I had an event that said that 8 of my strongest villagers went searching for a way to go to the south side of the island. They never said what came of them. They never came back, has anyone every had this event?

Yes I have had that one too. There is a list of island events in the guide sub-forum. Esteemed Elder made a list of them.

Losing 8 villagers is not so bad if you have a hundred villagers. Losing 8 villagers when you only have 10 villagers is pretty harsh.

One thing that is worth learning to do is to make a backup of your save games. LadyCFII has a nice sticky thread about that in this forum I believe. What this lets you do is restore a save game file if something horrible happens. In fact, you can even "cheat" (sort of) using this - save your game every time you quit VV2. one day when you restart the game you will immediately get an event. if you don't like the event or want a better event, quit the game, restore your backup, and start the game again. you will have a different event.

if you forgot to make a backup, all is not lost. don't exit the game. go make a backup. then exit the game and restore that backup you just made and re-enter the game. you should be able to keep doing this until you get an event you like. this is how Esteemed Elder made his comprehensive list of Island Events.

Best of Luck to you.
-Borg