A move to Victoria will allow you to experience the pleasures of one of Canada's most British cities. While Vancouver Island is also known for its spectacular coastline along the Pacific Rim National Park and the wilderness of Strathcona Provincial Park in the central portion of the Island, the majority of people traveling to Vancouver Island are drawn to the city itself.
Originally named Fort Victoria, it was founded as the westernmost trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1843, and in 1868 it was named the capital of British Columbia. Today's Victoria is one of Canada's loveliest small cities [pop. 300,000], filled with gardens, waterfront paths, and wonderful restored architecture from the 19th-century. Relocating to Victoria will allow you to explore the city's many interesting features, including the oldest Chinatown in Canada as well as the acclaimed Fairmont Empress hotel, which still serves a high tea every afternoon. Also worth seeing after your move to Victoria are the famous parliament buildings of British Columbia which face towards the inner harbor. Designed by Francis Rattenbury in 1898, these massive structures are outlined with more than 3000 lights which give the building a fairytale look in the evening.
As for museums, Victoria is home to the Royal British Columbia Museum, which is regarded by many as one of Canada's finest. One of the centerpieces of the museum's collection is an authentic Kwa-gulth long house which offers a fantastic insight into the daily life of British Columbia's native peoples. The museum also contains a six-story IMAX theater which usually is screening the latest National Geographic special, as well as a modern history galley which re-creates most of the frontier settlement, complete with cobblestone streets, silent movies, and rumbling steam train sounds.
Moving to Victoria will also allow you to experience the British Columbia Forest Museum Park, which contains a narrow gauge railway running throughout its hundred acre site, allowing visitors to see its working sawmill as well as a variety of other logging demonstrations. Victoria also has a Maritime Museum on Government Street in the site of its former courthouse.
As you move to Victoria's south side you will encounter Beacon Hill Park, a public park first laid out in 1890 which is now full of trails through fields of wildflowers and sections finely landscaped in the British tradition. From the top of Beacon Hill one is able to view the Olympic Mountains in Washington State as well as the Strait of Juan del Fuca.
Moving to Victoria's south west section, [just west of Beacon Hill Park on Simcoe Street] lies the 19th-century house of Emily Carr, renowned painter whose works of British Columbia in the 1930s are considered masterpieces. Relocating to Victoria's western district brings us to Anne Hathaway's cottage, a reconstruction of the birthplace of William Shakespeare and the home of his wife Anne Hathaway. The Old England Inn nearby also serves an afternoon high tea in the British tradition.
Moving to just outside Victoria we find Butchart Gardens, which contains a fabulous 50 acre garden which has been drawing visitors since it was first planted in a former limestone quarry in 1904. It possesses 700 varieties of flowers spread throughout the site's Japanese, Italian, Rose, and sunken Gardens. The gardens are illuminated in the evenings from the July to mid-September and a variety of entertainers perform in the afternoons and evenings. If you're interested in moving to Victoria, you may be interested in these links. http://www.tourismvictoria.com/ http://www.city.victoria.bc.ca/common/index.shtml
