Leif Norman photographer

A day traipsing around Victoria, looking at historical things, getting good coffee, and generally enjoying the place.

We went from from Victoria to Duncan. We tried to find some camping west of Victoria, but didn’t realize that on the May Long Weekend everybody from Calgary and parts west of that go to the island and pitch tents. In other words, there were no campsites available at all; booked solid! So we went to Duncan and got what was possibly the last hotel room in the whole area. Phew.

“The Yen Wo Society, a dialect association which was founded by Hakka speakers in Victoria in 1905, is custodian of the oldest Chinese temple in Canada, the Tam Kung Temple. The Hakka are a Chinese ethnic group originating in the north of China that moved south in successive migrations, the last one in the thirteenth century. In South China, the Hakka maintained a distinct language and identity. Geographer David Chuenyan Lai explains that the deity Tam Kung has several possible origin stories. One stated that he was an orphaned child with miraculous powers to calm storms at sea, heal diseases and bring rain. A second legend maintains that Tam Kung was an energetic Hakka elder who helped the eight-year-old Emperor Bing of the Song Dynasty escape from Mongolian forces in 1278. A third story states that Tam Kung was a fictitious name for the young Emperor Bing himself, who was deified after his death.” from http://chinatown.library.uvic.ca/yen_wo_society

“Waddington Alley is a small pocket of history within Victoria. It’s been well covered by other serious and amateur historians because of its status as a peculiar portal to the interesting past of the city.

You’d be forgiven for walking past the alleyway without a second thought. The nondescript passage that links Yates and Johnson Street is unremarkable at first glance.

A closer inspection reveals the alley’s most interesting feature below your feet. Instead of the usual asphalt, the alley is actually made up of small wooden bricks set into the road. ” from http://www.thevictoriaexperience.com/waddington-alley/

“Craigdarroch Castle is a definitively Victorian experience. It is a shining example of a “bonanza castle” — massive houses built for entrepreneurs who became wealthy during the industrial age. In this case, the industrialist was Robert Dunsmuir, a Scottish immigrant who made his fortune from Vancouver Island coal.

This legendary Victorian mansion, built between 1887 and 1890 on a hill overlooking the City of Victoria, announced to the world that Robert Dunsmuir was the richest and most important man in Western Canada.” from https://thecastle.ca/pages/about-the-castle