Adopted 1 May 1934 on National Defence sheet 415a, Victoria; re-approved 6 January 1949 on C.3415.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

The largest city on Vancouver Island is named after Queen Victoria (1819-1901), who succeeded to the British crown in 1837. The Hudsons Bay Company’s main depot in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1800s was at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River. Anticipating that the border between the region’s British and United States territories would eventually be farther north, the company began looking for a new headquarters in the mid-1830s. A favourable report by Captain William McNeill in 1837 encouraged chief factor James Douglas to choose the southeast end of Vancouver Island as the site for a new trading post in 1841. The following year he surveyed the area between Oak Bay and Esquimalt Harbour, and in March 1843 decided to locate the latest Hudson Bay Company fort on the east side of Victoria Harbour, in the vicinity now bounded by Wharf, Broughton and Government streets and Baston Square. Local First Nation groups knew Victoria Harbour as Camosack or Camosun – a word that referred more specifically to the tidal rapids at the Gorge and has been translated as “rush of water.” Victoria was called Fort Camosun by a few early visitors, and also Fort Albert, as chief trader Charles Ross, in charge of construction, was under the impression that the new post should honour Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort. After clarification from head office, the correct name Fort Victoria was ceremoniously adopted in December 1843 with the firing of an official salute. In 1849 the post became headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Columbia Department and capital of the colony of Vancouver Island (until 1866). A townsite, given the name Victoria, was laid out next to the fort in 1852. Victoria was incorporated as a city in 1862, two years before the old fort was demolished, and became capital of the province of BC, from Confederation in 1871 to the present day. Captain Henry Kellett of Her Majesty’s Ship Herald first surveyed Victoria Harbour in 1846; it was re-surveyed in 1858 by Captain George Richards of Her Majesty’s Ship Plumper. The harbour comprises five sections: the Inner Harbour, which extends from Juan de Fuca Straight to Johnson Street bridge; the Upper Harbour, between Johnson Street and Point Ellice bridges; Selkirk Water, from Point Ellice Bridge to Chapman Point; Gorge Waters, from Chapman Point to Craigflower Bridge; and Portage Inlet, north of Craigflower Bridge. Several other geographical features in British Columbia are also named after Queen Victoria, including Mount Victoria at the head of Queens Reach on Jervis Inlet, and Mount Victoria and Victoria Lake in Yoho National Park.

Source: Scott, Andrew; "The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names"; Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, 2009, pp. 623.

Victoria Harbour is a Public Harbour defined by Ports & Harbours Authority of Navigation Canada, and its limits are defined as "All the waters of Juan de Fuca Strait north of a line drawn from the southerly tip of Trial Island to the southerly extremity of Albert Head and including Selkirk Water and the navigable streams flowing into Victoria Harbour. Excluding from this area Esquimalt Harbour."

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

Referred to as "Cammusan Harbour" on Sketch of Cammusan Harbour, Vancouvers Island, showing the position of Fort Victoria ...': plan showing place names, soundings. Notes on tides and soundings. Scale: 1 inch to 200 yards. Compass indicator. Inset plan of Fort Victoria at 1 inch to 100 feet. Copied by M Vavasour, Lt RE, from a drawing by J Scarboro of the Hudson Bay Company. [Vancouver Island, c. 1846].

Source: BC place name cards & correspondence, and/or research by BC Chief Geographer & Geographical Names Office staff.