BY YAM STAFF | ILLUSTRATIONS BY JANICE HILDYBRANT
Here’s what makes us glad to live here right now.
Let’s be honest. We have so many people from around the world singing Greater Victoria’s praises that we’re almost a little embarrassed to add to the chorus.
Among other accolades, Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards has named Victoria the world’s best small city and its friendliest one, too. Good Housekeeping’s Family Travel Awards called Victoria its Must See City, USA Today listed us in its top 10 Coolcation Destinations and, according to the Global Destination Sustainability Index, Victoria is also North America’s most sustainable destination.
Not bad, right? But what all those visitors see is the picture-postcard city, with its beautiful gardens, charming architecture and excellent weather (most of the time, anyway). And while we love all that stuff, too, we also appreciate the sometimes ordinary, sometimes quirky features of a place where we actually live.
Here are the 25 things we’re loving the most about our city right now.
Our otter friends
Every city has its urban wildlife — Toronto its thuggish trash pandas, New York its pizza-stealing rats, Vancouver its knife-wielding crows — but Victoria is uniquely blessed with peacocks, bunnies, the occasional cougar and deer, so many deer, the bane of every gardener’s existence. But our favourite furry friend? The river otter, as fierce as it is adorable. If you’re lucky, you can see a romp of otters holding hands in the Inner Harbour or hanging around most of the city beaches.
Our big love for bees
Victoria is all abuzz about our pollinator pals, especially the busy bees that produce honey in beehives everywhere from neighbourhood backyards to the Fairmont Empress and the family-friendly Country Bee Farm. To encourage bees to stick around, this city has become a paradise of pollinator gardens, ranging from the 10 planted by local Butterfly Rangers to the massive 1,100-square-metre one planted in 2022 at the Victoria International Airport, a joint effort led by FED Urban Agriculture. Now that’s sweet.
Our mellow mascot
Since he emerged from the underwater depths six years ago, Pacific FC’s mascot Stewie the Starfish has become a friendly and very, very purple presence at Starlight Stadium. The littles — of whom there are many at each Canadian Premier League soccer game — love him, and now they can even join his club. Stewie’s Kids Club was launched last December to give kids aged three to 12 an affordable way to enjoy the games while instilling in them a love of footie and the local team. Go, Tridents!
Our groovy garlic guy
If you think garlic is just that bland stuff from the supermarket, Derek Powell would like to have a word. He’s been producing garlic for the last decade or so under the name West Coast Garlic, and now grows up to 170 different strains on the Saanich Peninsula. They range from sweet, mild, softneck varieties to the spicy, complex, hardneck Porcelain, Music or Red Russian. Powell is happy to tell you which is better for pesto, salad or roasting alongside your leg of lamb. Just ask him at his regular stall at the Moss Street or Esquimalt Market. Pro tip: Pick up a jar of his bespoke garlic powder while you’re there. Chef’s kiss.
Our gooiest grilled gheese
We love a good toasted sandwich, especially when it’s luscious with melty cheese, so we are always ready for a trip out to Sidney and The Farmer’s Daughter. This heavenly cheese shop/wine-and-cheese bar serves up four different grilled cheese sandwiches, including the gloriously gooey triple-cheese melt with herb butter and honey drizzle. Best enjoyed with a wine flight like the Great Gatsby lineup of sparkling wines.
Our steamy situation
We simply cannot get enough of saunas in this town, whether it’s the HAVN floating sauna in the harbour, Ritual Nordic Spa right downtown, the cozy Wildwood Saunas at Bilston Creek Farm or the one that’s probably over there in your neighbour’s backyard. Now there’s a new one steaming up the place: This spring, Oak Bay Beach Hotel is opening a sumptuous sauna with a glass roof that offers beautiful starlight views.
Our time warp
Not just a jump to the left and a step to the right, there is, apparently, an actual time warp in Greater Victoria. Multiple sources report experiencing a sort of vortex on Shelbourne Street near Hillside Mall (according to rumour, it’s most likely around Pearl Street). Drivers heading along Shelbourne have suddenly found themselves on an unpaved country road surrounded by farm fields as they might have done a century or more ago — then just as suddenly found themselves back on the modern, paved, city street. Mind you, it apparently only happens between 2 and 3 a.m. on Sunday mornings in October when the driver is the lone occupant in the vehicle, so …
Our artful past and present
The streets of Victoria are a gallery of Coast Salish public art that’s free for everyone to enjoy. All around the Inner Harbour and throughout downtown you will find works by both established and rising Indigenous artists. Some, like Thunderbird House, are hard to miss; others, like Brianna Bear’s lamppost hummingbirds, need a keen eye to spot. Among the artworks of note: Chris (IceBear) Johnson’s “Four Winds” sculpture of Mother Earth on Mermaid Wharf; the “Two Brothers” Spirit Poles in Centennial Square, by Lekwungen master carver Clarence (Butch) Dick and his son, Clarence Dick Jr.; “Woven Together,” a colourful installation on the exterior of the Johnson Street parkade, by Musqueam artists Susan Point and her son Thomas Cannell; the etched-glass Inner Harbour marina gates by John and Lajah Warren; the powerful and moving mural of sisiyutł, the Two-Headed Sea Serpent, by Kwakwaka’wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth artist Alex Taylor-McCallum for the Cool-Aid Society on Pandora Street.
Our perfect puzzles
During the pandemic, when we were all spending far too much time doomscrolling, Tinka Robev and Andrew Azzopardi distracted themselves by making beautiful, heirloom-quality jigsaw puzzles that also showcased Canadian artists. Among them is artist Sharon Lam’s whimsical depiction of Victoria itself, with more than 20 pieces representing classic landmarks including a Victoria Harbour Ferry, totem pole, peacock, orca and juggler. Now what they called Puzzle Lab has become so successful, it recently opened a new gallery and store on Government Street.
Our love of words
We love the printed word in Victoria, as evidenced by our terrific local bookstores (including Munro’s, Russell Books, Bolen’s and Tanner’s in Sidney), our more than 850 little free libraries and the growing Victoria Festival of Authors in October. This is also a great city for writers, including novelists Esi Edugyan, Jean Paetkau, Robert Wiersema, Tara Moss and Kit Pearson, playwright Mark Leiren-Young and poet Steven Price, among many others.
Our floral bouquet
From its grand public gardens to its hanging baskets, its springtime cherry blossoms and the hellebores that bloom in the depth of winter, Victoria is a bower of blossoms for much of the year. This March the annual Greater Victoria Flower Count celebrated its 50th birthday and tallied up an impressive 44 billion blossoms, most of them (30,328,028,034, to be exact) in the City of Victoria itself. But perhaps our favourite fleurs are the ones we find at the honour farmstands, the lilacs in spring, dahlias in fall, which are all ours for a handful of spare change.
Our cool sounds
Live music may have hit a sour note in other towns, but not here in Greater Victoria. From our pubs to The Coda, a new live-music venue upstairs from Hermann’s Jazz Club, there’s always someone cool playing something hot. And then there are the music fests that have us grooving all summer long. Among this year’s highlights: an extended Symphony Splash! in the Inner Harbour, kicking off the Victoria Symphony’s 85th season, the brand-new Victoria Folk Music Festival on July 5 and Rifflandia, one of Western Canada’s longest-running large-scale music and arts festivals, which brings its epically eclectic lineup of names big and small, local and international, back to Victoria in September.
Our chocolate evangelists
Canada’s first chocolatier, Charles (Candy) Rogers, began making his confections in 1885 in the back of his Victoria grocery store. That Rogers’ Chocolates is still selling its creams and squares 140 years later would be enough chocolatey goodness for most towns. But we also have The Chocolate Project, where David Mincey curates and sells chocolate from more than 60 bean-to-bar artists from around the world, plus Sirene Chocolate from local bean-to-bar specialist Taylor Kennedy, as well as chocolatiers RockCoast Confections, Roxy’s Chocolate, Chocolat & Co., Terrible Truffles and Uncouth Chocolate.
Our little community parks
Wherever you are in Greater Victoria, you are never far from a public green space. There are 48 regional, provincial and federal parks from Sooke to Sidney, while the City of Victoria alone has more than 138 parks and open spaces. The most famous is the vast and amenity-rich Beacon Hill Park, but we especially love the dozens of small, quirky community parks tucked into odd little spaces, such as the Begbie Green triangle between Shelbourne, Begbie and Pembroke streets, the very urban Bay and Government Parkette or the tiny Adanac Green strip. Our favourite, though, might just be Summit Park just off Finlayson near Cook, where you will find a traditional Garry oak ecosystem, the rare yellow montane violet and, come May, thousands of camas flowers in bloom.
Our call for bubbles
We almost don’t want to share this exciting news because we want to keep it all to ourselves, but there is a place in town where you can press a button and someone will bring you a glass or, if you prefer, a bottle of Champagne. That place is the new Rabbit Rabbit wine bar on Herald Street, where two tables feature the Champagne buttons. The bubbles, by the way, pair beautifully with chef Billy Nguyen’s proper English chips.
Our pinball wizardry
Buzzes, bells, lights a-flashing — wizards can play the silver ball and enjoy a terrific slice of pie at one of Canada’s largest pinball arcades, courtesy of the folks at Quazar’s Arcade. At Pinhalla Pinball Pizzeria, 33 machines await wizard-wannabes, along with thick, chewy, irresistible Sicilian-meets-New-York-style pizza and specialty cocktails like the Pinhalla Shaft.
Our historic temple
The Tam Kung Temple, perched on the top floor of a building in Chinatown, is the oldest Chinese temple in Canada. It was originally built in 1876 as a shrine for a wooden statue of the sea deity Tam Kung, which was brought to Victoria by a Hakka prospector during the 1860s gold rush. In 1912, the wooden structure that housed it on Fisgard Street was replaced by the current four-storey brick building designed by architect Wilfrid Lord Watkins Hargreaves. In February, the temple was named a National Historic Site, joining Victoria’s Chinatown and the Chinese Cemetery at Harling Point. For a large-scale, 24/7 view of the cultural artifacts within the temple, check out the very cool mural on the side of the building.
Our waterfront walks
With its inlets, islets, watersheds, beaches, bays and the extensive Gorge Waterway, Greater Victoria has an astounding 3,460 kilometres of shoreline, about the same distance as the crow flies from Vancouver to Toronto. Much of this diverse landscape is walkable, along paths, trails, boardwalks and breakwaters. For an easy stroll with spectacular water views, check out the Dallas Road Waterfront Trail, Westsong Walkway, Victoria Inner Harbour Trail or Ogden Point Breakwater.
Our best comeback (now serving brunch)
The Bengal is back! Long one of the city’s favourite watering holes, this graceful and airy lounge at the Fairmont Empress shuttered when the property was renovated in 2017 and Q Bar opened in its stead. This spring, The Bengal returns, this time as a breakfast restaurant. We’ll still miss that curry buffet, but if new executive chef Isabel Chung is overseeing the breakfast bennies, we’re happy to join the lineup.
Our perky parking app
We know, we know: Getting around this place isn’t always easy, and neither is finding parking. But you have to admit that the ParkVictoria app makes it a whole lot simpler and is also a little bit adorable with that cute “beep-beep” letting you know that time is up. Plus it will politely only charge you for the time you actually parked in a spot and allow you to extend your stay by a few minutes if you’re running late. Consider it the antidote to road rage.
Our feisty first lady of art
If it wasn’t true, you couldn’t make up a story like Emily Carr’s. Born in 1871 to a prosperous Victoria merchant family, she became, over her life, a painter, explorer, teacher, animal lover, writer and boarding-house landlady. She showed her art alongside the Group of Seven, who called her “one of us,” hung out with the modernists in Paris, was at home among the towering totems of Haida Gwaii and won the Governor General’s Literary Award for her first book, Klee Wyck. She died in 1945, represented Canada posthumously in its first participation at the Venice Biennale and is memorialized along with her dog Billie and monkey Woo in an Inner Harbour statue called Our Emily.
Our loveliest loo
There are many reasons to fall for Janevca Kitchen, the new restaurant at the painstakingly renovated Rosemead House in Esquimalt. There’s the vintage furniture, the spreading tree in the dining room and chef Andrea Alridge’s exceptional wood-fired cooking. And then there are the absolutely stunning restrooms. Downstairs, in a pretty tiled space, you’ll find mahogany-lidded toilets painted with flowers. But the real showstopper is the floor-to-ceiling art piece of a Renaissance gentlewoman with LED strip lighting by Grifflyn Electric spelling out a quote from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII: “O beauty till now I never knew thee.”
Our glamorous grocery
If you consider grocery shopping a chore, you clearly have not been picking up your pasta and produce at The Market Garden in Vic West. It’s quite possibly Canada’s most romantic grocery store. In an ambience all decked out with art, antiques, chandeliers and a baby grand piano, you can find beautiful arrangements of gourmet chocolate, olive oil, pasta, tinned fish, spices, cheese, fancy fruit and other delicacies, including a cellar of non-alcoholic products. The best day to visit? Christmas Day, when it becomes a deliciously chic and festive party.
Our dance moves
You’d think that having a fleet of pickle boats that performs a daily water ballet would be enough for one small city. But no. Victoria jetés well above the crowd thanks to Dance Victoria, a non-profit charitable organization that both brings the world’s best dancers to town and develops new ones right here. Among other things, it commissions brand-new works, leads the 10-day Dance Days festival in late January and awards Canada’s largest annual prize for emerging and independent dance artists. With support like this, it’s little wonder that Victoria is hometown to renowned hoofers like the famous choreographer Crystal Pite.
Our coffee connoisseurship
To the rest of the world, Victoria may be known for afternoon tea, but locals know that what we really crave is a cuppa joe — preferably locally roasted from ethically sourced beans and carefully brewed by one of our great independent coffee shops. For a small city, Victoria is extraordinarily well caffeinated with an abundance of roasters, including: FIX!, Bows, Black Bear, Mile Zero, Discovery, Caffe Fantastico, 2% Jazz, Esquimalt Roasting Company, Level Ground and the OG, the cozy, cash-only, family-owned Yoka’s, which has been roasting beans in North Park since 1983.