Crofton, British Columbia
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Crofton is a small west coast town within the District of North Cowichan of southern
Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...
in
British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
, east of BC Highway 1 about north of Victoria.


Early settlers

In the mid-1800s, several families obtained preemptions in the area, upon which they created homesteads, cut timber, and farmed. The 1873 incorporation of the District of North Cowichan included what would become Crofton.


Smelter & village

In 1900, Henry Croft purchased land at Osborne Bay for a
smelter Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron, copper, silver, tin, lead and zin ...
and townsite. The next year, the Northwestern Smelting and Refining Co. began construction. In 1902, the village was established, the smelter opened, and Croft extended the Lenora Mt. Sicker Railway from his copper mine to Crofton. Mining ceased in late 1902 when the company went into receivership. Having exhausted other ore supplies, the smelter closed in 1903. In 1906, the Britannia Mining & Smelting Company bought the smelter. A customs office existed between 1906 and 1909. Following plummeting copper prices during the
Panic of 1907 The Panic of 1907, also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis, was a financial crisis that took place in the United States over a three-week period starting in mid-October, when the New York Stock Exchange suddenly fell almost ...
, the smelter closed in January 1908. Rumours of a large sawmill to be built came to nothing, and when Henry Croft died in 1917, his namesake was struggling to survive.


Logging

During the 1910s, the Westholme Lumber Co. was hauling locally harvested logs to Crofton over the narrow gauge line. By the mid-1920s, the
Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway The Island Corridor, previously the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway (E&N Railway), is a railway operation on Vancouver Island. It is owned by the Island Corridor Foundation, a registered charity. The railway line is in length from Victoria to ...
(E&N) was arriving over the new Osborne Bay subdivision (later called the Crofton Spur) to ship out logs from the Osborne Bay wharf. Logging trains brought raw logs out of the bush to be barked in the water and loaded onto ships for export. Lumber was also shipped out by Industrial Timbers Ltd (later to become British Columbia Forest Products Ltd), Western Forest Industries, and MacMillan Bloedel Lumber Co.


Pulp & paper mill

The Crofton pulp and paper mill, which opened in 1957, has experienced several changes in the ownership of its parent company. In 2001, a layer of ash fell upon the town, staining nearly every house. Improper burning at the mill was determined the cause. In response, the mill owners funded the extensive cleanup of Crofton, and improved the burning process. Concern about mill emissions prompted a Clean Air Concert on September 17, 2004, organized by
Randy Bachman Randolph Charles Bachman ( ; born September 27, 1943) is a Canadian guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was a founding member of the bands The Guess Who and Bachman–Turner Overdrive. He was the writer and singer of several hit rock songs, ...
, to raise money for a study of those emissions. Among the groups participating were the
Barenaked Ladies Barenaked Ladies (BNL) is a Canadian Rock music, rock band which was formed in 1988 in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, Ontario. The band developed a following in Canada, with their Barenaked Ladies (EP), self-titled 1991 cassette becoming th ...
,
Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...
, Tal Bachman, and Randy himself. The concert was staged in Duncan, the nearest suitable venue.


Ferry terminal

The smelter wharf was converted to become the western terminal for the Salt Spring Island ferry service established in 1955.
BC Ferries British Columbia Ferry Services Inc., Trade name, operating as BC Ferries (BCF), is a former provincial Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation, now operating as an independently managed, State-owned enterprise, publicly owned Canadian c ...
operates the route daily. Some tourist traffic spends time in Crofton.


Present community

Forestry and recreation have anchored the community in recent decades. Early in the 1990s. the Crofton Community Centre Society created a scenic walkway along the Crofton shoreline. In 2002, Crofton's 100th anniversary, phase one of the Seawalk was completed. By 2014, all three phases were complete. The Seawalk stretches from the wharf and ferry terminal to Crofton Beach, a distance of over one kilometre. In 2000, the town water supply was changed from Crofton Lake to the Cowichan River. In September 2006, Crofton was included in a regional bus network connecting to nearby Duncan and
Chemainus Chemainus is a community within the municipality of North Cowichan in the Chemainus River, Chemainus Valley on the east coast of southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Founded as an unincorporated logging town in 1858, Chemainu ...
. Previously, the only public transit was a bus between Victoria and
Nanaimo Nanaimo ( ) is a city of about 100,000 on the east coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. "The Harbour City" was previously known as the "Hub City", which was attributed to its original layout design with streets radiating fr ...
without regional stops.


Footnotes


References

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Surrounding communities

{{VancouverIslandCommunities 1902 establishments in British Columbia Populated places on the British Columbia Coast Populated places in the Cowichan Valley Regional District Populated places established in 1902 Ports and harbours of British Columbia Southern Vancouver Island