Esquimalt Harbour is a sheltered embayment on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, about 21 miles (34 km) north of Port Angeles, Washington, and 3 miles (4.8 km) west-northwest of downtown Victoria, British Columbia. The name was translated by Joseph W. McKay during the negotiation of the Douglas Treaties as meaning “a place of gradually shoaling water.” Its entrance, from the Strait of Juan de Fuca through a narrow channel, is marked by the historic Fisgard Lighthouse. The harbour is home to Canadian Forces Maritime Forces Pacific; the base is bounded by Colwood to the west, View Royal to the north, and Esquimalt to the east. The area is characterized by rocky outcrops and hills shaped by glacial erosion and deposition during the last ice age. The surrounding geology features a band of limestone extending from the shore, hosted within the greenstone of the Wark Gneiss, a metamorphic rock possibly linked to the Sicker Group from the Paleozoic, about 541 million to 252 million years ago. The harbour’s seafloor consists of silty clay and sand. After the Last Glacial Maximum, post-glacial rebound caused a relative sea-level drop of at least 150 feet (46 m), exposing the present-day bays and inlets.

The Lekwungen are a Coast Salish people who settled on southeastern Vancouver Island approximately 400 years before the arrival of Europeans. They are represented by the Songhees First Nation and the Esquimalt First Nation. Their traditional language, also called Lekwungen, is a dialect of North Straits Salish. Their traditional territory encompasses most of what is now Greater Victoria, as well as the nearby Discovery, Chatham, and San Juan islands. Treaties signed by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1843 refer to these people as the Kosampsom, though they are now known as the Esquimalt Nation. The Songhees, who now have a reserve in Esquimalt, were originally located on the western shore of Victoria Harbour but were relocated in 1911. The Lekwungen population was estimated at 8,500 in 1859; by 1914 it had fallen to fewer than 200.

In the summer of 1790, Manuel Quimper, Gonzalo López de Haro, and Juan Carrasco, aboard the Princesa Real, explored the Strait of Juan de Fuca and claimed Esquimalt Harbour for Spain, naming it Puerto de Córdova. In 1792 Captain George Vancouver extensively surveyed the region. Following resolution of the Nootka Crisis in 1795, control passed to Britain and the Hudson’s Bay Company. In 1843 the company rejected Esquimalt Harbour as a fort site; too heavily forested; though ships continued to use it for passengers and supplies. In 1852 sailors from HMS Thetis built a trail linking the harbour with the new fort at Victoria Harbour; now paved, it is called Old Esquimalt Road. In 1855 the Royal Navy constructed three hospital buildings on the harbour to treat casualties of the Crimean War. The discovery of gold on the Fraser River in 1858 triggered a massive influx of people and a building boom. In 1865 the Royal Navy relocated its Pacific fleet headquarters from Valparaíso, Chile, to Esquimalt. The Royal Navy withdrew in 1905, and the Royal Canadian Navy established its Pacific base there in 1910, celebrating its centenary in June 2010. Read more here and here. Explore more of Esquimalt Harbour and Vancouver Island here: