Crofton, BC is a small seaside town hidden from the busy
highway traffic on Vancouver Island.
This allows for a quiet picturesque place that we’ve enjoyed in the past
as well as again this summer. Work
brought us here in 1999 and we parked our RV at Osborne Bay RV Park then and
here we are again to see our grandson play lacrosse in the BC Summer Games
being held in the Cowichan Valley! The
park hasn’t changed but the most amazing thing was that we were still in their
computer system!
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| Ferry at Osborne Bay, BC |
We had a great view of the BC ferry docks from our RV spot,
and were able to watch it come and go to Salt Spring Island. Previous to 1955, this ferry dock was a
smelter wharf and also used for shipping logs out of the area before
becoming the dock for BC Ferries.
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| Shoreline on Osborne Bay |
The RV Park sits right on the water of Osborne Bay, which can
be seen to have black sand. This was
said to be due to the residue left over from the smelter which was founded in
1902. This smelter closed in 1908 and
Crofton became a dying town until the railway was brought in by the early
1930’s and that was when the Osborne Bay Wharf was originally built. The town of Crofton is now the site of a pulp
and paper mill which opened in 1957 and continues today.
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| Crofton Community Seawalk |
Crofton celebrated their 100
th anniversary in
2002 with the completion of phase one of the seawalk. The Crofton Community Centre Society had
planned this project for quite some time and by 2014, all three phases, a
distance of over one kilometre, had been completed. It makes for a great walk and is used by
many.
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| Museum at Crofton, BC |
The museum borders the little park that sits overlooking the
water. It was the original school that
was built in 1905 and used until a new one was built in 1950 and it became an
annex to that school. In 1985 it was
moved down the hill to this location where it was restored and became the
museum. I spent some time in there
talking with a very interesting volunteer.
He was not a local pioneer but had been here a long while and knew his
history.
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| Saltspring Island |
The ferry terminal being in Crofton, continues to attract a
lot of tourists on their way to Saltspring Island with some staying to enjoy
time in Crofton, also. This ferry will
cross over to the village of Vesuvius, a twenty minute ride. We went for a great fish and chip dinner at
the busy restaurant over there. On these
beautiful days, we are able to see this location from our RV Park.
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| Osborne Bay RV Park |
We are crossing the Southern Stuart Channel heading back
over to Crofton on the ferry. This
channel was named after Captain Charles Stuart who was in charge of the Hudson’s
Bay Co. post in Nanaimo in the mid 1800’s.
We can see the Osborne Bay RV Park, our home for the week and the spit
which offers moorage for boats of the guests.
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| Maple Bay |
We sure did time our visit nicely for weather, summers are beautiful on Vancouver Island, . We took several drives on the country roads
leading us down to the water and so many marinas. This is Maple Bay, just south of Osborne Bay
on the Stuart Channel, too. We ran out
of time for seeing them all but there could be another visit in the future.
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| Genoa Bay |
Genoa Bay was at the end of this road and the home of so
many large boats, boat garages, and several floating homes. The marina includes a café with a very great
sounding menu with local seafood that make ones mouth water just thinking about
it. Genoa Bay feels like the kind of
place one would want to spend time in if you were a boater or sailor.
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Cowichan River
We drove out to Cowichan Bay and Youbou to see their sights.
There weren’t too many opportunities to
see the water, with homes and trees along most of the water. On our way we saw a sign showing there was the
Skutz Falls on the Cowichan River so we decided to include that on our tour. We did take the long way around, signage not
the best but finally found the parking lot and walked across the bridge and saw
some sunbathers floating down the slight slope of ‘falls’. Research after our visit says there is a fish
ladder beside Skutz Falls so it turns out that we weren’t looking at the Falls
at all, and in my disappointment I thought it was just low water issues!
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