Getting to Know Victoria

To realize Victoria, you must take all that the eye admires most in Bournemouth, Torquay, the Isle of Wight, the Happy Valley at Hong Kong, the Doon, Sorrento and Camps Bay; add reminisces of the Thousand Islands, and arrange the whole round the Bay of Naples, with some Himalayas in the background.

-- Rudyard Kipling, after visiting the city around 1908

Okay, so he was a writer and prone to exaggeration, but Rudyard Kipling wasn't too far off the mark. If you want to experience Victoria as Kipling saw it, head over to the Bengal Lounge in The Fairmont Empress, sink into a leather armchair, and order a drink. Overhead, breezes gently waft down from the old ceiling fans, while the light from the roaring fire sparkles off the glass eyeballs of the poor Bengal tiger mounted above the mantelpiece. In this time-warped atmosphere, you might think you're in colonial India or some outpost of the empire on the edge of an unknown territory . . . Except that your drink might be a fluorescent blue martini, the music from the sound system is mellow jazz, and the coats piled up on a nearby armchair are made of Gore-Tex and fleece instead of wool or oilskin.

And that's Victoria, or at least one part of it: a little patch of the former British Empire wading into the shoals of a highly internationalized 21st century, and doing it with an appealing vitality that tweaks nostalgia for the past with a thoroughly modern sensibility. Even though they're in British Columbia, some people traveling here don't "get" the British part. Just what is this tie that Victoria has to England?

First of all, the entire region was once claimed by the British (among others), and came under British rule in the mid-19th century, when the Strait of Juan de Fuca became one of the new dividing lines between the U.S. and Canada. Victoria really was a British colony, Which goes a long way to explain why a statue of Queen Victoria, the city's namesake, stands in front of the Provincial Legislature building (which some still insist on calling "Parliament"). With colonyhood (and a big gold rush) came colonists, who imported British customs and brought a kind of domesticating Old World sensibility to their wild, New World home. They thought they were bringing civilization, but that wasn't how the First Nations tribes that had been in the area for at least 8,000 years saw it.

British patriotism and customs might have faded away altogether except that in the 1920s, Victoria's population began to drop as business shifted over to Vancouver. Local merchants panicked. And it was then that San Francisco-born George Warren of the Victoria Publicity Bureau put forward his proposal: Sell the Olde England angle.

Warren had never been to England and had no idea what it looked like, but to him, Victoria seemed "English." To the city's merchants, Warren's scheme seemed like just the thing, and for three-plus generations it served the city well. While other places (including Vancouver) were leveling their "old" downtowns in the name of urban renewal, Victoria nurtured and preserved its heritage buildings, adding gardens and city parks. Eventually it possessed that rarest of commodities for a North American city -- a lively, walkable, historic city center.

True, the "let's pretend we're in England" mindset meant ignoring certain details. Whales sometimes swam into the Inner Harbour; snowcapped mountain peaks loomed just across the water from Ross Bay; and trees in the surrounding forests towered far higher than Big Ben. So be it. It worked, and it didn't turn into Disneyland in the process.

As in Vancouver, you'll be amazed at how nice the people of Victoria are. Of course, you'd be nice, too, if you lived in such a pleasant place surrounded by such generous doses of natural beauty. Victoria, after all, with a population of about 325,000, occupies just a tiny corner of an island one-fifth the size of England but far more wild -- so wild, in fact, that parts of it still have no roads and the only way to get around is by boat or on foot.

Speaking of boats: As an essential ingredient in Victoria's generous allotment of maritime charm, they also help to explain why the people who live and work here live such a leisurely pace. The modern anxiety that comes from clogged traffic arteries and bumper-to-bumper commutes simply does not exist in Victoria. Instead of road rage, Victoria residents have "ferry stress." In order to get on or off their island, they have to take a ferry (or a floatplane). And gliding through the waters of the Pacific Northwest, with mountains gleaming and orcas (maybe) splashing, is not the same as driving along a freeway. Getting to Victoria is half the fun, especially if you take one of the ferries that wind through the beautiful Gulf Islands. During your stay, you'll be pleasantly aware of all kinds of marine activity. In the summer, of course, Victoria is a major port of call for cruise ships.

The city is one thing, its location something else. Only in the past decade or so has Victoria finally begun to understand its stunning physical surroundings. Whale-watching is now a major industry; kayak tours are becoming ever more popular; mountainbikes have taken to competing for road space with the bright-red double-decker tour buses; ecotourism is big; and "outdoor adventures" are available in just about every form you can think of. Your trip will be even more memorable if you move a bit beyond Tourist Central (the Inner Harbour area) and put yourself in touch with Mother Nature.

Afterward, you can sip a lovely cream tea or a fluorescent blue martini.