Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
This elegant city is the proud capitol of Canada’s largest province, bigger than any U. S. state except Alaska.
Victoria stands at the southern tip of Vancouver Island overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Olympic Mountains across the strait in the State of Washington.
The Sea Lion docked here at sun-up under bluebird skies. We had a full day and evening to wander (all-aboard at midnight) and savor the gardens, museums, parliament grounds, parks, shops, street vendors and musicians. We docked in the inner harbor beneath the pompous Empress Hotel in easy walking distance of all the attractions.
The city is made for strolling. Tourism is its economic mainstay and second is the conduct of government business
This island, 280 miles long, is the largest on the West Coast. It was first circumnavigated and claimed for Great Britain in 1792 by Capt. George Vancouver on a Royal Navy assignment to take the surrender of Spain’s holding at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island’s west coast and then to explore and map the coastline from Puget Sound to Alaska.
That same voyage Vancouver looked at the Columbia River entrance and determined wrongly that it was just a great bay and not the long sought “River of the West.” During the sea otter trade, American Capt. Robert Gray out of Boston crossed that treacherous entrance in his ship Columbia Rediviva, and provided America’s first claim by discovery on the Pacific Coast. Otherwise, Oregon and Washington might be part of Canada.
Capt. Vancouver, ablaze in gold leaf finish, shone above us from the tip top of the Parliament Building which fronted our inner harbor berth along with the Royal BC Museum and Thunderbird Park’s totem poles. His statue was originally copper finished. When he turned green, Victoria’s citizens said it was unbecoming of a great naval officer. He was lowered and gilded gold.
Climate-wise, Victoria and its surrounding Saanich Peninsula has the most equitable climate in the Pacific Northwest with only 24 inches average rainfall. The doorstep Pacific currents keep winters mild. Gardening is the capitol city’s passion. Those Olympic Mountains across the strait are a barrier to the rain-laden Westerly.
The ultimate garden, and number one tourist attraction, The Butchart Gardens on Tod Inlet was our morning bus destination. The gardens began when an English lady, Jennie Butchart, set out to beautify a worked-out limestone quarry which supplied her husband’s Portland cement plant. She audaciously suspended herself on a boatswain’s chair to start planting the quarry walls.
What started as a hobby in the 1920’s with the sunken quarry garden expanded over 55 acres into separate Japanese, Rose and Italian gardens now viewed by over a million visitors a year.
Capt. Vancouver was mighty perceptive when he wrote in his log of this then-virgin place 214 years ago, “the serenity of climate, the innumerable pleasing landscapes and the abundant fertility that nature puts forth…render it the most lovely country that can be imagined.”
This elegant city is the proud capitol of Canada’s largest province, bigger than any U. S. state except Alaska.
Victoria stands at the southern tip of Vancouver Island overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Olympic Mountains across the strait in the State of Washington.
The Sea Lion docked here at sun-up under bluebird skies. We had a full day and evening to wander (all-aboard at midnight) and savor the gardens, museums, parliament grounds, parks, shops, street vendors and musicians. We docked in the inner harbor beneath the pompous Empress Hotel in easy walking distance of all the attractions.
The city is made for strolling. Tourism is its economic mainstay and second is the conduct of government business
This island, 280 miles long, is the largest on the West Coast. It was first circumnavigated and claimed for Great Britain in 1792 by Capt. George Vancouver on a Royal Navy assignment to take the surrender of Spain’s holding at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island’s west coast and then to explore and map the coastline from Puget Sound to Alaska.
That same voyage Vancouver looked at the Columbia River entrance and determined wrongly that it was just a great bay and not the long sought “River of the West.” During the sea otter trade, American Capt. Robert Gray out of Boston crossed that treacherous entrance in his ship Columbia Rediviva, and provided America’s first claim by discovery on the Pacific Coast. Otherwise, Oregon and Washington might be part of Canada.
Capt. Vancouver, ablaze in gold leaf finish, shone above us from the tip top of the Parliament Building which fronted our inner harbor berth along with the Royal BC Museum and Thunderbird Park’s totem poles. His statue was originally copper finished. When he turned green, Victoria’s citizens said it was unbecoming of a great naval officer. He was lowered and gilded gold.
Climate-wise, Victoria and its surrounding Saanich Peninsula has the most equitable climate in the Pacific Northwest with only 24 inches average rainfall. The doorstep Pacific currents keep winters mild. Gardening is the capitol city’s passion. Those Olympic Mountains across the strait are a barrier to the rain-laden Westerly.
The ultimate garden, and number one tourist attraction, The Butchart Gardens on Tod Inlet was our morning bus destination. The gardens began when an English lady, Jennie Butchart, set out to beautify a worked-out limestone quarry which supplied her husband’s Portland cement plant. She audaciously suspended herself on a boatswain’s chair to start planting the quarry walls.
What started as a hobby in the 1920’s with the sunken quarry garden expanded over 55 acres into separate Japanese, Rose and Italian gardens now viewed by over a million visitors a year.
Capt. Vancouver was mighty perceptive when he wrote in his log of this then-virgin place 214 years ago, “the serenity of climate, the innumerable pleasing landscapes and the abundant fertility that nature puts forth…render it the most lovely country that can be imagined.”
