Day 1 (September 16, 2021): Victoria

Covid's year-and-a-half of 'staying put' has left of us in catch-up mode on travel this summer.  So we decided to head to the west coast this morning for a five-day visit to Vancouver Island.  Up at 3:30 AM, on a flight at 5:45 AM, and landing in Victoria at 11 AM, it has been a 22-hour day, as I write this up.  But what a great day, too!  We couldn't have asked for a better, more sunny September 16th here.  (Which was welcomed, given the four days of heavy rain that are in the forecast for the rest of our time here.)

We went directly from Victoria Airport to the home of a friend and former colleague, who spoiled us with a great lunch.  Then we headed to Victoria's historic Inner Harbour to see the sights for which the city is best-known.  By late afternoon, we were really feeling the four-hour time change.  A simple dinner at the west-coast chain restaurant, Red Robin, where vaccine passports were rigorously verified, and then we called it a day.

Tomorrow we head up-Island to Campbell River, with a few stops enroute.  Rain or no rain, we are really looking forward to our days on Vancouver Island!

The sun was just rising over the horizon as we landed at Toronto's Pearson Airport and taxied to the terminal.

On a planet where a 5-hour flight can take you from one continent to another, it is quite incredible that a Canadian 5-hour flight - such as the nonstop distance from Toronto to Victoria - only takes you 2/3 of the way across our land!

We were shocked at the brown, dry prairie of Saskatchewan, after one of the worst drought summers in decades.  But more shocking were the blobs of white that we saw.  We assume it was prairie salt ponds.

The snow-capped Rockies precisely on the Alberta-BC border.

The San Juan Islands in the Strait of Juan da Fuca, just south of Vancouver Island, are American territory.

The Strait of Juan de Fuca, between the mainland and Vancouver Island, is littered with anchored cargo ships.

Upon approach into Victoria Airport, the view below was of a stunningly beautiful, lush landscape.

The same Air Canada Boeing 737 Max 8 took us from Halifax to Toronto and then Toronto to Victoria.

The incredible lunch spread that our friend, Maria Barnes, had prepared for us when we arrived at her home in the middle of her busy day.

It was wonderful to see Maria after many years!  Maria and her husband lived in Halifax in the early 2000s, where she and I worked together at Health Canada.

The famous 'Welcome to Victoria' floral sign in Victoria's Inner Harbour.

The famous Fairmont Empress Hotel is always the perfect place to start a visit to Victoria's Inner Harbour.  Afternoon Tea starts at $89 per person.

Floral orcas in Victoria's Inner Harbour.

Overlooking Victoria's Inner Harbour, the Parliament Buildings (construction started in 1893) are located in the traditional territories of the Lekwungen people.

Childrens' shoes and stuffed toys on the steps of the Parliament Buildings, in honour of the graves found in Kamloops earlier this summer.

The statue of Queen Victoria on the grounds of the Parliament Buildings.

Totem pole on the grounds of the Parliament Buildings.

The War Memorial on the grounds of the Parliament Buildings.

Statue of Emily Carr (1871 – 1945) at the entrance to the grounds of the Empress Hotel.  Emily Carr was a Canadian artist and writer who was inspired by the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. She was one of the painters in Canada to adopt a Modernist and Post-Impressionist style.

Talk about burying your head in the sand (or the mud)!  This Canada Goose was neck-deep in the mud of the Parliament Buildings' lawn.

Victoria's Inner Harbour is also an airport!  Harbour Air has continual float-plane flights back and forth to Vancouver's downtown.

Beacon Hill Park is Victoria's largest.  There, you can find this statue of Terry Fox, who was from Victoria, and whose 1981 run from Newfoundland to Ontario still inspires Canadians deeply.

Built by coal baron Robert Dunsmuir during the reign of Queen Victoria and now a National Historic Site, Craigdarroch Castle shows what privileged BC life was like in the 1890s.  Dunsmuir, however, died before the castle was completed in 1890.

The entrance to Victoria's China Town.