We flew up to Victoria on a Thursday, and returned on a Monday. United Airlines offers a convenient non-stop daily flight between Victoria and San Francisco, so we had most of Thursday, some of Monday, and all of Friday/Saturday/Sunday to spend in Canada. Just us! No kids! No dog! No email! No phone!
We chose to stay at the Laurel Point Inn, which is a nice, if somewhat aging, hotel with a spectacular location on Victoria's Inner Harbor.
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Victoria is a beautiful city, if a little tourist-y. Cruise ships stop here regularly (3 visited during our stay), and there are many tourist-related activities, such as taking a ride in a horse-drawn carriage through downtown.
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But the entire city is beautiful, not just the downtown. Public schools decorate their chain-link fences with beautiful wooden painted fish sculptures, and paint murals on the schoolroom walls.
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Friday was forecast to have nice weather, so we set out for the Butchart Gardens near Sydney. Before we left Victoria, though, we drove up above Beacon Hill Park to see Craigdarroch Castle. It was only 9:15 AM, though, and the castle didn't open until 10:00 (in fact, most establishments in Victoria don't open until 10:00 AM, we found), so we decided not to linger and just took some pictures of the outside of this impressive mansion.
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The Butchart Gardens are a wonderful destination on a sunny summer day. Mr. Butchart ran a cement factory, for which purpose they quarried immense amounts of limestone out of the ground, leaving behind a deep cavity. Mrs. Butchart decided to turn the unused quarry areas into a sunken garden, and contracted with various landscape designers over the years to extend and improve the grounds. The result is superb! It's a three-dimensional experience, as you climb up and down, over and around, in and out of the various garden plots.
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It was Dahlia season, so of course we took many pictures (and bought some seeds to bring home!)
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We had a nice late lunch in Sydney, a small town on the coast in the upper Saanich peninsula. After lunch, we visited a very nice local winery named Muse, where we found the Chardonnay quite pleasant.
Saturday the weather looked threatening, but we were not to be deterred, and we set out up-island. Our first stop was Goldstream Provincial Park, which runs along a river valley where salmon come to spawn in the fall/winter. Attracted to the salmon, various birds (gulls, crows, eagles) and land animals (racoons, bears, lynx) are also drawn to the park at that time, and humans come to watch the spectacle.
Unfortunately, we were about 6 weeks too early for the salmon run, so we just took a peaceful walk along the river down to the visitor center. We found the visitor center all dressed up, for it was just time for the annual Art Show. We admired the work of several dozen local artists, some of which was quite fine indeed, then set back on the road.
Heading north from Goldstream Park the Trans Canada Highway climbs some fairly dramatic mountain cliffs, and the views over the Strait of Georgia are superb. After some ups and downs, we exited the superhighway and drove down to the coast at Cowichan Bay. This area had been recommended to us by the winemaker at Muse Winery, who told us to look for Hilary's Cheese store on the waterfront. We found a parking spot and climbed out to see Cowichan Bay, which is a delightful small town quite similar to Point Reyes Station or Carmel-by-the-Sea, full of art galleries, boutiques, cafes, and, right smack in the middle, Hilary's Cheese Store. We bought two small cheeses there, and went next door to the all-natural fully-organic bakery to get a French baguette (and a slice of fresh apple strudel, since it was there and warm and ready :) ).
Although we could have stayed in Cowichan Bay all day, time was a-wasting, so it was back on the road and up, through Duncan (City of Totems) and on to Chemainus (World Famous Murals). I was kind-of hoping we would find a place to eat in Chemainus, but it turned out to be more of a mill-town-with-some-beautiful-murals-on-the-buildings than a place we really wanted to stop for lunch, so we took some pictures and continued on up-island.
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After Chemainus comes Ladysmith, voted "most beautiful town in Canada", and famous for being exactly on the 49th parallel. Now, at last, we were truly "in Canada" (north of the Washington border, that is). But Ladysmith didn't move us much, either, so it was on, on, on to Nanaimo.
Nanaimo is the second-largest city on Vancouver Island and has a rich history. The Hudson Bay Company established a trading outpost there around 1850 or so, and the thriving fur trade quickly developed the region. Not long after that, immense seams of coal were discovered underground, and Nanaimo became one of the largest coal-mining regions on the West Coast; it was from these coal mines that Mr. Dunsmuir got the money to build Craigdarroch Castle. Amazingly, the coal seams were actually underneath the harbor; the miners dug shafts from the main island and from several surrounding islands, then dug laterally out under the ocean waters to retrieve the rich coal.
By this time we were quite hungry so we found a nice restaurant at the marina and had a delighful lunch. You can see the restaurant if you follow the link above, or here's the view from our table:
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Of course, no lunch in Nanaimo is complete without a Nanaimo Bar, so we (happily) shared one:
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After lunch, we wandered around Nanaimo Harbor a bit. The Womens Masters Dragon Boat Rowing Teams were having their annual championship, and we walked through the park where the teams were celebrating their success, then headed back towards our car. Just as we were about to leave, we realized that, without realizing it, we had parked right underneath the Nanaimo Regional Museum. The museum had been closed for the day for a special event, but our timing was perfect and the museum attendant let us in for free. It's a delightful museum; my particular favorite part was the coal mine exhibit, while Donna was delighted by the special exhibit on the fashion of the early 1900's.. We were very glad we found the Nanaimo Museum; even without it, Nanaimo was a treat, but the museum was much better than we thought it might be.
Sunday was forecast to be the coldest and rainiest day of the trip, so we had saved up various indoor activities. But the day dawned clear and the weather was steady, so we wavered. Still, a plan is a plan, so off we went to the Royal British Columbia Museum. I'm rather a nut for museums, and this one is world-known, so I was eagerly looking forward to it. It's important to get to the museum early, since by the early afternoon the crowds are overwhelming and there are lines everywhere. So we got an early start.
This summer, the museum is featuring a special exhibit on Emily Carr, and, given the layout of the museum, this is the first place you visit after you take the escalator upstairs. Emily Carr was born on Government Street and raised in Victoria, and spent most of her life on Vancouver Island. After the tragic death of her brother she embarked on a missionary trip to live among the First Peoples farther up the island, and spent years there learning the language(s), the art and culture and traditions, and returned with a deep appreciation for their approach to living on the island. Rather late in her life she became a world-renowned painter and author, but was always known as somewhat of an eccentric and hard-to-reach.
Outdoors, in front of the museum and directly on the Inner Harbor, is this fascinating statue of Carr with her pet monkey on her shoulder and her pet dog beside her.
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The Carr exhibit is very nicely done. It takes an unusual approach, thematically organized around a "dialogue" between the museum's curator and a current-day artist, Manon Elder as they explore Carr's life and work. The exhibit includes photographs of Carr's life, essays and letters by Carr, other memorabilia of Carr, and lots and lots of paintings. Some of the art is by Carr herself, some is by Manon Elder, inspired by Carr's work and by events in her life. My favorite work of art was the magnificent Tanoo painting from 1913, which is impossible to do justice to on the small screen, and must be seen in person to appreciate the glowing light and spiritual feeling of the work. In addition to showing Tanoo itself, this section of the exhibit has a delightful approach to appreciating the painting:
- There is a short note from Carr, remembering how she came to paint it.
- There is a photograph of Carr at her easel, working in front of the totems in the village
- Inspired by the photograph, there is a companion piece by Elder, showing Carr at work, creating her masterpiece.
Upstairs from the Carr exhibit, the Royal BC Museum has a spectacular exhibit gallery called the First Peoples Gallery. The gallery is multi-level; you can move up and down and appreciate the art and exhibits from various arrangements and perspectives. The section on the smallpox epidemic of 1862 is extremely dramatic and well-presented, as is the Totem Room with its display of a variety of totem poles.
Another little tidbit: the museum has a nice display of the maritime explorers who ventured along the Pacific Northwest coast, including the actual dagger which (is claimed to be the one which) was used to stab Captain Cook to death in Hawaii. Since Donna and I, years ago, visited the beach where Cook died, this was an interesting addendum to our perspective on that most unusual man, whose statue is prominently displayed on the Victoria waterfront.
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Since the museum has an IMax theater, our original plan was to spend the rainy day indoors, watching some IMax movies after we toured the museum. But the weather was steadily improving outside, and so we decided that, rather than watch movies about the great outdoors, we'd go out into the great outdoors ourselves! So we exited the museum, took a quick walk through Thunderbird Park next door, and headed back to the hotel to get the car.
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This time, we decided to strike out south and west, toward Sooke and Jordan River and Port Renfrew. Sooke has a certain amount of fame because it is the southernmost harbor in Canada. There is also a very fancy restaurant there (the Sooke Harbor House), and a nice small park down by the harbor at a location called Whiffen Spit (which sounds rather like something that seems to always be going on at the baseball game whenever I tune in).
Although we made good time, we had got a bit of a late start, so after we passed through Sooke we started looking for a destination. About midway between Sooke and Jordan River is the spectacular French Beach Provincial Park. Had we known ahead of time what an incredibly beautiful place this was, we would have cut our trip to the museum in half and spent an entire day here! As it was, I was amazed that there were only a few dozen others at the park, which features dozens of picnic spots with clean tables in good repair, grassy areas for play and relaxing, trails to walk along by the water, stunning views of the Juan de Fuca Strait, and one of the most dramatic waterfronts I've seen in many years.
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French Beach is not really a beach at all, it is a waterfront composed of extremely weather-beaten rocks. The rocks are rounded and smoothed from an eternity of processing by the tides and waves, but it is quite different from any other beach I've been to. One of the most unusual and eerie things is the sound of it all: as a wave crashes against the shore, it carries some number of the rocks slightly up the land; then, when the water recedes, the rocks slip back down the slope, clattering as they do so. It is a sound I had never heard before!
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Unfortunately, we hadn't really come prepared to spend much time at the park, and the day was getting late, so after an hour or so wandering along the beach, we climbed back in the car and headed back to Victoria. After a yummy dinner at the Tapa Bar on Trounce Alley, we spent the evening walking around downtown; when the lights are turned on it is very beautiful.
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Monday morning we found ourselves with an hour or so to spare before it was time to head to the airport, so we drove across Victoria out to the old neighborhood of Oak Bay. This is a very desirable neighborhood, and there are many nice houses and apartment buildings against the ocean. Just as we were getting ready to leave Oak Bay, Donna spotted, out of the corner of her eye, some movement in the water.
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We walked down closer to the water and found to our amazement that a group of 4 otters were feeding on the fish in Oak Bay! The otters would dive into the water, grab a fish, then trot up onto the rocks with their catch to eat. Then they'd jump back into the water, swim about, find another fish, and repeat the process. They were so active that the pictures turned out a little blurry, but they were a treat to watch! We stayed for about 20 minutes watching them frolic in the water, then reluctantly climbed back into the car and headed home.
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Even after all this, we barely scratched the surface of things to do and see in Victoria. If you get the chance, don't miss the opportunity to visit this wonderful area.
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