An original Hudson’s Bay Company farm. This was one of Vancouver Island’s first farming communities, established in 1853 along Victoria’s Gorge Waterway to meet the Hudson’s Bay Company’s obligations to Britain to support colonization. On lands purchased from chiefs of the indigenous aboriginal people, Kenneth McKenzie oversaw construction of a self-sufficient settlement. The Kosapsom people still harvest shellfish, salmon and herring from the tidal waters that separate the Manor from the Schoolhouse.

Today, the original Georgian Manor house, built using the Hudson’s Bay Company post-and-beam method, still stands amid fields and gardens, and across the bridge you’ll find the oldest schoolhouse in Western Canada, opened in 1855.