Where do you Live?
LANTZVILLE'S
NEIGHBOURHOODS
Much of Lantzville is so new that many residents still refer to the “subdivision” they live in rather than
the “neighborhood”. The Historical Society has collected some of the old names for locations that are
now neighborhoods. Some of them are still in use, others not. Some meet the Real Estate industry’s
“Golden Meadows” standard of nomenclature, others not so much. You be the judge.
This was Mine property that locals leveled and used for a sports field. It was later purchased and subdivided by Judge Beevor-Potts and Abel Caillet.
There are now only two or three homes on the land once occupied by a dozen or more cabins built
by Chinese Mineworkers on Mine Company land along Wiles Creek.
Originally a tidal bay, this area became dry land as the mine dumped its tailings here. Not a nice
name for this lovely waterfront neighborhood. Someone should think up a new one.
This neighborhood was developed and named by the Woodgrove Mall developer Dean Finlayson
and Frank Ney in the 1970s.
The hill on the Comox Rd (later the Island Highway and still later, Lantzville Rd) that led down to Bill
Jack’s farm.
Bottom land owned by a Mr. Peck. Later developed and named “Elm Park”, although there are no
native elms on the site, or indeed in B.C.
This road name has often been applied to the surrounding neighborhood but overlaps in usage with “Shangri-La” which came later in time. Benwaldun is an acronym for Bennett, Walls and Dunsmore.
(Paul Bennett and his sons-in-law). Shangri-La was a summer resort from Lantzville’s tourist destination
days named for the novel and movie about a mythical lost civilization in the Himalayas.
The Historical Society thought this was a Salish name but were corrected. Owners of a small set
of tourist rental cabins in this location also raised bulldogs. Their bark was described as sounding
like “upe-upe” and the name stuck as a location signifier.
Sometimes just “Camp" or “The Camp”. Now “Pebble Beach”. There were three rows of Mine Company owned houses in this location prior to re-development.
This is definitely a geographic neighborhood. It never named itself by any reference to anything but
its major road names.
The names of the original historic farms of this area still have some recognition with senior residents.
Most, like the Doumont, Negrin, Copley, Dines, Jones, Dunbar and others, bear the names of their
owner-founders. Thomas Blood named his farm for the family’s home village “Church Broughton” in Derbyshire.
No longer a politically correct term for the Sna-Na-Was Village. In Canadian law this neighborhood
was an “Indian Reserve” and generally referred to as the “Nanoose Reserve” or just “the Reserve”.
This land was removed from the Nanoose Reserve in the 1930’s and subdivided. It was an Improvement District of its own for decades, its only function a water utility.