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The Butler family has been peeling back layers of southern Vancouver Island for generations. First farming the rich soil starting in 1868, then moving into full scale logging operations in the late 1920s, and from the early 1950s to present, supplying ready mix concrete and aggregate products as Butler Brothers Supply Co.
Many legacies remain of the pioneering Butlers. The main and single most prominent logging road in the area, connecting Sooke, Port Renfrew and Shawnigan Lake through a network of over a thousand miles, was engineered and executed by the Butlers and still bears their name. Butler Road also passes a lake within Timberlands property known as Butler Lake. Some of the family's pioneer homes also still remain, owned as private residences, and one of the area's premier luxury subdivisions is currently going in on WestCoast Road on former Butler logging property, known as Erinan Country Estates, named after family heads Eric and Nancy Butler.
Although Butler Brothers has all but left their logging days behind them as they continue with their aggregate business and real estate ventures, they still to this day own thousands of acres in prime real estate, much of which on a tract of land in Otter Point containing 40% of the shoreline on Kemp Lake. This huge parcel was originally part of their logging lands dating to 1946, and although no logging has been done here for decades it contains some of their open mining pits for their current business. Eventually I fear it will all be developed into high end vacation properties and CRD parkland.
For now though, if one were inclined to breach the many private property signs, they would be rewarded with the long winding unused logging main formerly known as part of Butler Road (and it's many arteries), connecting the current Butler Road in the Sooke Hills with the company's former log sort right on the ocean, beside scenic WestCoast Road.
[last edit 2/17/2014 9:22 PM by HagensborgViking - edited 1 times]
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This is excellent... thanks for sharing 
www.forgottenbc.ca
Forgotten British Columbia - Searching out local BC. Canada Ghost Towns and Abandoned Places | |
Ahh, thought I remarked here: Thanks for the details! I love sussing out the history behind a place, it's half the fun of exploring. 
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