St. Paul's Church, Saltspring Island

Victoria is located on Vancouver Island, a very large island (460 kilometres [290 mi] in length and 80 kilometres [50 mi] in width at its widest point). However, Vancouver Island is not the only island in what is now known as the Salish Sea. There are hundreds of other much smaller islands that form the archipelago called the Gulf Islands. These islands are in Victoria's back yard, scattered over the waters between Vancouver Island and the mainland. The largest and most densely populated of these islands is Saltspring Island (pop. about 10,000). Saltspring is a fascinating place and an interesting bit of its history is that many of the early settlers were immigrants from Hawaii who intermarried with First Nations families already in residence on the island. You can find out more about these islanders in a very interesting article HERE. Many of the original Hawaiian settlers are buried in the churchyard of the the church they helped to build in the 1880s, St. Paul's, pictured above. Saltspring is a very idiosyncratic island for many other reasons and we'll have a closer look at it over the next few days.