…the Maritime Museum

The Maritime Museum of BC has been a fixture in Victoria since 1955. First located in Esquimalt (on the naval base), and then moving to Bastion Square in 1965. The Museum is now slated to move to the old CPR Steamship Terminal (the old site of the Wax Museum). But we don’t know for sure if it will move, as there seem to be difficulties around it securing a long-term lease in the building.

Some interesting notes:

• The Museum building in Bastion Square is the old Supreme Court Building, built in 1889, and closed in 1962
• The elevator in the Museum building is (was?) the oldest operating elevator in Victoria
• The Maritime Museum building in Bastion Square is known for its ghost(s), due to it being the site of the city’s first gallows (and supposedly hanged men are still buried beneath the old hanging site)

This time there is a very good reason for me NOT taking interior shots of the museum: it’s no longer there. But I have included a picture of its supposed new home, the CPR Steamship Terminal. We’ll see what happens…

Bastion Square

The old Supreme Court building – no ghosts sighted this morning

The remains of the Maritime Museum in Bastion Square

The obligatory plaques associated with the building and museum

Websites of Interest

• The Maritime Museum: http://mmbc.bc.ca/
• The Maritime Museum is on the move: http://www.timescolonist.com/victoria-s-maritime-museum-is-on-the-move-1.1431599
• Maritime Museum future uncertain: http://www.vicnews.com/news/295076461.html
• The Maritime Museum at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_Museum_of_BC
• Bastion Square history of the Courthouse: http://bastionsquare.ca/bastion-square-history/legal-professional-era-1889-1961/
• Ghosts of Bastion Square: http://www.vanisleparanormal.ca/bastion-square-and-helmcken-alley/

Part of the April A to Z Challenge.

…the Legislative buildings

I will NOT call them the Parliament buildings, although they are called as such on other websites. Sorry, the Parliament buildings are in Ottawa!

Built between 1893 and 1989, the current BC Legislative Buildings replaced a series of small buildings called the Birdcages (apparently because of their shape – you can see pictures of them at the BC Archives http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/cgi-bin/www2i/.visual/img_med/dir_102/a_02776.gif) which lined Government Street.

The BC Legislative Buildings in Victoria (which is the capital of BC) are where our provincial Legislature sits and governs.  I’m not going to give a lesson on Canadian provincial politics, and I won’t talk to the specific politics that go on within these buildings. Especially not present-day politics. I always have something to say about the politics in BC, but today is not the time! What I will note are some interesting facts about the buildings themselves:

• The lights. Kevin hates the lights, but the iconic photo of the Leg is at a nighttime shot (see below) with the white lights that have illuminated it since, apparently, 1897 (before it was finished).
• There are sculptures of people all around the buildings. According to Wikipedia, there are 14 figures around the library, and “twelve figures of women, all allegorical, three around each of the building’s four domes.^”
• The gold guy at the top of the centre dome is Captain George Vancouver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Vancouver)
• And just in case you are a choir wanting to perform at the Leg, remember that: Choirs performing in the Upper Rotunda are restricted to weekdays, from 12:00 – 1:00 pm, during September to April and are not permitted indoors during the summer season. Choirs are restricted to 50 in number. And choirs must perform without musical accompaniment. (https://www.leg.bc.ca/info/2-9.htm)

Now for the photo tour (all exterior…sorry) – much of it around the back where there are some interesting things I’ve never really looked at before.

Coming up from the front

There is always a war memorial

And now walking up the side

The view back to the street

Walking around to the back.  Why?  I don’t know.  I’ve never really walked around the back before…In the first picture below you can see the lights on the side of the building.

There are some first responders monuments

This is the library

You can see the figures up high

And an explanation below about who is whom

And the fountain behind the library surrounded by animals important to the indigenous peoples of BC

And, for whatever reason, the Speaker’s Chair!

And now, the Leg at night (not my shot…)

By Karl Stevens (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Victoria_-_BC_Legislature_building_and_fountain_at_night.jpg

Websites of interest

• BC Parliament Buildings at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_Parliament_Buildings
• BC Parliament Buildings at Tourism Victoria: http://www.tourismvictoria.com/listings/British-Columbia-Parliament-Buildings/64427/
• BC Legislature at Historic Places: http://historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=1634
• Parliament Buildings at the Travel and Adventure Guide: http://www.victoriabc.ca/victoria/parliamentbuildings.htm
• Parliament Buildings at Explore Vancouver Island: http://www.explorevancouverisland.com/parliament_buildings_victoria_bc.htm
• Public Use of Legislative Grounds: https://www.leg.bc.ca/info/2-9.htm
• List of BC Premiers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premiers_of_British_Columbia

…the Janion Hotel(?)

The Janion (Hotel) is definitely a landmark here in Victoria, especially among locals. Everyone knows the Janion, but I wonder how many know about its history. The Janion was indeed a hotel, built in 1891. But it wasn’t a hotel for long. In fact, “The hotel lacked a liquor licence, limiting prospects in rough-and-tumble Victoria, and shut down less than a year after the first guest checked in.” (http://carlykb.com/gateway/?p=924, and I’ve read this elsewhere in the past).

Since then, the building has been used for many things, including “the business office of the E & N Railway, a warehouse for B. Wilson & Co. Storage, a cold storage facility for the B.C. Cold Storage, Ice and Produce Company, and the facility for Lake of the Woods Milling Company” (http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=6057) You can read more about its history in a Times Colonist article from 2008: http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/story.html?id=f8c19f43-f3d0-4645-bbd5-742f6c54e101l

The Janion was abandoned sometime in the 1960s or 1970s and has been standing vacant and boarded up ever since. In 1995, just as the owners at the time were trying to get a demolition permit to get rid of the building, the Janion was granted status as a Historic Place in Canada. And recently (and finally!) it was bought by a developer who is going to convert it to downtown living. Micro-condos and commercial, as is the trend out here these days. It is scheduled to be completed sometime in 2016, I believe.

Some of my drive-by pics…

And here is one taken by someone else, but that I thought was a better view of the whole place than I managed to get (because I was lazy…)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Janion_Hotel,_Victoria,_B.C..jpg
By Mlon1971 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Interesting Websites

• The Janion at Historic Places: http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=6057
• Times Colonist article: http://www.timescolonist.com/business/a-glimpse-inside-the-old-janion-hotel-building-1.341845
• The Janion 1891: http://www.quintinwinks.com/2011/02/janion-1891.html
• The Janion at Island Images blog (great photos here): http://carlykb.com/gateway/?p=924
• You can get a glimpse of the future here at Janion 2013: http://www.janion2013.com/
• Victoria’s historic Janion building will once again be ‘a hive … of people’: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/victorias-historic-janion-building-will-once-again-be-a-hive-of-people/article4299533/