royal Navy surveyed the area aboard his vessel HMS Plumper in 1857, naming the island after his lieutenant, Richard Charles Mayne.

During the Cariboo and Fraser River Gold Rush of the mid-1800s, Vancouver Island miners gathered on Mayne Island before rowing across Georgia Strait to the mainland of BC in search of their fortunes. The earliest homesteaders registered land claims in the Miners Bay area in 1859.

Miners Bay is the island's commercial centre, and nearby Active Pass still throb with a steady stream of marine traffic, a bustling contrast to the island's quiet interior byways. Village Bay, with its BC Ferries terminal, has several late 1800s to 1930s buildings. Active Pass is named after the American survey ship USS Active, the first steam vessel to navigate the pass.

BC Ferries operates a vehicle and passenger scheduled ferry service from Tsawwassen on the mainland and Swartz Bay (Sidney) on Vancouver Island.