Esquimalt

For other uses, see Esquimalt (disambiguation).

Esquimalt
District municipality
Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt
View of Esquimalt from the Highrock Cairn
Location of Esquimalt in British Columbia
Coordinates: 48°25′50″N 123°24′53″W
Country	Canada
Province	British Columbia
Region	South Island/Greater Victoria
Regional district	Capital Regional District
Incorporated	1912
Area
• Total	7.08 km2 (2.73 sq mi)
Elevation	10 m (30 ft)
Population (2011)
• Total	16,209
• Density	2,290.1/km2 (5,931/sq mi)
Time zone	PST (UTC−8)
• Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC−7)
Highways	1A
Waterways	Strait of Juan de Fuca
Website	District of Esquimalt

The township of Esquimalt /ᵻˈskwaɪmɔːlt/ is a municipality at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. It is bordered to the east by the provincial capital, Victoria, to the south by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to the west by Esquimalt Harbour and Royal Roads, to the northwest by the New Songhees IR No. 1A Indian reserve and the town of View Royal, and to the north by a narrow inlet of water called the Gorge, across which is the district municipality of Saanich. It is one of the 13 municipalities of Greater Victoria and part of the Capital Regional District.

Esquimalt had a population of 16,209 in 2011. It covers 7.08 square kilometres. It is home to the Pacific fleet of the Royal Canadian Navy.

History

The region now known as Esquimalt was settled by First Nations people approximately 400 years before the arrival of Europeans. The treaties of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), signed in 1843, refer to these people as the Kosampsom group, though they are now known as the Esquimalt Nation. The word Esquimalt is a transliteration of "Ess-whoy-malth," a phrase usually translated as "place of the shoaling waters." The Songhees people (then called Songish), who now have a reserve in Esquimalt, were originally located on the western shore of what is now Victoria Harbour, but were relocated in 1911. Both nations spoke a North Straits Salish dialect called Lekwungen (which is also an alternate name for the Songhees).

The first Europeans to reach Esquimalt were the Spanish expedition of Manuel Quimper in the Princesa Real in 1790, with Gonzalo López de Haro and Juan Carrasco as pilotos (equivalent to master). Quimper entered and carefully mapped Esquimalt Harbour, which his first mate named Puerto de Córdova after the 46th viceroy of New Spain. Quimper claimed the region for Spain and placed a wooden cross on a hill. When the Spanish returned later that summer the cross had vanished. In 1792 Captain George Vancouver extensively explored the region. Following resolution of the Nootka Crisis, control of the region went to the British and the British owned Hudson's Bay Company.

At Esquimalt, B.C., the sternwheel steamboat Lady Alexandra photographed sometime after 1874

In 1843, near the height of the Oregon question, the HBC was looking for a new location for its Pacific base of operations. John McLoughlin, the company's chief factor at Fort Vancouver, ordered James Douglas to build a new fort on Vancouver Island. Douglas liked Esquimalt Harbour, but rejected it as a site for a fort because there were too many trees there. Douglas chose a spot on the eastern shore of Victoria Harbour at the mouth of the Gorge Inlet. He called it Fort Camosun, but later renamed it Fort Victoria in honour of the British Queen.

However, ships continued to use Esquimalt Harbour to load and offload passengers and supplies. In 1852, sailors from a British naval ship, HMS Thetis, built a trail through the forest linking the harbour with Victoria Harbour and the fort. This trail, since paved over, is now one of Esquimalt's main streets, Old Esquimalt Road.

Meanwhile, the Hudson's Bay Company decided to try its hand at farming. Douglas leased all of Vancouver Island for seven shillings a year from Great Britain, and had a division of the HBC, the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, come in to develop the land. The Viewfield farm was the first in 1850, with the Constance Cove farm and Craigflower farms added later. The Craigflower farmhouse still exists as a heritage site, as does the Craigflower schoolhouse built to serve the settlers' children. Thomas Mackenzie, the bailiff in charge of the farm, named it for the ancestral home of one of his superiors. By the mid-1860s, the farms were considered failures and abandoned, and the property sold off in small parcels.

In 1855, the British Royal Navy constructed three hospital buildings on the harbour to treat casualties of the Crimean War. A small settlement grew up on the water's edge near the naval installation. But in 1858, the discovery of gold on the Fraser River triggered a massive influx of people, who came to Fort Victoria to buy permits and supplies before setting out for the mainland. Many of these ships landed in Esquimalt Harbour. Some of these people stayed in the area, including a few who opened up pubs, as well as some less-than-successful gold miners. With the growing population came the area's first building boom.

Even after the Oregon Treaty of 1846, the boundary between the British Gulf Islands and the U.S. islands in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound was not fully defined. An incident involving an American settler shooting an HBC farm pig on San Juan Island led to the Pig War with the USA in 1859.

In 1865, the British Royal Navy relocated the headquarters of its Pacific fleet from Valparaíso, Chile, to the Esquimalt Harbour. In 1887, a military base was located at Work Point. In 1905, the Royal Navy abandoned the area, but the Pacific base of the new Royal Canadian Navy replaced it in 1910. Gradually, naval life and shipbuilding came to dominate the region's sense of identity. In 1887, the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway was built through the centre of town.

On September 1, 1912, Esquimalt was incorporated as a District Municipality. After World War I, it became one of Canada's major shipbuilding capitals.

In June 2010, the Royal Canadian Navy celebrated its 100th anniversary with a Fleet Review in the waters off Greater Victoria, by Canada's Governor General Michaëlle Jean. The review was attended by warships from Canada, France, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the United States, and US and Canadian Coast Guard vessels.

Canada 2006 Census		Population	% of Total Population
Visible minority group Source:	Chinese	325	7000190000000000000♠1.9%
	South Asian	160	7000100000000000000♠1%
	Black	120	6999700000000000000♠0.7%
	Filipino	165	7000100000000000000♠1%
	Latin American	155	6999900000000000000♠0.9%
	Southeast Asian	65	6999400000000000000♠0.4%
	Arab	0	5000000000000000000♠0%
	West Asian	0	5000000000000000000♠0%
	Korean	15	6999100000000000000♠0.1%
	Japanese	35	6999200000000000000♠0.2%
	Other visible minority	10	6999100000000000000♠0.1%
	Mixed visible minority	20	6999100000000000000♠0.1%
Total visible minority population		1,070	7000640000000000000♠6.4%
Aboriginal group Source:	First Nations	930	7000560000000099999♠5.6%
	Métis	0	5000000000000000000♠0%
	Inuit	0	5000000000000000000♠0%
Total Aboriginal population		930	7000560000000099999♠5.6%
White		14,705	7001880000000000000♠88%
Total population		16,705	100%

Neighbourhoods of Esquimalt

The Olympic Mountains, from Esquimalt, 1900.

(See: Neighbourhood Map of Esquimalt)

• Craigflower
• Colville Road
• Gorge Vale Golf
• Esquimalt Village
• Parklands
• Panhandle Alley
• Rock Heights
• Saxe Point
• West Bay
• Work Point (DND)

Although the neighbourhood of Victoria (Vic) West is located on the Esquimalt Peninsula, it is part of the city of Victoria.

Education

Residents are zoned to schools in the Greater Victoria School District.

Communications

In the past, Esquimalt has been served by various incarnations of newspapers. Esquimalt ceased having its own newspaper in 2007 when the Esquimalt News by the Black Press folded and merged with the neighbouring Victoria News.

Esquimalt, however, regained its own local community news source in October 2009 with the creation of the online journal Esquimalt Review.

Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt

Main article: CFB Esquimalt

Canadian warships docked at CFB Esquimalt.

Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt (CFB Esquimalt) is home to Maritime Forces Pacific (MARPAC) of the Royal Canadian Navy. The base facility dates back to the fur trade era, before the founding of the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1849. The docks were first opened for servicing the Royal Navy in 1842 and were expanded in the wake of the disastrous Siege of Petropavlovsk during the Crimean War as the Esquimalt Royal Navy Dockyard.

References

• Community Profile: Esquimalt District Municipality, British Columbia; Statistics Canada

External links

• Corporation of the Township of Esquimalt
• Esquimalt Chamber of Commerce
• Songhees Nation
• Photo of Esquimalt Harbour, 1894, U.Wash Digital Collections