Crofton Mill Deep-Sea Wharf

Crofton (North Cowichan), BC · Private · Domtar · Osborn Bay / Stuart Channel, Salish Sea (Strait of Georgia)

Deep-sea wharf and log-handling/booming grounds serving the Crofton kraft pulp and paper mill on Osborn Bay (Stuart Channel) on the east coast of Vancouver Island. The marine terminal historically loaded northern bleached softwood kraft (NBSK) pulp and newsprint/directory paper for export and supported an adjacent log storage yard where logs were boomed in the water and loaded onto ocean freighters bound for buyers in China, Korea, Japan and the United States. The mill, established in 1957 by British Columbia Forest Products and later owned by Fletcher Challenge, Norske Skog, Catalyst Paper and Paper Excellence, produced roughly 380,000 air-dried metric tonnes of NBSK pulp annually before Domtar announced permanent closure on December 2, 2025 (final shutdown deferred into early January 2026), affecting about 350 workers. With paper production already halted in early 2024 and the mill now permanently closed, the future status of the marine infrastructure is uncertain; a sale process was reported underway in mid-2026.