Sundown

The old court house catches the last rays of the setting sun in old town.

Maritime Museum

Bastion Square is a treasure trove of heritage buildings but surely my favorite is the Maritime Museum. It's a great little museum that was formerly the Supreme Court (erected 1889) and when you've had a good taste of the maritime treasures of the museum, the well-preserved court room on the upper floor is well worth a visit.

Maritime Museum

Here's a pair of visitors strolling through Bastion Square with the Maritime Museum in the background. It's a great place to spend a few hours - there's lots of general nautical history but a great deal of local history as well. The building itself was the infant city's first courthouse in the 19th century, presided over by the famous Judge Begbie. You can still visit the upstairs courtroom and you might get to see or hear the ghost....

Bastion Square

While the rest of the country seems to be experiencing extremes of weather - snow in some areas and heat waves in others, Victoria's temperatures have been on the cool side - it's not t-shirt and shorts weather yet although it is warming up. Bars and restaurants have opened up their outside patios and lots of locals and visitors are taking advantage of what sunshine there is such as the patrons of the Irish Times Pub at the entrance to Bastion Square in the photo above. Another sign of coming summer can be seen below in the arrival of backpackers (below right) - as sure a sign of the season as the cruise ships pictured yesterday.

Boy William Wallace

The Maritime Museum of BC is not just a collection of artifacts. They do an excellent job of bringing us closer to the people who are represented by the historical objects and documents, as in the display below.

An ornate scroll beside this photo identifies the young subject as "Boy William Wallace" of the Royal Canadian Navy and states, "He whom this scroll commemorates was numbered among those who, at the call of King and Country, left all that was dear to them, endured hardness, faced danger, and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice, giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom. Let those who come after see to it that his name be not forgotten."

Below is the ship on which this young sailor served, the Auxiliary Patrol Ship Galiano. "On October 30, 1918 while carrying supplies northward for the Triangle Island Lighthouse crew, situated 14 miles off the northern tip of Vancouver Island, GALIANO was caught in a fierce storm and foundered. All 40 aboard were lost. Among the crew of officers and men was Boy Seaman William Wallace."
All the information in this post is from displays in the Maritime Museum of British Columbia and should not be used or reproduced elsewhere without their permission.

Maritime Museum of British Columbia

My recent visit to the Royal BC Museum reminded me that I had long promised myself another visit to the Maritime Museum of BC, located in Bastion Square. It's the large cream building with the green and white trim pictured above. On the left is a small sample of the fascinating displays inside the museum. It is a chair made in 1692 from timbers of a ship wrecked during the battle of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Historical objects such as this make history seem real in a way that mere words on paper never can. There's many more displays relating to ships and the sea and local maritime history that I'll share with you over the next few days. I posted another photo of the Maritime Museum HERE, taken last year during balmier weather.

Maritime Museum

Bastion Square has numerous heritage buildings but the grandest is the old court house, pictured above. It served as court house from 1889 to 1962 and is now home to the Maritime Museum of British Columbia. It was designed by Hermann Otto Tiedemann and incorporates "...several styles ranging from renaissance revival to neo-baroque." The quote is from Danda Humphreys' fascinating book, "Building Victoria: Men, Myths, and Mortar."Tiedemann also designed the Fisgard Lighthouse. The old courthouse is an evocative piece of local history in itself but the exhibits inside relating to coastal maritime history are equally interesting. When the weather stops being so nice we will take a look inside. If you enjoyed yesterday's panoramic view of Victoria, take a look at what the Maritime Museum offers by clicking HERE. For now, I'm off to the Vic West Corn Roast, today from 12 til 4.

Young Violinists - Bastion Square

Bastion Square seems to attract violinists. These two, while providing excellent entertainment, were probably not licensed because of their youth. However, it seems a good and harmless way for young performers to earn a little spare change and gain some experience in the challenges of playing for the public (see short video below).
Below is a 40 second sample of the music these kids were playing. It seemed particularly appropriate for the nautical flavour of Bastion Square (that's an old light house light beside them and the Maritime Museum behind them on their right.)

Violinist - Bastion Square

Downtown today to photograph one of Victoria's mechanical street clocks but got sidetracked about three times on the way there. Bastion Square was decked out for spring and this street musician was seated in front of his home at the Lighthouse Gallery. He can be seen in the broader context of Bastion Square at the bottom right of the photo below.
The second digression today was a visit to the Maritime Museum, just visible through the branches of the tree on the left. I was stunned by the range of interesting artifacts and information there AND one can take photographs so....

Bastion Square is not so much a square as a series of pedestrian-only open spaces running from Government Street down to Wharf Street (two blocks). At this time of year craftsmen and artists stalls here mingle with art galleries, sidewalk cafes and bars. It is the site of the original Fort Victoria and is intimately associated with the history and development of the city. We'll be visiting it often over the next months since nearly every building has a story to tell.