How Crofton got its name and other Discoveries
Living on an island means having to take a ferry whenever you want to travel. Thankfully we have three ferry routes that service Salt Spring Island, one for each of Vancouver, Victoria and a small town named Crofton located midway up Vancouver Island.
Our recent camping trips have been on Vancouver Island which means taking the ferry from Vesuvius to Crofton. We also take this route for off-island shopping at the “big box stores” in the nearby town of Duncan. This is the shortest ferry ride off the island – a 20 minute jaunt which can be very convenient.
Usually we just breeze through Crofton on our way to our destination. However, this time we decided to stop and explore the park that is near the ferry dock.
It was a beautiful day in May and we were in no hurry.
There is a museum in the park, called the Old School House Museum, but our interest was in the flowers blooming on the grounds. The dogwood blossoms were beginning to fade, but still put on a glorious show.
The flowerbeds in the park were obviously well tended and contained a variety of interesting plants. The vibrant colours of the emerging flowers and vegetation provided a striking accent for the white dogwoods.
However, what was more interesting was this intriguing item that we found as we rounded the side of the museum building. It was a fascinating wood carving protected by a plexiglass display case.
As we peered closer to read the description on the sign, we discovered that it was part of an international competiton in 1986. The plexiglass was a bit foggy in places and we had to walk around the statue several times to see all the details clearly. The plaque said that this was a carving of Adam & Eve done by Johann Mhlanga of Swaziland. Eve is on the left side in the photo and Adam is on the right. How this ended up in Crofton is a mystery I have not yet solved. Fascinating!
Our next find was these black lumps of ???
The sign on this adjacent post helped to clear up the mystery, and lead me to research the story of how Crofton got its name.
Henry Croft was born in Australia in 1856. He moved to Canada in 1883 and became prominent in both logging and mining. He first purchased the sawmill in Chemainus, and later became the manager of the nearby Mount Sicker Copper Mining Co.
In 1902, inspired by significant profits, he bought a townsite near Mount Sicker and established the town of Crofton as a place to build a copper smelter for the mine and to house his workers.
The smelter lasted until 1908 when world copper prices fell. There were plans to build a large sawmill, but it was never completed.
Croft was prominent in the area for another reason as well. In 1890 he was elected to the British Columbia Legislature and served as MLA for the Cowichan area for four years.
So what are these black “lumps” that sit beside the Old School House Museum in Crofton? Slag cars were used in the smelting industry to take the red hot waste byproduct by rail to large pits where they were dumped to harden and cool. These lumps are remnants of slag from the smelter established by Henry Croft. Mystery solved!
Henry Croft died in 1917 at his home in Victoria, and, at the time, the town of Crofton was struggling to survive. However, the logging industry provided new life for the town when several companies began to ship logs out from the wharf at Osborne Bay. In 1957 the Crofton Pulp and Paper Mill was established and still is the main industry in Crofton today.
