Unknown Victoria

Victoria: The Unknown City is a guidebook to an eccentric town on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. This is the author's blog. Look here for Victoria lore, updates and additions to the book, and hate mail.


Saturday, January 01, 2000

Index of Previous Posts

LANDMARKS
The BC Experience (defunct tourist attraction)
The vanished Blanshard-Rose district
Caves and old copper mines
proposals to replace City Hall
Dominion Astrophysical Observatory
E&N Roundhouse
Immigration hall
Johnson Street Bridge and its possible replacements
Modernist houses
Ogden Point grain elevators
Songhees water tower
Tunnels and Under The Garden City film

TRANSPORTATION

The 1947 vote to remove the streetcars
The #400 streetcar, running in Nelson BC
CPR Steamship Terminal
Douglas Street
Electric cars
The Flying Firemen (1967 waterbomber crash)
The Malahat highway, and alternatives (bridge to Saanich)
Malahat road conditions
The Queen of Sidney (retired BC Ferries ship)
Roadways and paving (Waddington Alley)

SPORTS AND OUTDOORS
Al Howie (ultramarathon runner)
Boulevard trees (cherry and plum blossoms)
Cordova Bay
Elk/Beaver Lake Park
Halibut fishing
John Dean and his Provincial Park
Knockan Hill native legend
Record trees (tallest, widest, most unusual)
Seal hunting
Steve Nash
Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca

DINING
J.H. Todd and Sons (salmon-canning barons)
McMorran’s Beach House
Ogden Point Café
Summer 2006 Dining Update (Jamaican Jerk House, The Superior)
Tea and coffee

LITERATURE AND THE ARTS
Downtown’s ugliest mural
Graffiti (artist Hans Fear, Trackside gallery, Wild Fire bakery)
Rich Rico’s Westsong Walkway bench
Tzinquaw native opera

SHOPPING
Downtown’s old Public Market
Vancouver Island stamps

MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT
1929 video of Inner Harbour and Fernwood
Betty and Veronica
Cellphone towers
Country music (Tommy Hunter, Jake Rush, Ian Tyson)
Government music ("Follow The Birds," etc.)
Internet radio stations and podcasts
Movies filmed in Victoria (Vixen!, X-Men 2, etc.)
Vanishing locations of Five Easy Pieces
William Harbeck’s 1907 film (streetcars, Inner Harbour, Gorge)
William Harbeck’s strange biography

NIGHTLIFE
Beer and historic breweries
Harpo’s party house
Nightmares (downtown tourist attraction)

NOTORIETY
Francis Rattenbury murder
Frank Hertel and his 2009 arrest
JFK’s purported love child
Marilyn Monroe
Native Sons of British Columbia (secret society)
Paul Watson’s Sea Shepherd
Presidential visits (FDR, Nixon, Clinton)
Racism, xenophobia, and Doug Christie
Tallulah Bankhead
Thetis Lake monster

LIVING
Elsie Claxton’s lost Saanich words
Fire (First Nations use, famous buildings destroyed)
Municipal elections
Port Angeles (Victoria’s American neighbor) and Elwha dams
Post offices and postal service
Referendums (amalgamation, sewage treatment)
Sooke Lake water supply