Qualla: Victoria Harbour

Victoria Harbour: Introduction

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wpcpey, CC BY-SA 4.0. At its mouth, Victoria Harbour takes cruise ships three hundred metres long. Follow it inland and it narrows, bends, passes under bridges, and eventually squeezes down to eighteen metres of moving water beneath the Gorge Bridge at Tillicum Road - a gap you could throw a baseball across. Then it opens again into Portage Inlet, where eelgrass carpets the bottom and herring come in to spawn. Most cities with a harbour have a waterfront. Victoria has a tidal river system running right through its middle, and the whole of it counts as the harbour.

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Image: Wpcpey | CC BY-SA 4.0

Victoria Harbour: One Waterway, Five Names

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Taken by User:Cacophony, CC BY-SA 2.5. Charts break it into sections, and locals use every one of them. Outer, Middle, and Inner Harbour handle the ships, the floatplanes, and the ferries. North of the Johnson Street Bridge lies the Upper Harbour, running up to the Point Ellice Bridge with the small notch of Rock Bay ...

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Image: Taken by User:Cacophony | CC BY-SA 2.5

Victoria Harbour: May 26, 1896

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Another Believer, CC BY-SA 4.0. A predecessor of the Point Ellice Bridge stood at the head of the Upper Harbour, and on a spring afternoon in 1896 it gave way. A streetcar packed with roughly 143 passengers - far more than it was meant to carry, most of them heading across to celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday...

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Image: Another Believer | CC BY-SA 4.0

Victoria Harbour: The Diving Board at Curtis Point

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hoggy 88, Public domain. For generations the Gorge was where Victoria went swimming. There was a tall diving platform at Curtis Point, and on hot days the narrows filled with people. By the 1930s that was over - the water had grown too polluted to swim in, and the city turned its back on a waterway it ha...

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Image: Hoggy 88 | Public domain

Victoria Harbour: An Estuary Hiding in a Capital

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0. Despite the modest land area draining into it, Victoria Harbour is a genuine estuary, fed by a scattering of small freshwater tributaries - Colquitz Creek, Craigflower Creek, Durrell Creek, water from Elk and Beaver lakes, Swan Lake, Blenkinsop Lake, and the Thetis Lakes. One of ...

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Image: Michal Klajban | CC BY-SA 4.0

Victoria Harbour: Barges, Racers, and a Symphony on the Water

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0. This is still a working harbour. Ogden Point takes cruise ships and break-bulk cargo; Fisherman's Wharf houses the fishing fleet and its famous float homes; barge docks at Rock Bay move asphalt and cement; the Coast Guard station sits on Shoal Point; and floatplanes come and go f...

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Image: Michal Klajban | CC BY-SA 4.0