Youbou (, ) is a community located on the north shore of

Cowichan Lake Cowichan Lake is a large freshwater lake located on southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. It is located along the Cowichan Valley in the Cowichan Valley Regional District, with its eastern shore about west of Duncan, British Colum ...

, west of Duncan and a 15-minute (13 km) drive west of the community of

Lake Cowichan Lake Cowichan ( Nitinaht: ʕaʔk̓ʷaq c̓uubaʕsaʔtx̣) (pop. 2,974) is a town located on the east end of Cowichan Lake and, by highway, is west of Duncan, British Columbia. The town of Lake Cowichan was incorporated in 1944. The Cowichan R ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The former mill town on Vancouver Island provides a public beach and extensive recreational opportunities, including fishing, boating, and hiking. Youbou is named after two employees of the Empire Lumber Company which operated the first sawmill there. Mr. Yount was the general manager and Mr. Bouton was the president. Youbou is one of several towns in the

Cowichan Valley The Cowichan Valley is a region around the Cowichan River, Cowichan Bay and Cowichan Lake on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. There is some debate as to the origin of the name Cowichan, which many believe to be an anglicized form ...

with significant

South Asian Canadian South Asian Canadians are Canadians who were either born in or can trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent, which includes the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives. The term South Asian C ...

(primarily Sikh-Canadian) community history for over 130 years, gaining notoriety in the

forestry industry The wood industry or timber industry (sometimes lumber industry -- when referring mainly to sawed boards) is the industry concerned with forestry, logging, timber trade, and the production of primary forest products and wood products (e.g. furn ...

at local

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

s from the early 20th century until the 1980s.

References

Town of Youbou information
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Cowichan Valley Regional District
Unincorporated settlements in British Columbia Populated places in the Cowichan Valley Regional District Designated places in British Columbia {{BritishColumbiaCoast-geo-stub