Victoria Day Parade

Not surprisingly, Queen Victoria's birthday has a special significance here in her namesake city. Consequently I have been a bit disappointed in the last few years' parades. It seemed to me that participation was down and the enthusiasm was lacking. This year, however, I thought the parade was much improved, a little more of everything. Victoria Day is the kick-off day for the summer season and from now until October nearly every weekend will see some special event or festival taking place. Next weekend is the Swiftsure Yacht Race. Above is one of the many marching bands that participated in the parade, as they marched past Victoria's City Hall. This is the Klamath Union High School band from Klamath Falls, Oregon, USA.

Victoria Public Market

It's been some time since I checked out the Victoria Public Market. It's been open now long enough to have developed its own character. It's mostly about food - trendy olive oil and cheese shops but lots of vegetables and exotic fast foods and places to sit and snack. I like the sign above the pie shop below - definitely a good sentiment.

Green Dream

This is Victoria's main thoroughfare, Douglas Street, as it was last Sunday. Note the City Hall on the left. The street itself was paved over with real grass and closed to vehicle traffic through most of the downtown. There were lots of food vendors, boutique booths and music, music, music.

Victoria in Black and White - Another Rattenbury

Today's photo provides a nice wrap-up to two photo series I've started in the last few weeks. Earlier in August we had a look at three of architect Francis Rattenbury's creations that frame Victoria's Inner Harbour. Nearby, there is a fourth, the Crystal Garden. Originally a swimming pool and recreation center, it is now a part of the Victoria Conference Centre. It is located at the bottom of Douglas Street, behind another Rattenbury building, the Empress Hotel. While not as monumental as the Empress Hotel, the CPR Terminal, or the Legislative Assembly Buildings, it is nonetheless an impressive building. It should be noted that Rattenbury designed The Crystal Garden and the CPR Terminal in conjunction with another architect, Percy James. This photo will also be the last in the series I started last week to explore black and white photography.

St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church

Here's a building whose lofty towers and turrets always give the Victoria Skyline a particular flavor. It's St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church on Douglas Street. It's a relic of Victoria's early days in the 19th century when churches were still of central social importance. Of course, more people lived downtown those days too so churches were built near what in those days were residential areas. Nowadays this church's neighbors are shops and businesses.

Mural

Here's a mural I have long enjoyed but never stopped to photograph before. It's on Douglas Street, Victoria's main thoroughfare, and depicts a coastal scene from pre-contact days, very appropriate for a marine supplies store.

Olive the Senses - Victoria Public Market 2

Here's another of the shops that have just opened in the new Victoria Public Market. This one is called Olive the Senses. This is a very specialized shop that sells only vinegar and olive oil, but it sells those two items in more varieties than you ever dreamed were possible and promises to open your taste buds to a whole new range of flavors. Click the photo to the left to read a bit more about this shop.

Victoria Public Market 1

I mentioned last week that Victoria's new public market just opened recently in the ground floor of The Hudson on Douglas Street. Here are a few glimpses of what's happening there. The directory above gives a good idea of the current tenants - a mix of trendy fast food purveyors and equally trendy condiment and deli style shops. On the left, some Pie Co. staff prepare take-away lunches for customers. On the right are a few of the delicious breads available at the French Oven Bakery. I'm going back there to get some of the pain au chocolat, fresh croissants too. Below, diners line up for Roast beef sandwiches from Roast. Other lunch stalls were just as busy. Tomorrow we'll have a look at Olive the Senses, a shop that sells only oil and vinegar.

The Hands of Time 4 - Carrying Point Blankets

Here's the final instance of The Hands of Time sculpture series, a dozen small sculptures by Crystal Przybille that depict life-size hands engaged in activities symbolic of Victoria's past. The hands above are carrying Point Blankets, a kind of blanket that was much treasured by indigenous peoples when the Hudson's Bay Company first began to trade on this coast. The placement of this particular sculpture is very fitting; it is located on The Hudson, a building that formerly was occupied by the Hudson Bay Company store, the retail descendant of the trading giant that brought these blankets to this coast. The sculpture is on one side of the entrance to what has just opened as Victoria's new public market on the ground floor of this building. We'll have a look inside the market next week. Click The Hands of Time if you want to see all twelve of these small sculptures.

Victoria Day Parade

The Victoria Day Parade took place on Monday the 20th of May although Queen Victoria's actual birthdate is today, May 24th. Her birthday and that of the current monarch, Queen Elizabeth, are now celebrated annually on the last Monday before May 25th. Queen Elizabeth's actual birthday is April 21. She was born in 1926 and so celebrated her 87th birthday this year. She has been on the throne for 61 years, a reign for a British monarch only exceeded in duration by Queen Victoria, who ruled for 63 years.

As usual there was a large variety of parade participants - community groups, floats and local and visiting marching bands and many of the pipe bands who came for the Highland Games also marched in the parade. The red building in the background for most of these photos is Victoria's City Hall, a Canadian National Historic Site, built in 1890.

The Daily Commute, Johnson Street and Douglas Street

So we here at Victoria Daily Photo Headquarters have been looking old photos of Victoria and what are the most interesting are the street scenes. The ordinary, nothing special photographs of what it looked like as people went about their daily lives. While this photo may not be exciting or beautiful I bet in a hundred years it might be fascinating to ponder the changes that will have taken place. - Fern

Silver Bells

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks
Dressed in holiday style
In the air there's a feeling
Of Christmas
Children laughing, people passing
Meeting smile after smile
And on every street corner you'll hear

Silver bells
Silver bells
It's Christmas time in the city
Ring-a-ling
Hear them ring
Soon it will be Christmas Day

Strings of streetlights, even stoplights
Blink of bright red and green
As the shoppers rush home with their treasures
Hear the snow crunch
See the kids bunch
This is Santa's big scene
And above all the bustle you'll hear

Silver bells
Silver bells
It's Christmas time in the city
Ring-a-ling, hear them ring
Soon it will be Christmas Day
Soon it will be Christmas Day

Douglas Sreet

Here's another look at downtown Victoria. This is the "main" street, Douglas Street, looking northwards from the corner of Fort and Douglas Streets. On the far right side can be seen Victoria's City Hall with its red tower. The large tan building on the left is the facade of the Bay Centre, our downtown mall.

Banks

Yesterday's photo was of the southwest corner of the Douglas and Fort Streets intersection. Today's photo is of the southeast corner of that intersection. These photos make me realize anew how important money is in our culture, not just as a means to get other things but in itself. I'm sure lots of profound things could be said about money but I'll leave that to people better informed than myself.

Downtown Street Scene

I usually photograph Victoria's downtown from some distance since I don't spend much time there in the city's businessy heart. Consequently I realized that visitors to this blog may get the impression that Victoria is all seaside walks, interesting birds, lovely parks, and that all life revolves around the Inner Harbour Causeway and its wonderful collection of Buskers and craftspeople. So, here is one of the busiest intersections in the city, where Douglas and Fort Streets cross. While it's not the most exciting downtown in the world, it does have the virtues of being comfortably safe (you can walk around anywhere without any problems) and more human in scale than other city downtowns (no buildings higher than 20 or 21 stories).

blah

Victoria is a lovely city. There are lots of tree-lined streets and well-kept homes. Little parks dot the neighborhoods and one is never far from the ocean or forested hills. And compared to many other cities in North America Victoria does not have much strip mall such as pictured above. These business oriented zones full of used car lots, fast food restaurants, inexpensive motels and malls encircled by vast blacktopped parking lots sometimes seem like something left over from the era of Willy Loman, a part of the city still struggling to get out of the '50s.

Coal in THEIR Stockings For Sure

Above, busy with a cell phone and an i-Pod, passersby fail to notice Mr. and Mrs. Santa strolling by on Victoria's Government Street.

Below, what looks like a normally busy day in downtown Victoria is a bit unusual because this was taken on a Sunday. Usually on a Sunday here there is very little traffic and few pedestrians. It's because of Christmas shopping, of course. How's yours coming?

Christmas Shopping

This post isn't so much about Christmas shopping as it is about our weather lately. In a word, it is wet. I tend to scuttle from place to place with my head down. Anyway, here's a shot of our main street, Douglas Street, at a downtown intersection on the 16th of December, 2009. I hope your Christmas shopping is going along OK.

The Falls

To continue with our look at some of the new condominiums that are being erected in Victoria I today post a photo of The Falls. It's quite a striking building right downtown on Victoria's main thoroughfare, Douglas Street, and within spitting distance of the Fairmont Empress Hotel and the Inner Harbour. It's called The Falls of course because of the 100 foot waterfall cascading down the sides of the building. I confess I missed it too the first time I photographed this building. In fact, when I got home and read the blurb on this building on their website, and looked at the artist's conception of the finished building, I decided that I had mistakenly photographed the wrong building. The next day I went back to find "The Falls" and took the above photograph. You actually can see the waterfall from this angle if you look closely. However, it is much more impressive in the artist's concept drawing and I suggest you go to their website and enjoy it there.

Sussex Place

The tallest building in the above photo is Sussex Place, one of my favorite downtown Victoria buildings. One reason I like it is that I have a fondness for art deco buildings. But I also like to see new buildings that echo or incorporate pre-existing heritage features. Sussex Place (the tower) was built in 1995 as part of a reworking of the old Sussex Hotel, originally erected in 1938. I also like Sussex Place because every time I've been there there were always people hanging out, drinking coffee, waiting for friends or shopping in the courtyard. You can read a little more about Sussex Place HERE. And, for those interested in architectural history of Victoria, there is an interesting short essay HERE.