Crofton, British Columbia - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Crofton, British Columbia, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, is a small coastal town that is part of the District of North Cowichan

North Cowichan, British Columbia

North Cowichan is a District municipality on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada and is in the Cowichan Valley Regional District...

on Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...

in British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

. The population is estimated at 2,500 people. It is about 74 km north of Victoria

Victoria, British Columbia

Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...

Early History

According to tradition, the first people to live in the area around Osbourne Bay where Crofton is now situated were Native peoples known as the 'Tliyamen'. Their name has been interpreted as meaning 'people of the mountain' and is possibly a derivative of the Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

word yama or 'hill'. The Tliyamen died out many hundreds of years before the Europeans arrived in the area.

In the mid-19th century, the area was cleared and settled by several homesteaders

Homesteading

Broadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of simple self-sufficiency.-Current practice:The term may apply to anyone who follows the back-to-the-land movement by adopting a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading...

. They farmed the land and cut lumber, as provided by the government. In 1873, what would become Crofton was incorporated as the District of North Cowichan.

Founding of the Town

Crofton was founded in 1902 by Henry Croft

Henry Croft

Henry Croft was an Australian-born lumber and mining magnate on Vancouver Island in the early 1900s. He founded the town of Crofton, British Columbia in 1902 as a place to house the smelter for his coal mine on Mount Sicker....

, who owned the nearby copper mine

Copper extraction

Copper extraction techniques refers to the methods for obtaining copper from its ores. This conversion consists of a series of chemical, physical, and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with country depending on the ore source, local environmental regulations, and other...

in Mt. Sicker. He built a smelter on the coast and exported the refined copper. Unfortunately the residue leftover from the smelter blackened the local beaches and the small glass particles often stuck to peoples' feet and hands. In 1906 Henry Croft sold the smelter to Britannia Mine. The smelter closed in January 1908, and soon after, rumours began that a large sawmill would be built. Nothing came of the rumours and when Henry Croft died in 1917, his namesake was struggling to survive.

After the Smelter

This stagnation lasted until the mid-1950s. British Columbia Forest Products Ltd. saw the potential of the area with its deep sea, stable workforce and abundance of lumber, and began construction of a pulp and paper mill in 1956. The mill opened in December 1957, and continues to operate today. Owned until 2001 by Fletcher Challenge

Fletcher Challenge

Fletcher Challenge is a now defunct multinational corporation from New Zealand, formed in 1981 by the merger of Fletcher Holdings, Challenge Corporation and Tasman Pulp and Paper...

, it is now owned by Catalyst Paper

Catalyst Paper

Catalyst Paper Corporation is a Canadian paper manufacturer. Based in Richmond, British Columbia, the company produces paper and pulp for commercial printers, publishers and paper manufacturers in North America, Latin America, the Pacific Rim and Europe...

.

In 2001 a layer of ash fell upon the town staining nearly every house. The ash was determined to be a result of improper burning at the mill. Due to its fault in the incident, the mill owners paid the expenses for the extensive clean-up of Crofton and improved the burning process.

In 1955 a wharf was built and a ferry service to Saltspring Island

Saltspring Island

Saltspring Island is one of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia between mainland British Columbia, Canada and Vancouver Island. It is the largest, the most populous, and the most frequently visited of the Gulf Islands...

began. BC Ferries

BC Ferries

British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. or BC Ferries is a de facto Crown Corporation that provides all major passenger and vehicle ferry services for coastal and island communities in the Canadian province of British Columbia...

now operates the route and in recent years has improved the local roads to reduce traffic congestion.

Seawalk

Early in the 1990s the Crofton Community Centre Society decided to create a scenic walkway along the Crofton shoreline. In 2002, Crofton's 100th anniversary, phase one of the seawalk was completed. As of 2007 the first two phases had been completed and a third phase was in the planning stage. When completed, the seawalk will stretch from the wharf and ferry terminal to Crofton Beach, a distance of over one kilometre.

Modern Day

Crofton remains a small town after 100 years of existence. In 2000 the town water supply was changed from Crofton Lake to the Cowichan River

Cowichan River

The Cowichan River is a moderately sized river in British Columbia, Canada. It originates in Cowichan Lake, flowing east towards its end at Cowichan Bay. Its drainage basin is in size....

. This is considered a great improvement since Crofton Lake has for years been rumoured to have been used as a dump site by local residents.

In September 2006 Crofton was included in a regional bus system connecting it to nearby Duncan

Duncan, British Columbia

Duncan is a city on southern Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.-History:The community is named after William Chalmers Duncan . He arrived in Victoria in May 1862, then in August of that year he was one of the party of a hundred settlers which Governor Douglas took to Cowichan Bay...

and Chemainus

Chemainus, British Columbia

Chemainus is a community on the east coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.Founded as a logging town in 1858, the town is now famous for its 39 outdoor murals. This outdoor gallery has given birth to 300 businesses, including a theatre, antiques dealers, and eateries. The tourist...

. Prior to this the only public transportation was a bus between Victoria

Victoria, British Columbia

and Nanaimo

Nanaimo, British Columbia

Nanaimo is a city on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It has been dubbed the "Bathtub Racing Capital of the World" and "Harbour City". Nanaimo is also sometimes referred to as the "Hub City" because of its central location on Vancouver Island and due to the layout of the downtown...

without regional stops.

Because of the location of a BC Ferries

BC Ferries

terminal, Crofton continues to attract a small number of tourists each year, mostly on their way to Saltspring Island

Saltspring Island

.

Crofton has a Saturday morning market from the first weekend in May to the first weekend in October located in the green space next to the ferry terminal.

Clean Air Concert

Concern about mill emissions prompted a Clean Air Concert on September 17, 2004, organized by Randy Bachman

Randy Bachman

Randolph Charles "Randy" Bachman, OC, OM is a Canadian musician best known as lead guitarist, songwriter and a founding member for both the 1960s–70s rock band The Guess Who, and the 1970s rock band Bachman–Turner Overdrive...

, to raise money for a study of those emissions. Among the groups participating in the concert were the Barenaked Ladies

Barenaked Ladies

Barenaked Ladies is a Canadian alternative rock band. The band is currently composed of Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn, Ed Robertson, and Tyler Stewart. Barenaked Ladies formed in 1988 in Scarborough, Ontario, then a suburban municipality outside the City of Toronto...

, Neil Young

Neil Young

Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...

, Tal Bachman

Tal Bachman

Talmage "Tal" Bachman is a Canadian singer-songwriter and musician. He is best known for his late 1999 hit, "She's So High," from his self-titled 1999 album.-Biography and musical career:...

, and Randy Bachman

Randy Bachman

himself. It was staged in nearby Duncan, which held the only venue suitable for the concert.

The high profile participants drew nation-wide coverage making the concert a success in that regard. There was, however, some local suspicion that Bachman had an ulterior motive for the concert. Bachman's property on Saltspring Island was on a direct line of sight of the mill prompting some people to accuse him of attempting to raise his property value by eliminating the mill. Bachman denied these accusations, stating he only wanted a study done to ensure the mill was following emissions standards.

The Elementary School

The first Crofton school was a one-room school house built in 1905 on two full lots donated by Henry Croft himself. The original school continued to serve the town until 1950 when it became an annex class room to the newly built elementary school.

The elementary school was expanded with a gymnasium and an open area classroom in the early 1970s and in 1985 the then derelict original school house was moved four blocks down the hill near the shoreline where it was restored and is now used as a museum. The school served students from Kindergarten to grade 7 after which they went to Chemainus Secondary School

Chemainus Secondary School

Chemainus Secondary is a public high school in Chemainus, British Columbia part of School District 79 Cowichan Valley. It was founded in 1953 and it serves students from the area around Chemainus, Crofton, Thetis Island and southern Saltair....

in nearby Chemainus for grades 8-12.

On September 11, 2006, the District of North Cowichan decided that a new school would be built in Crofton. The new school held its first day of classes on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 and is located in a different area from the original school grounds.

Sources

Crofton: The Early Years by P. Haley and D. Killick, 1977 and 1988, Duncan Print-Craft Ltd.
British Columbia Official Page on Crofton

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