Goodwin Creek adopted 30 April 1982 on 92 F/11 as submitted by Comox resident Ruth Masters. Name changed to Ginger Goodwin Creek 13 May 1983 on 92 F/11.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

Named after Albert "Ginger" Goodwin, Cumberland coal miner and labour organizer, whose death in 1918 led to British Columbia's first general strike. Goodwin, though medically unfit for military service, had been hiding in the bush with other conscriptees until tracked by military police to the head of Comox Lake. He was shot 27 July 1918 by Constable Dan Campbell in circumstances that are still hotly debated. A charge of murder was reduced almost immediately to manslaughter and an outraged labour community in Vancouver called a 24-hour general strike for 2 August 1918. While 2000+ joined Goodwin's 4-mile long funeral procession through Cumberland that day, thousands of workers elsewhere on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland stayed off their jobs. Two months later a grand jury determined that - as Constable Campbell claimed self defence and there were no other witnesses to the shooting - the matter would not go to trial, and all charges against Campbell were dropped. Goodwin, meanwhile, had been buried in an unmarked grave in Cumberland's cemetery; in the 1930's a stonemason carved a headstone proclaiming Goodwin "A Workers Friend". See "Ginger Goodwin, Mount" for additional biographical detail.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

The following additional biographical details and/or corrections to the note (above) were provided January 2005 by Roger Stonebanks, author of Fighting For Dignity: The Ginger Goodwin Story, published by the Canadian Committee on Labour History, St. John's, Nfld, 2004, as well as the entry for Albert (Ginger) Goodwin in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume XIV, 1911-1920:
1. Goodwin was ruled temporarily unfit in late 1917 for military service (Category D) but subject to medical re-examination. This re-examination was ordered, in November 1917, shortly after he led a strike for the universal eight-hour day at the Trail lead-zinc smelter of Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company Limited, and resulted him being declared fit and placed in Category A. (The controversial circumstances in which this occurred are explored in Fighting For Dignity).
2. Const. Dan Campbell was never charged with the murder of Goodwin; he was charged with manslaughter.
3. Thousands of workers did go on a one-day general strike in Vancouver - but not on Vancouver Island.
4. Only the single charge was brought against Campbell, manslaughter, which was dropped after the grand jury's decision that the charge not proceed to trial.

Source: included with note