North Cowichan council wants to see the Old Hillcrest Chinese Cemetery, located at 6119 Payne Rd., designated as a Cowichan Valley Regional District Historical Site. Council voted unanimously at its meeting on Sept. 17 to write a letter of support to the CVRD for the 80-year-old cemetery, which is already a Provincial Historic Site, to become a historical site in the district. There are 127 Chinese Canadians buried in the cemetery who were instrumental to the forestry industry in the Cowichan Valley and throughout B.C. It was formally established in 1945, when Carlton Stone, the founder and owner of Hillcrest Lumber Co., transferred 9.38 acres of land at the Old Hillcrest Sawmill in Sahtlam for the purpose of burying Chinese labourers, who were a marginalized group in the province at the time and most had no family nearby to care for them in life or death.