Hi Folks:
At the end of July a friend of mine and I traveled slightly ‘up-island’ toward Duncan to visit the old stone ‘Butter Church’. It’s a church with a somewhat colourful history – built in the mid-19th-century by a Catholic priest, using Native workmen for the construction. The church was built on Native land with a verbal agreement for it to be there. The priest in charge raised dairy cattle on the land surrounding the church, churned butter from the milk he collected and used the money from the sales of the butter to pay the workers, hence the name. Services were held in the church for ten years, but the local bishop wasn’t happy with the verbal agreement for the location, ordered a new church built on a different site and the existing one was deconsecrated and abandoned. A few attempts were made over the years to restore the church, but today it has largely been left to the elements. The quality of the original stonework is mostly what’s left to be admired.