Swan Lake

Because the ocean is such a presence in Victoria - one is scarcely ever out of sight of some part of the shoreline - I have a tendency to ignore the less dramatic aspects of our local landscape. There are many lakes near Victoria and this one, Swan Lake, is very near the downtown core. It's a small lake surrounded by bullrush marshes and is entirely enclosed in the Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary. It's a haven of peace in the city. There were few sounds when I was there but the buzzing of insects and the calls of the numerous red-winged blackbirds. It's easy to see why it was the first feng shui site in Canada. Chinese astrologers selected nearby Christmas Hill for the Chinese graveyard in Victoria's early days. The cemetery was eventually sited elsewhere, but Swan Lake retains that aura of tranquility.