Victoria and Esquimalt

“For thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans, Esquimalt Harbour was the home of Lekwungen-speaking peoples, ancestors of the present day Esquimalt Nation. There was a winter village site where the Esquimalt Nation village is today. The surrounding harbour was an important source of food including clams, ducks, geese and fish. Schools of herring came into the harbour to spawn, and the eggs were harvested.

Esquimalt Harbour was the site of the first landing by Europeans in the Victoria area. Don Manuel Quimper from Spain made exploratory visits in the 1790s and named the harbour Puerto de Cordova. By the 1840s, the British Royal Navy began using the natural protected harbour as a west coast naval base.” (source)

Salish Seaside Opening Ceremony in 2018

First settlers on the land

Long before Captain James Cook became the first non-indigenous man to set foot on Vancouver Island in 1778, Victoria's rugged yet pristine wilderness had been home to First Nations people.
Many aboriginal families lived on Southern Vancouver Island, each referring to themselves by distinct family group names. These peoples could be separated into three groups that spoke different dialects of the North Straits Salish or Lekwungaynung language and became known as the Songhees, the Saanich and the Sooke First Nations peoples. Each had their permanent winter villages in the area.
Traditional territories included:
- Teechamitsa (the western boundary; its most southern coastal points were at Albert Head/Parry Bay (now Metchosin) and about ten miles inland “to the range of mountains on the Sanitch arm.”
- Kosapsum (Esquimalt)
- Whyuwmilth (which extended north from the mouth of Millstream, in the Esquimalt Harbour, to the mountains near Goldstream).
- Swengwhung (roughly the James Bay neighbourhood of what is now Victoria).
- Chlicowitch (roughly the Fairfield neighbourhood of what is now Victoria).
- Cheko’nein (eastern territory included Point Gonzales and Mount Douglas).
Hudson's Bay Company and Fort Victoria

In 1843, James Douglas chose Victoria (then known as Camosack), as a Hudson Bay Company trading post. The post was eventually renamed Fort Victoria, in honour of Queen Victoria. Between 1850 and 1854, Governor James Douglas negotiated fourteen treaties with Coast Salish peoples on Vancouver Island. The Lekwungen were then relocated to reserves, one of which was overlooking Victoria's Inner Harbour. Reserve land was later moved west to Esquimalt.
Esquimalt Today

Today, the Esquimalt Nation is a small nation with approximately 150 members living on reserve and another 100 living off reserve. Off reserve members live in Victoria, in other parts of Vancouver Island and BC, Alberta, and in a number of communities in Washington State.