The Duntulm Jersey Dairy of Sidney , B.C.

by Ralph R. Burry

 

(Reprinted from The Canadian Token , Sept. 1986. Used with permission)

 

As you come to Vancouver Island by way of Tsawwassen by the British Columbia ferry, you land on the Saanich Peninsula at Schwartz Bay , and coming to Victoria via the Pat Bay highway you travel about a mile, then notice the first small farming area on your right side. This area and the area on the side of the highway was once a large farm owned by a Mr. Alex McDonald. The highway cut this farm in half when the road was built. McDonald Park Road and McDonald Provincial Campgrounds in the area were named after this man. McDonald Park Road was the original East Saanich Road .

In the early 1920s a Major Alastair Douglas MacDonald bought a fairly large piece of this farm from Mr. Alex McDonald and started a dairy of Jersey cows numbering about 30. The Major was not a relative of Alex McDonald and was born in the James Bay area near the Outer Wharf in Victoria . He was the son of Senator MacDonald, who lived in a large home that was called MacDonald Park . This old house is torn down now and where it was is now called MacDonald Park . Major A.B. MacDonald married a Miss Olive Bryden, who was a grand-daughter of James Dunsmuir, who was a famous coal merchant of V.I. and later became Lieutenant-Governor of B.C. They had three children, all girls: Elizabeth, Jean and Kathrin. Two are still alive (i.e., 1986).

Major MacDonald called his farm The Duntulm Jersey Farm after the small town in the U.K. where his father came from. He started to produce milk, and being one of the Co-op shipped his milk into Victoria with the other dairymen of the area. The milk went each day in cans and driven into Victoria by trucks. This was done up to about 1932 when he decided to sell the milk from door to door by himself. It was at this time that his aluminum tokens were introduced. His routes were in Sidney and out as far as Deep Cove. The milk of the Duntulm Dairy was much sought after as it was very rich and clean. Major MacDonald continued to sell milk until about 1945, when he sold the farm to another farmer. The Duntulm Jersey Farm Dairy then came to an end.

 

Duntulm Jersey Farm ( Sidney , B.C.) "Good For / 1 / Pint Milk" Greene # 3848a, (1932-45), R5 Aluminum, square, 23mm

Major Alastair Douglas MacDonald lived until late 1948 and he died in Sidney at an age over 70. Mrs. MacDonald sold the rest of the farm to a Mr. John Barkley and moved to a house in the Gordon Head area, which is a suburb of Victoria . She lived only a couple of years there and she quietly passed away.

Senator MacDonald came out from the U.K. to seek gold in the now famous Cariboo Gold Rush, but it is said he never left Victoria . It is believed he went into the real estate business for a while, then became part of the judicial system of Victoria and V.I. and ended up as a senator from B.C. He first came out as a clerk of the H.B.C. in 1858 but never served too long.

I must thank Mr. Harold B. Starck of North Saanich , who worked many years for Major MacDonald, first as a farmhand and later as the foreman. He was just a boy when he started at the farm. It was he who gave me most of the story and also a small lot of the old tokens of the dairy he had saved after all those years. Mr. Starck is now well over 70.

There are only eight tokens known and are made of aluminum and square and 23mm.

(Editor's note: In Ron Greene's British Columbia Token Database , compiled much more recently, the Duntulm Jersey Farm token, catalogued as #S3848a, is given a rarity of R5, translating as 21 to 30 known).

Wayne Jacobs is a numismatic expert. Currently secretary and editor of the "Mid-Island Coin Club Numismatic Journal"of Nanaimo, Vancouver Island , British Columbia, he is the award winning author of numerous articles. The MICC journal are hosted here: MICC webpages Copyright 2006 Wayne Jacobs. This article may be reprinted freely for non commercial purpose only if the resource box is left intact, linking back to us.