Inside the Royal B.C. Museum

Museum street

One of my favorite features of Victoria’s B.C. Museum’s is its “Old Town,” a recreation of the early days of Victoria. Old Town is a walk through time, one of several large and realistic dioramas of British Columbia history. Small shops and windows display merchandise that might have been available to the well-heeled. A tiny “Chinatown” includes an herbalist.

Museum kitchen

The curtain flutters in a light breeze and – really! – there’s the scent of apple pie in this kitchen.

BC museum bar

There’s a bar on the ground floor of a hotel. Upstairs you can gaze into a guest room with a small table set for tea while boots wait beside the bed. An office looks almost as if its occupant has stepped out for lunch.

I’ll show you two other favorite dioramas tomorrow.

The perennial favorite

Royal BC Museum

One of our favorite destinations in Victoria is the Royal B.C. Museum, a short walk from the ferry terminal. It is the building to the left behind the ornate 90 foot Netherlands Centennial Carillon tower. The Carillon is Canada’s largest and chimes short concerts hourly. Tomorrow I’ll give you views of a couple of the permanent exhibitions that we always enjoy.

The busy harbor

Victorial arrival

There is always a lot of activity around Victoria’s Inner Harbour. As we arrived by ferry late last month two tugs were coming in with us as a helicopter took to the sky. Looking south you can see a cargo ship on the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Olympic Mountains in Washington State. It’s a 90 minute ferry ride from Port Angeles to Victoria, B.C. and an enjoyable day trip.

Theme Day: Landmark

New Dungeness LH

Today’s City Daily Photo theme challenge is “landmark” and one of Sequim’s oldest and most distinctive is the New Dungeness Lighthouse. Opened in 1857 it guides maritime traffic away from the hazard of Dungeness Spit which juts into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

New Dungeness distance

The lighthouse is a five mile walk down the Dungeness Spit beach. Most people see it at a distance from land. But the New Dungeness Lighthouse Association, which maintains the station, supports a program that allows weeklong stays for volunteer lighthouse keepers (including transport in a four wheel vehicle). Volunteers stay in the Keeper’s Quarters, the building to the right, do light maintenance, and offer tours to visitors who’ve made the long walk to the lighthouse.

Click here to see other landmarks from photographers around the world.

Views of Port Angeles

Port Angeles metro

We had better than usual view of Port Angeles last Friday when we took the morning ferry to Victoria, B.C. Before the clouds settled on the city it was possible to see it as it climbs upward from Port Angeles Harbor. Port Angeles is about 15 miles west of Sequim.

Port Angeles east

This is a view of a more easterly residential area of Port Angeles that rests on a bluff above the Strait of Juan de Fuca. As you can see, the snowcap has returned. Our weather is gradually getting cold and wet enough that it looks as if the snow will stick around.