Crawford Bay, British Columbia
village in British Columbia, Canada
Crawford Bay is a community of approximately 350 people, situated in the Purcell mountain range on the eastern shore of Kootenay Lake in the West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia. This location on Highyway 3A is 76 kilometres (47 mi) by road north of Creston and 48 kilometres (29.8 mi) by road and ferry northeast across Kootenay Lake from Nelson.
History, geography, demographics and economy
The region is part of the traditional territories of the Syilx, Sinixt and Ktunaxa peoples. The Ktunaxa name for the bay is kʼupawiȼknuk, meaning "where the lake goes inland." Prospector and trapper, James Crawford, whom the Ktunaxa called White Man Jim, reportedly gave his name to the bay and creek. However, the settlement itself was Cocklethorpe for the first decade, named after Joseph William Cockle, who obtained the first preemption in 1889.
Arts, culture, attractions and sports
Crawford Bay plays host to a music festival each July. The Starbelly Jam, an annual event since 1999, is a weekend outdoor music festival featuring a wide variety of musical styles.
The village centre, along Highway 3A, is home to a collection of working artisan studios including: a forge, broom makers, potters, weavers, copper enamellists, leatherworkers, and jewellers.
Crawford Bay hosts an annual autumn agricultural fair, The Kootenay Lake Fall Fair, which dates back to 1910 and features a juried display of locally grown produce, homemade goods and artistic creations.
Kokanee Springs Golf Resort, located within Crawford Bay, is a championship 18-hole course designed by Norman H. Woods in 1968.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Crawford Bay, British Columbia” as village in British Columbia, Canada. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as village in British Columbia, Canada. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5182826. Authority coordinates are 49.683, -116.817. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1999, 1910 and 1968.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Crawford Bay, British Columbia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.