Parliament House of Victoria

The construction of the BC Parliament House started in 1893 and was considered complete in 1897 during the Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee by architect Francis Rattenbury.

Parliament House - Victoria

The building is in Victoria, capital of British Columbia in Canada and houses the Legislative Assembly of the state of British Columbia.

Grand Entrance to the Parliament House

The Parliament House is located on the banks of Inner Harbour. Close to this building is also the Royal British Columbia Museum and the Undersea Gardens.
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The Rotunda of BC Parliament Building

The murals depict the British Columbia history. Some of the murals have now been hidden from the public view as they are offensive to the aboriginals of the land.

A Reflection of the inside of Parliament House in the Ball Ornament

The first floor of the building provides a grand view of the harbour as well as the city.

The Legislative Chamber

I was amazed by the lack of security personnel and nightmare of security checks and rechecks that happen when you go to an Indian Parliament House or even a legislative assembly. 

Glass Painting

The  lone policeman outside the building was very courteous and there was also no fee to visit the building. Inside there is a small souvenir shop as well.

A Royal Guard!

The architectural style of the Parliament House of British Columbia is Neo-Baroque.

View of the Parliament House from the RBC Musuem

The Parliament House complex also has few totem poles on its grounds.

Totem Pole

Totem Poles are carved by the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast in the North America. I was able to see several of them in British Columbia.

Knowledge Totem

Carved by the Master Carver Cicero August and his sons Darrel and Doug August of the Cowichan Tribes the Knowledge Totem stands on the premises of the British Columbia Parliament. The loon, fisherman, bone game player and frog represents lessons of the past and hope for the future.

A Gitxsan Totem Pole (left) & Kwakwa'wakw Pole In Thunderbird park in Victoria

The word totem means  - his kinship group. The totems are made of cedar wood. The totem poles may recount legends or are mortuary structures.

Eagle is a common motive in several Totems

Among the common motives of the totem stories are eagles, ravens, human beings and their children, bears, frogs, sharks and fish. Among birds that appear on totem poles, besides the eagles and ravens, are woodpeckers, hawks and several mythological birds. The highest in the rank is the Thunderbird. The Thunderbird Park in Victoria containing several totems is named after this bird. 

A Haida Totem Pole in Thunderbird Park, Victoria

A totem pole is normally made of a single piece of wood and could be higher than 40 feet. The highest ones are even above 40 meters high!

Totem with reflection

The traditional tribal styles of the totems are the Haida, Coast Salish, Nuxalk, Kwakiutl and the Tsimshian style. The Kwakiutl are very brightly painted whereas the Tsimshian are very simple. Haida style is mainly commemorative.

Totem Poles outside the Vancouver Airport

Each totem pole depicts a story but the totem poles are not objects of worship. As the totems are made of wood they decay with time so one would not find really old totems.

The Yosef Wosk Reflecting Pool

The Yosef Wosk Reflecting Pool gives the feeling of a much longer totem due to its reflection in the pool. The pool and the totem are located on the premises of Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Mortuary Pole

In the Pole above the eagle is at the top then it is human mother with child/cub, then a grizzly bear with child/cub. Again these are very common motives on a totem pole. The ordering on the poles is significant (in all the totems and not only this one) from the fact that higher the figures on the pole more is the prestige. However, this is contentious as some say that the opposite is true i.e.the figures at the bottom are more important and that is why greater detail and care is given while carving them compared to the figures at the top.

Mortuary House Frontal Pole

In the photo above on the pole at the top are the watchmen, then raven/human with human/bird face on tail, then a bear with raven between its legs, then a frog like creature and finally the bear with frog in mouth, wolf between legs and cub between ears. Yes some of the totems could be very abstract!

Double Mortuary Pole

The Double Mortuary Pole in the above photo shows shark or a dogfish. Transformation of animals and birds into humans and sometimes from humans to animals or birds is a very common theme of the totem poles.

Several Totem Poles & Two Haida Houses

In earlier times a typical native village consisted of about 50 houses like the ones in the photo above each housing a dozen or so families. The house front poles normally depict the success of  families and therefore the bigger and better the poles higher was the status of the families.

Mallards

Male & Female Mallards

I spotted several Mallards in Victoria which is the capital of the British Columbia in Canada. Of course, the Pacific coast is their habitat. They have gray body and chestnut brown breast. The males are more colorful and beautiful than the females. The females are brown all over.

Mallards Taking a Stroll

A Male Mallard taking a Nap

The males have green head with a white ring on the neck. Their legs and feet are orange in color (see the top photo).

Bunch of Mallards

They survive best in temperate and sub tropical climates. They are omnivorous and eat water plants and small animals like worms, beetles, flies etc.

More Mallards

Also known as Wild Ducks, Mallards are known to be ancestors of all the domestic ducks. 

Pit Houses of the Aboriginal Canadians

The aboriginal people of Canada specifically in the plateau region were semi-nomadic due to climatic conditions. Therefore their shelters were easy to construct and dismantle. They either lived in a pit house in winters or a Tipi or a Tule-mat lodge in summers.

Interior of a Pit House 

A Pit house could be 15 meters wide and is built below the ground in a 1-2 meter deep pit and could accommodate as many as 30 people. Well insulated by the sod and earth roof a pit house required only a small fire to warm its interiors. Most pit houses were built so that people could enter and exit through the smoke hole via the notched pole ladder (see the pole ladder in the photo above). Some groups used a side tunnel as a women's entrance and as an emergency exit.

The summer shelter was either in a Tipi or a Tule-mat lodge both of which were made above ground.

Vancouver to Victoria by Ferry

For going to Victoria, capital of British Columbia, from Vancouver there are only two options  - either by air or by sea as Victoria is an island so I decided to take the ferry so that I am able to observe nature on the way.

Dawn on way to Tsawwassen

I started early in the morning from Vancouver and saw the dawn on the way to Tsawwassen. Tsawwassen Terminal, though known to be in Vancouver, is technically in the Delta municipality, south of Richmond and bordering the USA. The Fraser river borders its northern parts.

Tsawwassen Terminal, Vancouver

Because Tsawassen touches a shallow bank the ferry terminal is built at the end of a three kilometer long causeway that juts into the Strait of Georgia.

Cars waiting to board the Ferry at Tsawwassen

It is a huge terminal and the each ferry ship takes several hundred cars besides passengers. The cars in the que above are all waiting for the terminal to open so that they can board the ship.

BC Ferry Ship

The ferry ride from Tsawwassen terminal in Vancouver to Swartz Bay in Victoria covers 24 Nautical miles and takes 1 hour and 35 minutes by the BC Ferries. The first service starts at 7 AM and then there are services till 9 PM either every hour or two hours.

Sea Gull in Flight

During the whole ferry ride the Sea Gulls are your constant companion even when you far from the shore. Maybe they are looking at possibility of getting food from the ship.

Sea Gull getting a free ride!

Besides Sea Gulls and some other birds once can also see dolphins on this route of the ocean. Sometimes the dolphins accompany you for quite some distance and what a sight it is to see them jump high in the air above the water!

Emergency Rubber Boats

Every ship has several rubber boats in case of any emergency. It reminds you of the film Titanic. The anchor of the ship is massive.  It was thicker than a thigh as one can see in the photo above which has been taken from some distance.

Huge Anchors

I stayed very little inside the comforts of the ship and spent most of the time standing on the fore or after deck despite the fact that the winds that you face there are so strong and cold (in winters). Of course, one do have the option to watch from inside also through the glass panes but the feeling is not the same.

Beautiful Island Houses

During the whole journey one comes across several inhabited and uninhabited islands on the way to Victoria. I wished I could stay in one of these beautiful locations for some days.

Sun & Shade

All along the route the sun and clouds played hide and seek and the changing reflections in the ocean were beautiful. In the photo above the cylinders that you see in the bottom right hand corner are also boats that open up in case of emergency (about five to six on one stand - and there were several stands).

Swartz Bay

The photo above is of the Swartz Bay when I was returning from Victoria to Vancouver in the evening. Both the terminals have plenty of eating options as well as shops to buy souvenirs or other stuff.

Plenty of eating options on the Ferry

The BC Ferry ship itself also has various lounges for eating as well as shops to buy souvenirs, books etc. The interiors of the BC Ferry are nice and plush and warm. The lower floor is for parking of the cars etc and the upper two floors are for the passengers with nice comfortable seats and views.

Dusk on the Pacific Ocean

I returned back by another BC Ferry in the evening and was greeted by a beautiful dawn sky and the fading lights of first the Swartz Bay and then Victoria and sometimes later houses on the various islands on the way.