Dunsmuir Regional District of Nanaimo, British Columbia

Locality - A named place or area, generally with a scattered population of 50 or less. E side of Vancouver Island, just S of Qualicum River, Newcastle Land District

Mapped Location

Dunsmuir: The mapped location is an approximation and should not be used for navigation or wayfinding.

 

Information

General information on Dunsmuir

  • Feature Type: Place

 

Official, historical, colloquial and alternative toponyms for Dunsmuir

A brief list of names that this geographic feature has been named

Name Description
Dunsmuir Official

 

Origin Notes and History of Dunsmuir

References to Dunsmuir that document the origin of its place name

Dunsmuir (station) adopted 2 December 1948 on C.3590, as labelled on E&N map, 1918, and as identified in the 1930 BC Gazetteer. Form of name changed to Dunsmuir (locality) 15 February 1983 on 92F/7.

B.C. Geographical Names in Province of British Columbia
BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office  |  Province of British Columbia

Note that LRO Plan 438, Victoria Land Registry Office, covers "Dunsmuir Townsite" surveyed in 1911, located about 30km northwest of here, in Lot 7, Nelson District, just south of Union Bay.

B.C. Geographical Names in Province of British Columbia
BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office  |  Province of British Columbia

"After Robert Dunsmuir (1825-89), British Columbia's first industrial magnate. Born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, Dunsmuir married Joanna (Joan) White in 1847. Promising that one day he would build her a castle on the Pacific, he persuaded her in 1850 to accompany him with their three children to Fort Rupert on Vancouver Island, where he worked for the HBC as a coal miner, soon being transferred to Nanaimo. After leaving the service of the HBC, Dunsmuir engaged in various rather unsuccessful ventures in coal mining until he discovered and obtain complete possession of the very rich deposits around Wellington. He also entered the lumber business, acquired an ironworks, built the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway, and became a very wealth man. During the last years of his life, he made good on the promise given years earlier to his wife, building Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria, though it was not completed under a year after his death."

B.C. Geographical Names in Province of British Columbia
Akrigg, Helen B. and Akrigg, G.P.V; British Columbia Place Names; Sono Nis Press, Victoria 1986 /or University of British Columbia Press 1997  |  Province of British Columbia

 

Regional District of Nanaimo

Political Boundaries

Last updated: 2023-09-27