Victoria BC Tourism

Lesson 2: About Victoria and District Municipalities

Learn all about Vancouver Island's southernmost municipality. Students will be using a map to visualize the locations of places of interest. Where applicable, links to corresponding websites will be included.

This is a brief overview of Victoria and surrounding district. The attractions of each area will be discussed in detail in future lessons.

Vancouver Island Overview

Photo courtesy of Howard Deutch of Garden Adventures
Vancouver Island
Please open the Vancouver Island Map By looking at the map, what are some general observations?

there are very few roads, this is due to the mountainous terrain
most of the populated areas are along shorelines
there is only one year-round crossing over to the west coast of Vancouver Island
roads that appear as a dotted line are only open during the summer
the islands are only accessible by ferry, there are no bridges
some of the islands lie south of the 49th parallel which is where the Canada-US border is drawn in the western part of North America

Vancouver Island is about 301 miles long and 60 miles at its widest point. The East Coast has a wide plain and this is where you will find the beaches. The mountains are situated in the center of the island. The West Coast is extremely rugged with numerous fjords making their way inland. There are few beaches on the West Coast; however, Pacific Rim Park has an expansive sandy beach on the open Pacific Ocean. The South Coast is lined with beaches, but more of a rugged nature due to cliffs where the mountains gradually descend into the water.

There are several points of entry to Vancouver Island:
Ferry
BC Ferries sail into Swartz Bay from Tsawassen (south of Vancouver)on the mainland. Swartz Bay is on the tip of the Saanich Peninsula. Victoria is a 25-minute drive south on the Patricia Bay Highway. This is also the ferry terminal for the Southern Gulf Islands. From Washington State, the Victoria Clipper and the Princess Marguerite III make several sailings a day between Seattle and Victoria. Black Ball Ferries has sailings from Port Angeles to Victoria. BC Ferries also sail into Naniamo from Horseshoe Bay (north of Vancouver) and from Tsawassen to Duke Point which is south of Namaimo. For travelers who are visiting the Sunshine Coast, there is BC Ferry Service from Powell River to Comox. Air
Scheduled flights are into Victoria International Airport, near Sidney, 26 kilometers north of Victoria. Floatplane service is direct to Victoria Harbor. Commuter plane service is available from Vancouver to Victoria, Nainamo, Courtney, Port Alberni and Campbell River. There is floatplane service between Victoria and most of the Gulf Islands.

Maps do not always give you a visual clue of distance, unless you calculate it using the map scale. Here is a list of driving times to the larger towns on the Island. In this example, Victoria has been used as the starting point because it's at the South End of the Island. Port Hardy is at the North End. From Victoria to:

Sooke - 45 mins
Port Renfrew - 1 hr 30 mins
Duncan - 45 mins
Nanaimo - 1 hr 30 mins
Courtney - 3 hrs
Campbell River - 3 hrs 30 mins
Tofino - 4 hrs 30 mins
Port Hardy - 6 hrs

Gulf Islands
Please open the East Coast Map If you look along the eastern shoreline of Vancouver Island, you will see the Gulf Islands hugging the shoreline stretching from Quadra Island in the North to Pender Island in the South. Although it is not shown on the map, all the larger islands have ferry service. It seems that the map only shows the major ferry routes which are indicated by the red dotted lines. The islands have rolling hills and small beaches nestled in coves.

Just to give you an idea of the topography of the Islands, here is a relief map. You can zoom in and out and change direction. As you can see, the highest elevations are in the center of Vancouver Island with the lowest elevations along the water. The elevations are color-coded on the map legend. Relief Map of British Columbia