Inner Harbour Autumn

Though there has been a real nip in the air, the last few days have been so bright and sunny that it has been impossible to resist going out and enjoying the fall colors. This is one of my favorite views of Victoria, the Inner Harbour from Songhees Point.

Emily Carr Statue

Local artist Emily Carr was honoured in 2010 with this statue on the corner of Government Street by the Empress Hotel. Emily Carr was born in Victoria in 1871, lived here most of her life and died here in 1945. She was an accomplished writer as well as a painter. Wikipedia has a good article about her work and life.

Facelifts

It has been some time since I have renewed the header photo for Victoria Daily Photo and since I am currently enamored with cartoon style processing I decided that for a new look to I would use this photo of Victoria's Inner Harbor. The title of this post has a double significance also in that the large white building in this photo has just undergone an extensive cleaning and repainting and, empty now, will soon house another tenant, since its longtime resident, the Royal London Wax Museum, is no longer there. This building was originally built as the Canadian Pacific Railway Steamship Terminal in 1924. It was designed by Francis Rattenbury and Percy James. The large building in the background of this photo is the Hotel Grand Pacific.

Picker

Here's summer coming to an end and I feel like I missed a lot of it this year. I regret not visiting the Inner Harbour quite so often since I have missed some new artists and performers as well as not getting quite enough of my old favorites. Above is a young fellow whose guitar picking is worth listening to. I've captured a bit of it on the video below but I didn't have my good quality microphone with me so the sound doesn't do justice to his playing. This is the Inner Harbour's youngest busker, Landen Shaw, age 12. Click HERE to read a local news article about him.

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This is the first of a series of posts that will include videos. Visitors will please be patient with me while I learn how to edit video with some new software - Pinnacle Studio 15. Tomorrow we'll have a video of our local dulcimer player, Metro Semeniuk, and I have two more videos lined up for later in the week.

Street Whales

On the corner of Humboldt and Government Streets is this fanciful bit of topiary art, an Orca (Killer Whale) and her calf shaped in plants. That's the Fairmont Empress Hotel in the background.

For Sale

If you've ever had a hankering to travel around in your own paddle wheel steamship, here's your chance. The vessel pictured above while moored at Ship Point is a replica of the SS Beaver, the first steamship on this coast and it's up for sale. You can read a little of the history of the original SS Beaver by clicking HERE.

Canada Day

Today's photo is where our local Canada Day celebrations will center, Victoria's Inner Harbour. If you can imagine this scene with about 40,000 additional people you will have a pretty good idea of what it will be like later today. Happy Canada Day!

Busy

Victoria's Harbour is small and doesn't play host to a multitude of container ships and freighters but it is a very busy place during the daylight hours. While I don't often see simultaneously quite so many vessels as are pictured above there is a lot of traffic on and above the water.

Look Ma, No....

Sunday afternoon saw the finals of the Dirt Jump Invitational tournament featuring some of the world's best riders. These bikronauts (cycrobats?) are fantastic and have taken cycling into places we never even dreamed of when I was a kid. In the photo above that's a local boy 15 years old - I don't know his name but if any of my visitors do, please let me know. He deserves a lot of credit and though he landed hard after this stunt, he was back for more fifteen minutes later. It all took place on a barge moored in the Inner Harbour at Ship Point. An incredible event.

The Big Picture

At this time of year when there are so many spring flowers coming into bloom I tend to spend a lot of time focusing on details in the environment so here's a glimpse of what downtown Victoria looked like yesterday. The sun finally burst through the clouds and rain and it's starting to look like spring has arrived. These wonderful cherry blossoms like pink popcorn balls are almost blown but even the drifts of their fallen petals are beautiful.

Here Comes the Sun

Saturday was a beautiful warm and sunny spring day and just as the forest floor is being carpeted with wildflowers, Victoria's Inner Harbour Causeway is blossoming with the performers and artists that make it such an interesting and entertaining place to visit. Victorians and visitors alike were strolling there on Saturday enjoying the music of Victoria's own famed one man band, Dave Harris (above), as well as other performers and displays by craftspeople and artists. It's the best place in the city for sitting back and watching the world pass by.

The Causeway

The day before yesterday I posted a photo of the Inner Harbour but only the watery portion of it. Just a slight turn to the right yields another iconic view, the Inner Harbour Causeway and the Empress Hotel. It's looking pretty quiet now but in another month or so it will be busy. It's an interesting area, shunned by some locals because it attracts so many tourists. In the summer the craftspeople and buskers give it somewhat the air of a midway but without the trashy glitter. I like tourists - they just want to have a good time and enjoy themselves - and without them this city would be struggling to survive. As it is, many of the excellent restaurants, sights and events we all enjoy depend for their existence on tourists and the jobs they create.

Inner Harbour

Today is the final day of the third year of this photoblog and it's fitting to end the year with a photo that encapsulates some of Victoria's greatest charms. The weather, though I often gripe about it, is some of the best in Canada and its effect is visible here in the flowering cherry (plum?) that is blossoming now overlooking what is the city's real center, the Inner Harbour. Tomorrow marks the beginning of the fourth year of Victoria Daily Photo. I promise some surprises in the months to come and invite you along for the ride.

Harbour Air

Last week I featured a photo of a West Coast Air seaplane coming in for a landing. The other main airline serving the Inner Harbour is Harbour Air. Here is a shot of one of their seaplanes taxiing into the Inner Harbour in the early evening. As well as flights to/from Vancouver and Vancouver Island destinations, Harbour Air also offers sightseeing packages.

West Coast Air

Victoria's Inner Harbour is a very busy place. In addition to the many different types of waterborne traffic - commercial and pleasure craft of all types and sizes - it is a very busy airport with float plane flights taking off and landing several times per hour during the day. There is also a heliport on Ogden Point so one or more aircraft are almost always visible in the airspace above or approaching the harbour. The plane above is one of West Coast Air's planes. There are several other small flight companies operating flights between Victoria and other points on Vancouver Island and between here and the mainland.

Ducks at Dawn

While the rest of you were still abed attempting to metabolize last night's debauch I was out in the crispy dawn. It's been freezing the last few nights and there's lots of frost on the grass in the early morning. Here's what my part of Victoria looks like on this first day of 2011. I hope you have as nice a day wherever you are.

Archival

Well I had plans to go out today and shoot some photos of the Bay Street (Point Ellice) Bridge but it is so damp and gray out there that I'm posting this photo from the archives - a warm summer evening on the Inner Harbour. I like how pleasantly watery it looks.

Blustery

This photo pretty much sums up our weather lately. Lots of wind and rain and when the sun breaks through, it's patchy and dramatic like this. However, it could be worse - it's not very cold and there's no snow.

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After my announcement of the eclipse yesterday I discovered that it had actually already taken place. This sort of thing has happened to me before and it gives me the opportunity to air a grievance. When someone says "Tuesday night" I always think of the period of darkness that follows Tuesday daytime. The eclipse so glibly referred to in the media as occurring on "Tuesday night" apparently occurred on what I consider to be Monday night or Tuesday morning since it was the period of darkness that immediately followed Monday daytime. Oh well, I would have missed it anyway...but now I have to wait another 372 years.

Fogbank

I confess to a fondness for fog so I liked seeing this fogbank moving in from the ocean the other morning. I realize that for mariners it must pose real problems but with both feet safely on the ground and from a distance, it's lovely. A few minutes after taking the above photo (with my "new" 50mm lens) I noticed the MV Coho, the car ferry from Port Angeles, nosing her way out of the fog and took the photo below.

Sunrise Over the City

A short walk east from where I took yesterday's photo, Sailor's Cove widens out into the broader reaches of the Inner Harbour and provides this view of Victoria's downtown. One commenter yesterday mentioned the fog that came down later in the day. At dawn this fog was little more than a low-lying cloud but it provided enough interference for the sun's rays to allow this photo of the sun as it crept above the city skyline.