Mount Sicker

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Mount Sicker is a small mountain on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. It is near Crofton, Chemainus and Duncan. In the early 1900's, it was the source of a number of mines that would extract copper and send it to the Crofton smelter before being shipped across the world. The two main mines were the Lenora and the Tyee. One mine used an aerial tramway to ship the ore over the mountain to Stratford's Crossing on the E and N Railway. The other mine had its own railway to Crofton. When the smelter closed in 1908, the mountain lost its importance to the economy. Many houses from the town of Mount Sicker were salvaged and moved to other communities in the Cowichan Valley, but some remained as a ghost town until weather, vandalism, and finally logging erased almost all traces. Mining activity has continued on a sporadic basis; in the 1970's a company was using a leaching process to recover minerals from the tailing piles. There's been core sample drilling around the mine area since then, so mining may return.

Mount Sicker can be reached from Mt. Prevost Road off Somenos Road or from Mt. Sicker Road off Westholme Road.

Mount Sicker may contain the answer to a local UFO mystery. In late November 1980, Granger Taylor, an unconventional genius and UFO fanatic, left his family a note saying he was going to travel on an "alien ship" for "a 42 month interstellar voyage" and he and his pickup truck were never seen again. Many years later, local newspapers reported that a logger on Mount Sicker spotted a crater in the ground and metal debris embedded in a tree. It is believed that Granger was carrying explosives in his truck at the time of his disappearance.