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CIVILIZATION CRADLED BY LAND AND SEA
by PETER THOMAS BUSCH
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ictoria was once a trading post for adventurers from the old world moving further inland, and only much later became the hub of ideas and political decision making in the claim for governance that began with the construction of Fort Victoria in 1843.
James Douglas established the western post in a network of trading forts established by the Hudson Bay Company across a land still fought for in all directions within a rugged and hostile context.
England and the United States would not settle-up a long standing border dispute for another three years with the signing of the Oregon Boundary Treaty.
The trading post may have disappeared since then, but an Old Town remains, several blocks wide and several blocks deep to the harbour, filled with restaurants and pubs, and a line of shops cornered on one side by the Provincial Legislature Buildings, and on the other side by historic Chinatown.
This place can be experienced as time itself dating back to when the indigenous tribes used the bay and the inlets as safe havens, while harvesting the necessities of life from the surrounding coastal lands and seas.
This place has been cradled by the land and the sea for millions of years, and was found to be so secure that the West Coast Salish indigenous tribes stayed even after the arrival of the English, seeking to gain benefit from the white traders during several decades of uneasy coexistence.
Mother nature still causes chaos, with winds cancelling ferry sailings, and rain clouds blotting out the sun required for the day’s planned sojourn.
Ships still arrive in the harbour though, perhaps more frequently than before, signalled by the horn sounding from cruise ships docked nearby. Like the indigenous tribes and the British trading ships anchored on Vancouver Island over 150 years ago, ferry boats frequently comes and go, dock at mid-island in Nanaimo and in Schwartz Bay, but also in Victoria for travel to Port Angeles in Washington State, carrying passengers in cars and merchandise in semi-tractor trailer trucks.
The nearby inlets and Pacific Ocean waters are still abundant in fish and seafood, supplying nearby restaurants and pubs.
A century and a half later, Douglas has his name pinned to one of the main streets through the city, drafted in parallel to Blanshard, and Government Street, while the Chinatown Gate offers a passage into the unique past of Victoria.
Apart from their names, and the brick and mortar of government buildings, the first stewards left behind Edwardian mansions that have been preserved for future generations.
Robert Dunsmuir, for example, built Craigdarroch Castle, which still exists south-east of the downtown, while leaving his name for a street in Vancouver.
For the longest time, Victoria remained a second choice for the capitol city of the province, losing the competition with ports in New Westminster and Vancouver, even after the island was amalgamated with the mainland in 1866.
Everything changed with certainty, of course, when a fire swept through New Westminster in 1898.
The street names survived the fires and outlived the founding people in New Westminster and Vancouver, such as Dr. Helmcken and Frederick Seymour.
Victoria remains a complicated place that allows special days for getting all dressed up during a stay at the Empress Hotel, for tea served in fine bone China, no doubt, and perhaps a dance in the Crystal Palace, across the harbour from the British Columbia Legislature Building.
The passion for politics is evidence here full-time, just as much as the penchant for outdoor adventures on land and sea, while guests can dally about the port city in relative safety, even at night. As the seat of provincial governance, the city has had to maintain a hospitality industry that includes restaurants and accommodation hosting fine dining in historical settings, for the free flow of decision-makers on and off the island, and for the enthusiastic day trippers keen on adventure.
Victoria also remains a gateway to the great outdoors as much as to governance. In many respects, Victoria remains the same hub for stopping and regaining perspective before heading off for greater and more dangerous adventures that the British naval officers, company fur traders and gold prospectors sought.
That fortune cookie may just yet get you a bit further than from one end of the Old Town to the other end along the water where the whispers in the dark of old drunken sailors spending a few hours off the merchant ship seems stuck in the particularly darkest parts of darkened back streets.
From the Mainland, a trip to Vancouver Island and Victoria has always meant a trip on the provincial owned and operated car ferry system. The 95 minute sailing through the straits was always more than just one part of the adventure of attending a sports event or cultural activity.
British Naval vessels, that put down anchor for supplies, soon enough laid the foundation for about 300 permanent inhabitants that would remain while the ships left and returned, and extended colonial rule from the Mainland.
Fort Victoria would eventually swell from the harbour inland, with 25,000 arrivals wending their way through the British colony for prospector licenses and to join the push further north as part of the great goldrush migration, that stretched as far south as San Francisco to as far north as Alaska.
Chinese property owners in San Franscisco sought to replicate success in Victoria as the goldrush moved north into Canada. American merchants put Chinatown together from Victoria Harbour along Cormorant Street.
Victoria remains unique as well, with the evidence of a colonial past and the towering seat of power ever present, whereas New Westminster and Vancouver have been rebuilt and reshaped several times since the indigenous villages occupied the best spots.
Visitors with a bit more cash on-hand can fly from Vancouver Harbour to Victoria Harbour in a float plane or helicopter, jumping from harbour to harbour in just a fraction of the time the car ferry would take. Adventurers can conveniently keep their hotel booking in Vancouver, while flying in and out of Victoria while day tripping.
There are always opportunities for breakfast, tea and lunch, a walk along the Victoria Harbour, and a stroll inside the grounds of the Provincial Legislature, before the flight back to the hotel in Vancouver to watch the sunset into the Pacific Ocean.
Without question, Victoria soon became the first landing for Chinese labour immigrating to Canada, with 2,988 Chinese inhabiting six city blocks that continued on after the shacks and temporary dwellings, and even the wooden tenements were replaced by the three story brick mixed-use buildings still standing today.
Chinese immigrants worked merchant shops in the front of the buildings along the street, and also lived in-behind. The unique area included narrow, interconnected passageways that obscured the presence of opium dens and gambling rooms.
A second day may allow for a more relaxed trip and more movement a bit south of the downtown into the old street residential architecture, and a walk along the shoreline and to the end of Ogden Point where the cruise ships stop ever so momentarily.
The British Columbia Natural Historic Museum provides a lesson or two in how the surrounding landscapes changed over more than a single millennium. An annual feature presentation draws in the crowds who can also learn to appreciate the history of the West Coast Salish communities, living in the area for centuries before the British colonialists settled in.
And the Canadian Centenary was celebrated in Victoria with the construction of several modernistic architecture buildings marking the distinct time of 1967, as if suddenly frozen. These centenary buildings stand out among the three-story brick and mortar merchant buildings still in use.
As the seat of government, Victoria has remained important, relative to the large metropolitan centers of the modern era, but city business is also sophisticated enough, and definitely not to be taken for granted.
