Victoria Audio Tours

Victoria, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, began as Fort Victoria in 1843, a Hudson's Bay Company trading post on a rocky Pacific inlet. When gold was discovered on the Fraser River in 1858 and the population of the settlement leapt from 300 to over 5,000 in a matter of days, Victoria became the supply point for the rush and eventually the capital of British Columbia when the province joined Canadian Confederation in 1871. The city that resulted from this history has a quality that surprises people who arrive expecting Canada's Pacific coast: it looks, feels, and operates more like a piece of Edwardian England than anything else in North America.

The Parliament Buildings completed in 1897, the Empress Hotel opened by Canadian Pacific Railway in 1908, the Craigdarroch Castle built by coal baron Robert Dunsmuir in the 1880s, and the Inner Harbour around which the whole city orients itself, where float planes and whale-watching vessels depart and the double-decker bus tours begin, are all managing a version of Britain that Britain itself has largely moved past.

The second-oldest Chinatown in North America, established in the 1850s, occupies a few blocks near the Inner Harbour with the famous Gate of Harmonious Interest marking its entrance. Victoria's Chinatown was the largest in Canada during the late 19th century and retains its Fan Tan Alley, said to be the narrowest commercial street in Canada.