The title Above Osborne Bay may bring to mind E.J. Hughes’s tranquil scenes of a beach strewn with driftwood. In fact, this painting is one of the artist’s many views of the wharf at the Crofton Mill. The frame label he wrote for the back of the painting reads:

Most of the time, one or two large ships are docked at this wharf but now that there aren’t any present, in this picture, the observer can find the bay itself the main point of interest. The background hills are on Salt Spring Island, the foreground and point on the right, middle distance, are Vancouver Island. The car ferry is coming from Salt Spring I., en route to the village of Crofton, B.C., just out of the picture to the right.[1]

The Domtar mill at Crofton was commissioned in 1957 and manufactured lumber and fine papers under a variety of corporate structures until its recent closure. Of course, a huge pulp and paper mill is not everyone’s idea of a beautiful landscape, but in the later part of his career, Hughes painted the wharves and ships at the Crofton Mill at least nine separate times. He drew the original pencil study for this painting while sitting in the front seat of his car, parked at the “Visitors’ Viewpoint” overlooking the mill. Pat Salmon noted that Hughes “painted a lot, right across from the Crofton Mill. In fact, he had permission to go in there for quite some time.”[2]

Though known as a landscape painter, Hughes always considered the human element central to the scenes he chose. Ian Thom, in reference to another mill painting by Hughes, noted the artist’s “fascination with boats, machinery and, most importantly, complex visual patterns.”[3] In our painting, the artist emphasized the hard-edged patterns of the stacked lumber, the green squares of the warehouse walls and the vertical light poles, which punctuate the image.

It was usually a Sunday when Hughes chose to drive over to Crofton from his home in Duncan. Then he was able to make a drawing and capture the quiet feeling of the industrial site when ships were not being loaded. To accentuate the quiet, he emphasized the horizontals and what he called “diagonals in repose.” This painting focuses on the ochre lumber with bright red ends. The broad green side of the warehouse is complemented by the sprung arch of geometric white gangway. A ladder provides access to the roof of the warehouse. These man-made shapes are juxtaposed with the soft organic forms of the logged-over hillside of Saltspring Island beyond. In the foreground is that elemental coastal pair, a delicate young fir tree and an orange arbutus, with every needle and leaf given loving care and attention.

Through his paintings Hughes made the little ferry to Saltspring Island iconic, and in this canvas, seven pleasure craft cluster around it. To its left a sailboat makes for the open water. One of the most attractive features in any Hughes painting is the way the water is perfectly observed. Here the calm passages are intermingled with areas gently riffled by a breeze. The artist’s consummate skill lends a lovely assurance to this coastal scene.

We thank Robert Amos, artist and writer from Victoria, BC, for contributing the above essay. Amos is the official biographer of Hughes and has so far published five books on his work. Building on the archives of Hughes’s friend Pat Salmon, Amos is at work on a catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work.

1. Frame label by E.J. Hughes, July 9, 1984, Special Collections, University of Victoria.

2. Pat Salmon, interview with the author, December 30, 2014.

3. lan M. Thom, E.J. Hughes (Vancouver Art Gallery, 2002), 196.

For the biography on Jacques Barbeau and Margaret Owen Barbeau in PDF format, please click here.