| Feature Type: | Community - An unincorporated populated place, generally with a population of 50 or more, and having a recognized central area that might contain a post office, store and/or community hall, etc, intended for the use of the general public in the region. |
| Status: | Official |
| Name Authority: | BC Geographical Names Office |
| Relative Location: | N side Cowichan River, W of Duncan, Sahtlam Land District |
| Latitude-Longitude: | 48°46'59"N, 123°51'04"W at the approximate population centre of this feature. |
| Datum: | WGS84 |
| NTS Map: | 92B/13 |
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Origin Notes and History:
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Paldi (Post Office) adopted 15 July 1936 on Ottawa file OBF 1316. Form of name changed to Paldi (community) 14 May 1982 on 92B/13. Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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Paldi Post office was opened 1 June 1936; closed 30 April 1954; re-opened 6 January 1959; closed 30 June 1969. Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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"Mayo Singh came to Canada in 1906, from the village of Paldi, near the bit military cantonment of Jullunder, in Punjab, India." (Victoria Times, 19 October 1959) The following year he began work in a sawmill at Rosedale, eventually operating it with fellow employees in lieu of unpaid wages. When the supply of accessible timber ran out in 1916, Singh purchased property and timber rights on Vancouver Island from E&NR, and this area near Duncan became the centre of Mayo Lumber Company operations. "Doman Singh came to Vancouver Island from the village of Paldi, India, in 1900, and helped to establish the village of Paldi." (Victoria Colonist, 11 May 1962, upon the opening of Doman Lumber Company's retail store in Victoria) Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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"The settlement commonly known as Mayo continued to grow but the name of the community caused some confusion within the Post Office. When Mayo Singh applied for an official post office the postal authorities were willing to comply but only if he chose another name [the name, Mayo, was sometimes confused with the community of the same name in the Yukon]. In 1936 postal authorities approved the name of Paldi for the settlement which had grown up around the mill. The new name was chosen in honour of Mayo Singh's home village of the same name in the Punjab." (excerpt provided March 2002 by Cowichan Valley Regional District, from "Paldi Remembered - 50 Years in the Life of a Vancouver Island Logging Town", by Joan Mayo; Priority Printing Ltd, 1997) Source: included with note |