Victoria, BC
We arrive in the capital of British Columbia for an afternoon of sightseeing, stopping by Chinatown and Craigdarroch Castle before lunch at the Irish Times Pub. Afterwards, we check out Victoria Harbour, the Royal BC Museum, Beacon Hill Park, and Fisherman’s Wharf.
Chinatown
Dad and I began another baseball morning with a drive down the well-forested corridor of Highway 1, bearing south for about 90 minutes toward Victoria, the capital of British Columbia.We stopped first at the gates of the city's Chinatown, the oldest such neighborhood in Canada and the second oldest in North America, after San Francisco. In 1858, news reached California of a gold strike in Fraser Canyon, more than 100 miles northeast of Vancouver in the Canadian wilderness. About one-third of those who arrived in Victoria for this gold rush were Chinese. By its peak in 1911, Chinatown had more than 3,000 residents.
The day seemed to be just getting underway in Chinatown as I snapped a few photos at the Gate of Harmonious Interest, erected in 1981.
Craigdarroch Castle
We next stopped at Craigdarroch Castle, a 39-room, 25,000-square-foot Victorian mansion constructed in 1890 for the family of coal baron and British Columbia Legislator Robert Dunsmuir, who died before the castle's completion. It was built in the Scottish Baronial architectural style, which celebrated Gothic and other elements from Scottish history.
Irish Times Pub
We made our way back through the busy downtown, working like hell to find a parking place amongst the one-way streets and pedestrian zones. At length we arrived at the Irish Times Pub.When Dad and I choose places to eat lunch for our trips, we generally look for well-rated spots that feature local cuisine, or are city institutions, or that just have a great sandwich selection. But if Dad is offered an Irish pub as an option, that's where we're going to be. He isn't much of a drinker, but our original family name of Byrne is from County Donegal, so he is always ready to celebrate the Irish.
There’s pastrami in there somewhere.
Victoria Harbour
We moved on to the city's centerpiece, Victoria Harbour. At its terminus lies the Fairmont Empress, a 412-room, Châteauesque hotel that originally opened in 1908. Alongside it are the British Columbia Parliament buildings, completed in 1897 in the Neo-Baroque style.Architecture joke: You'll find more revivalists in Victoria than Billy Graham's tent, am I right?
Royal BC Museum
We had skipped tours of Craigdarroch Castle and Parliament to spend time in the Royal British Columbia Museum, with three large, permanent galleries featuring hundreds of thousands of artifacts from British Columbia. Sadly, we discovered that most of the museum was undergoing restoration, and we had access to just a handful of mildly interesting rooms.Beacon Hill Park
Onward! We next drove to the shore of the Juan de Fuca Strait and stopped to look across the water at the state of Washington, with snow-topped mountains still on display in late June at Olympic National Park.Behind us was Beacon Hill Park -- 200 acres full of walking trails and site of one of the world's tallest totem poles. When it was carved in 1956 by Kwakwaka'wakw craftsman Mungo Martin, it was indeed the world's tallest, at 127 feet.
