Dr. Butorac

HIST 3991_SW3 Environmental History

Sky Freeman

I am currently living in downtown Victoria, on View St. which is a just couple blocks off the main road. My apartment building is attached to a shopping complex. There is a local grocery store as well as a London drugs and though the area is older the building itself is quite new it’s only about 20 years old. Despite this, the entire block will be demolished in the next few years to make a 23-storey rental structure with commercial shopping in the bottom 4 floors. Due to the area having received a walking score of 98, cycling score of 98 and a transit score of 92, the new building plans are offering bicycle storage and EVO memberships in lieu of physical parking stalls. Though I am skeptical that this will be beneficial to those current scores for the area, the focus away from fossil fuel usage and promotion of greener transportation is a positive overall in my opinion.

But long before I arrived in Victoria and for thousands of years before contact with European explorers, the Lukwungen People hunted and gathered in the area, as well as employing management of the land through means such as burning to promote berry growth as well as cultivation of other food crops. These hunting practices also employed the use of canoes made from large, hollowed out logs that allowed for the hunting of sea life such as cetaceans and, seals and sea lions. From the beginning of contact with the European explorers, settlers and fur traders, the local Lukwungen People were affected horrendously by disease, with the deaths of up to two thirds of the indigenous peoples from smallpox of which the Victoria area was an epicentre (Wonders, 2010).

The first known European to set foot on the local area in 1778, Captain James Cook with a particular interest in the local trees such as Douglas Fir being so large and straight, they could be used to replace ship masts (Kuskowski, 2016). There was a period where slowly the fur trade advanced into the area, resulting in the Hudson Bay Company to establish a fort, Fort Albert before it was changed to honor the Queen Victoria. The Hudson Bay Company received a Royal Grant to colonize the whole of Vancouver Island in Jan 1849, helping to add legitimate claim for the British in their holdings north of the 49^th parallel. With the establishment of the fort, the Lukwungen Peoples set up their own settlement on the opposite side of the bay, known as Esquimalt, with a population of about 700 people in the area in 1845 (Wonders, 2010).  By 1850, the area had become a crown colony with a Governor, and 4 years later the colony numbered 230. This small little community was changed forever with the discovery of gold in the Cariboo of British Columbia, and the colony being the nearest ocean port, with Esquimalt Bay serving as a natural harbour, and outfitting center. It is said the within the first few weeks of people in the pursuit of gold, over 20,000 people had landed at the little colony.  Though most of the people who partook in the gold rush did not stay in Victoria, the increased prosperity of the area lead to a large population influx and hasty land grabs, in which the Lukwungen People received nothing for and were not consulted.

Victoria and the Crown Colonies of Vancouver Island were officially united with British Columbia in 1866 largely due to the added costs and impracticality of having the two colonies so close and connected. When British Columbia became the 6th province of The Dominion of Canada in 1871 Victory was made its capital city as it was the largest city in British Columbia. This all changed with the completion of the Transcontinental railway in which Vancouver being a terminus point with a major port it soon ballooned to be the largest city in British Columbia. Despite this, Greater Victoria has remained the capital and has a quickly growing population of just under 400,000 according to (Statistics Canada, 2017) just 5 years ago. The city also remains the Naval headquarters for the Pacific Coast. Today Victoria is home to a large tech industry and research into resource exploitation as well as several post secondary educational institutions such as UVIC, Royal Roads University and Camosun College. Victoria is also a quite warm coastal area, particularly in comparison to much of BC, and so Victoria is a tourism destination, with large cruise ships stopping in port for the day, as well as a popular retirement destination.

The amount of marine traffic as a result this increased tourism as well as international shipping routes has played a roll on our marine environments with ship strikes and background noise from boat engines negatively affecting local wildlife. The city of Victoria previously dumped its raw sewage directly into the ocean of causing unbalanced nutrient loading of the local area and throwing the local ecosystem out of equilibrium. This activity has ceased since a sewage treatment plant was completed in 2021 after 127 years of the raw dumping, though the sewage is still expelled this way just treated (CBC, 2021). With the loss of natural land and increased human population, many animals have been forced out of their natural habitats resulting in some species being extinct or at risk, a couple of examples of which are Sea wolves and Garry Oaks. Over the last 30 years the overfishing of small fisheries has been decreased with outlawing the hunting of whales in most of the world, Humpback whale population numbers have been steadily increasing, now that we aren’t hunting or starving them. As with all human proximity, invasive species have followed us to these new areas. In Victoria many of the invasive weeds the same as much of BC with Knapweed, Knotweed, Thistle, Hogweed and Burweed all being a problem in areas of disturbance. Animal invasive species include American bullfrogs, brought for food cultivation but released or escaped they now decimate other local amphibians, as well as the European Common Wall Lizard which do quite well in the Victoria climate surprisingly (CBC News, 2021).

These days while trying to meet the boom of popularity and high housing demand, Victoria and Vancouver Island are still trying to become more environmentally conscious. This applied in many different impacts such as ecotourism around wildlife observation distances, the promotion of transitioning of open-net salmon farms to land-based practices and employment of local indigenous peoples and knowledge to help inform the practices and planning of the future.

References:

Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. “Table 1 the 10 Highest Population Densities among Municipalities (Census Subdivisions) with 5,000 Residents or More, Canada, 2016 .” March 30, 2017. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/170208/t001a-eng.htm.

“History.” https://www.victoria.ca. Accessed September 12, 2023. https://www.victoria.ca/EN/main/residents/about/history.html.

“Invasive Lizards Multiplying in Greater Victoria Have Now Reportedly Been Sighted on Southern Gulf Islands | CBC News.” CBCnews, May 26, 2021. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/invasive-wall-lizards-1.6034646.

Kuskowski, Alexandra. “BC Timber Trade: Big Trees and Bigger Dreams.” Digitization Centre, February 26, 2016. https://digitize.library.ubc.ca/digitizers-blog/bc-timber-trade-big-trees-and-bigger-dreams/.

“Victoria No Longer Flushes Raw Sewage into Ocean after Area Opens Treatment Plant | CBC News.” CBCnews, January 9, 2021. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/victoria-sewage-plant-1.5867582.

Wonders, Karen. “Coast Salish.” First Nations – Land Rights and Environmentalism in British Columbia. November 8, 2010. http://www.firstnations.de/development/coast_salish.htm.