At long last, it’s time to say ‘goodbye’ to mainland Canada! It’s time to make the jump to Vancouver Island, where we will be for the rest of our trip. Honestly, everything that has happened up until now feels a bit like prologue. THIS is why we actually came here.

The Ferry Crossing From Vancouver to Vancouver Island

When I visited Seattle last year, the day I spent doing the ferry crossing to Bainbridge Island and back was absolutely game-changing to the way I understood that city and the Pacific Northwest in general. Because the nature surrounding Seattle is a huge part of its identity. Places like Vancouver and Victoria are similar. Sure, there are people who live their entire lives without ever leaving the urban centers, but these people are leaving a lot of money on the table. The natural beauty surrounding these places is just incredible. So I knew this ferry ride was going to be a key touchstone in my understanding of British Columbia that I would take with me at the end of this trip.

Here’s the route we took, which apparently went through a weird triangle-shaped piece of American waters. Also, looking at the map below… I wonder what the story behind Point Roberts is… what an odd border. I supposed I could Google it, but I’ve been busy.

The ferry we took was through BC Ferries, which is vital public transportation in this province. They do this route, and countless others, many times per day. There are BC Ferry routes that go all the way up the coast to Alaska in the summer. The fares to make these crossings are very cheap, and you literally drive your car into the bottom of the boat. Once you have found your spot in the floating parking garage that sits below deck, you can wander around the vessel to your heart’s content for the duration of the trip. Many of these boats are 5-6 stories high and have lots of seating and dining options. But if you really want to soak up the scenery, the top deck is the place to be (weather allowing). We were blessed with beautiful clear days, so this is where I spent pretty much all of these crossings. What a way to travel! After this trip, I think ferries like this are definitely my favorite way to travel… other than European trains.

This trip turned out to be pretty boat-heavy in the end, but I didn’t know that yet. At this point, I was still a BC Ferry virgin.

Once we got out on the water, WOW. First off, the frigid cold wind was so loud that, at times, I literally couldn’t hear people yelling right next to me. But the scenery was INCREDIBLE IN ALL CAPS. Oh my gosh y’all. There were literally bald eagles flying alongside the boat once we got to the gulf islands. My standards for what passes as ‘beautiful’ would quickly rise through the following series of articles, but this boat ride was a great appetizer. Here are some pictures from the crossing.

Intro to Victoria

Our first destination on Vancouver Island was Victoria, British Columbia’s capital city. Compared to Vancouver, this is not a large place. Victoria proper has a population of less than 100,000, and Victoria metro is just under 400,000, which is much larger than any other population center on the island. We were only here for about 24 hours, but I was interested to see what this place was like. I was applying to grad school at the time and the University of Victoria had some interesting and affordable programs. We took a little walk around the campus—it was pretty! Not nearly as pretty as UBC back in Vancouver, but that is a high bar.

What can I tell you about Victoria? Given its name, this might not be a huge surprise, but it feels VERY English. The capital building feels like something out of Downton Abbey, and the streets of downtown Victoria feel much closer to how I would picture Liverpool than Canada. It’s an undeniably charming place and—most importantly—has very friendly energy.

Over lunch, we were talking about the kind of people that live here. Sure there are likely a lot of Victoria locals, but there also have to be a lot of people that moved here from seriously remote places, right?? This conversation was immediately validated when we discovered that our waiter moved to Victoria from Haida Gwaii.

“……Paraguay?” I asked through a confused squint. I did not recognize this name, but it sounded a bit like Paraguay, even though this guy was clearly not from South America.

“No… Haida (exaggerated pause) Gwaii.”

Google that. Google “Haida Gwaii.” I had never even heard of this place. And I have heard of most places.

That is the kind of place that Victoria serves as a way-point for. It’s a completely different world that awaits up here. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, let’s take a walk around Victoria…

I loved the dude playing his banjo inside the giant lemon. How random.

Through some happy accident, our hotel made a mistake and made up for it by putting us in the penthouse suite on the top floor of this place at no additional cost. This place has a 180-degree view of Victoria, and beyond of the snowcapped mountains of Washington’s Olympic National Park. Yes, those snowcapped mountains in the distance are the U.S. You’ll see more of that view later, but first, let me show you some pictures of the sunset from this suite’s roof deck. It was a pretty sweet suite. 🙃

Legislative Assembly of British Columbia

If there is any single tourist attraction that Victoria is known for, it’s the capital building. Its formal name is the "Legislative Assembly of British Columbia” and it is actively serving as the venue for BC’s provincial congress / parliament / whatever. However, it’s also open to visitors like you and me most of the time. You have to pay a small ticket price and then go through something akin to airport security… but then you have free reign to wander the halls to your heart’s content! It’s a very grandiose building. It feels like it was plucked straight out of Victorian England, which—having been opened in 1871 in an English colony—it basically was. Only, now the halls are filled with historical First Nations artifacts with corresponding educational plaques. I doubt there was such an affinity for the original inhabitants of these lands back in the 1800s.

Here are some snaps from walking the grounds of this massive building.

James Bay Neighborhood

During my stay in Victoria, a neighborhood called James Bay served as our “home base.”

Yes, there is also a singer called James Bay. But this neighborhood pre-dates him by about 150 years.

James Bay is the oldest residential neighborhood on the West Coast of North America north of San Francisco. Er, well, at the least the oldest colonial European neighborhood. The original First Nations inhabitants of this area were/are called the Lekwungen people, and are part of the modern-day Songhees First Nation. They presumably had some version of “neighborhoods” here long before San Francisco or Victoria came to be.

The beginning of Victoria as it is now known came in 1843 when Hudson’s Bay Company built Fort Victoria as a fur trading post. Residential development of this area began in 1859 as part of a formal push to make Vancouver Island an official colony of the British Empire. And the rest is history! Just like the rest of the colonies, Victoria was developed as a satellite-Britain, and its economy mirrored that of other colonies. Victoria became a hub of industry and even experienced its own gold rush at one point. Since then, its history has been tied to that of Canada overall, so it’s still in the British Commonwealth to this day.

The history is somewhat interesting, but it feels like a footnote in the context of this trip. The beauty of this place is the real headline. A short walk south from our hotel in James Bay landed us at the waterfront. And off in the distance, on the other side of a short but formidable stretch of water, an impressive wall of snowcapped mountains rose imposingly in the distance. When I first saw it, I was trying to get my bearings. I had passed through such rugged and disorientingly unfamiliar geography that day that I wasn’t even sure which direction I was looking. But then I realized: that wall of mountains across the water was actually America! Victoria looks south at Washington’s Olympic National Park. I hadn’t lost much sleep over not having visited this park up until this point, but looking at the fortress of mountains across the Salish Sea… suddenly the Olympic Peninsula was at the top of my list. From Victoria, it looks MASSIVE.

We walked out onto a long dock called “The Breakwater.” It’s actually about a 15-minute walk to get to the lighthouse that sits at the far end of this dock. The inner side of this dock has a cool First Nations mural and around the lighthouse, at the end of the dock, there are a few benches looking out towards the Olympic mountains, each of which is inscribed with memorials to Victoria residents who had passed away. These inscriptions were actually quite interesting to read, both because they lent some heartwarming humanity to this place, and because the stories of these people were tied interestingly to the history of the British Empire. For example, there was a plaque on one of these benches memorializing people who were born in the UK and Calcutta (respectively) and died here in Victoria.

In spite of its central role in the history of this place, the British Empire seems like a distant concept when looking out across the water here. In the backdrop, the ferry connecting Victoria, BC with Port Angeles, WA drifted steadily back and forth across the water, with both the American and Canadian flags flapping softly in the wind. It’s a beautiful border, but the permanence of this place’s natural beauty makes things like countries feel temporary and circumstantial.

Walking back up the dock to James Bay, we caught funny snippets of conversation from pairs of people walking in the opposite direction. One that made me chuckle was a woman emphatically saying “…and this girl behind me was just sneezing her face off!” That was probably an entertaining conversation. And it weirdly set a fitting tone for the walk through James Bay that followed, because—I like it here. This is a sweet little neighborhood! There is clearly a community that is alive and well in James Bay. Walking through the neighborhood streets in the soft evening light, we passed adult intramural baseball teams playing in the park, kids blasting 90s hip-hop music while they played basketball near their school, and people out tending to their gardens. And the houses were nothing if not charming. I was low-key scrolling through Zillow. This is the kind of place I want to retire.

I think it was about a year ago when I was in Seattle & Bainbridge that I first realized how cool community gardens can be. Nowadays, I look for them everywhere I go. I was sure that Vancouver would be chock-full of them, but this was not the case. Or, at least, I couldn’t find any. There were some shitty temporary gardens sitting in vacant lots that were slated to have new apartment complexes built in them, but they were all a little sad and muddy. So I didn’t come into Victoria expecting much in terms of gardens, but I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon one of the coolest little community gardens I’ve yet found nestled in the heart of James Bay. Per the sign in the gallery below, it’s officially called the “James Bay Neighborhood Garden of All Sorts.” It was a tangled, miniature forest in some places, but each little plot had been carefully curated and arranged to be as unique as the individuals who managed them. I had a really lovely time exploring all of the little gardens as the sun set over James Bay. Here are some pictures.

We only had a short time in Victoria, and we definitely didn’t see everything—but as we drove out of the city, I felt satisfied with this visit. I think I saw the best of this place—or, what would have been the best for me personally. I’m sure there are other good things here as well. But none of them could have endeared Victoria more to me than James Bay, its gardens, and the view across the water.

I wonder if I’ll ever come back to Victoria…

SHIFTING GEARS NOW—it’s only going to be pretty much only nature from here on out. Driving north out of Victoria along Vancouver Island’s western coast… there’s pretty much nothing.

And that is our destination.

Here’s a track from a great old Canadian folk group. *roll credits*