Provincial Fair - Day 2

Day 2 started with a hearty breakfast in the cafeteria and after donning our bright blue provincial fair shirts, name tags and backpacks, we were on our way to Goldstream Provincial Park. We met our tour guide Mary who had us do a group activity where we worked together to match photos to descriptions and then put them in chronological order to create a timeline of the park's history.

Working as a time to create the Goldstream Park timeline.

Along the way, we learned about the local flora and fauna and saw huge red cedars where we talked about how the First Nations used every part of the tree to create something they needed to survive using the materials that surround them. We saw several wildlife trees along the way, which are trees that would likely be cut down but instead are kept to act as homes to many different organisms.

While Goldstream got its name as a ruse to encourage the gold miners to stop and stay on Vancouver Island, the river never yielded much gold; however it is a very important salmon spawning stream that sees several types of salmon return every year.

Waiting for our naturalist tour to start at the park.

Next on our list was a stop at Fort Rod Hill and Fisgard Lighthouse National Historic Sites.

En route to explore one of the batteries at Fort Rod.

After lunch, we started our tour of the site with our tour guide Sue at the Upper Battery where we learned about how they made the artillery and saw where they kept the explosives heavily guarded and involving lots of safety procedures. They were stored in a dark room where the workers had to wear special suits and were locked in while they worked with the explosive material. At the Belmont Battery, we got the chance to hold an artillery shell and learn about the different types of guns and how the technology changed over time to adapt to the changing technology of boats. The last stop on our tour was a visit to the Fisgard lighthouse, where we explored the exhibits inside the house and then spent some time by the ocean on the large rocks by the water.

Friends at the Fisgard Lighthouse - Jaia, Gracie and Urvee.

The Richmond group hanging out on the rocks.

Next up was a walking tour of Chinatown and Old Town - one of today's highlights for us all! Our guide Chris is a local historian and had so many wonderful stories to share with us about Victoria's history. We talked about how Victoria became gold rush boom town overnight in the summer of 1858 as steamships from California arrived with thousands of gold miners needing to refuel and resupply for their trip to the mainland.

Gate at the entrance to Chinatown.

Immigration was a very important part of the story of how Chinatown came to be. Chinese immigrants were drawn to BC, known as Gold Mountain, by the promise of a better life than the poverty of their home town and dreams of striking it rich, a goal that often went unmet.

Learning about the Chinese Language School.

One interesting stop was at the Chinese school (shown above), as it is one of biggest symbols of racism in Victoria as a physical representation of the divide in the education system. Chinese children were not allowed to study in the public schools so a wealthy businessman decided to build this school as a place of learning. It became an evening language school when the Chinese were allowed to attend public school and continues to teach Chinese language and culture to students today.

One of the things we liked best was how the city used red lampposts to mark the area of historic Chinatown, as it allowed us to visualize how big it used to be (nearly 8 square blocks!) As no walking tour would be complete without a few ghost stories, Chris took us to a few locations that are rumoured to be haunted by the ghosts before we headed off to dinner at the Golden City retaurant.

After a delicious meal where we got to sample many different Chinese dishes, we boarded the bus and headed back to campus, serenading our fellow students with songs on the radio. The alumni led a workshop for the students then everyone had a bit of time to relax before it was time to turn in for the night and get ready for another busy day of sightseeing tomorrow!