James Douglas scouts the site for Fort Victoria

John Adams is an author, historian, and he owns and operates a walking tour company “Discover The Past” that offers walking tours of Victoria.

Location: On the south end of the causeway above the Inner Harbour. On the stonewall is a series of plaques called “The Parade of Ships” The Parade of Ships is a series of bronze plaques that line the Upper Causeway overlooking the Inner Harbour commemorating vessels, people, and events significant to Victoria’s harbour history.  The first plaques, 24, were unveiled in 1962, the number is now about 70.

Interview format:  John is standing at the causeway,in front of the stonewall with the row of plaques displayed.  The background is a view of Victoria’s Inner Harbour with a variety of boats of varying sizes tied up at the docks.  Throughout the video John looks at the harbour and/or points at the plaque.

On-screen text:  James Douglas Scouts a location for Fort Victoria

John:  Here’s a plaque along the parade of ships that is of interest it’s [close-up of the plaque, then pans back to view of John] a small sailing vessel called the Cadboro and it tells us that in 1842 it brought James Douglas to survey for Fort Victoria. at this time he lived at Fort Vancouver where Vancouver Washington is now on the Colombia River but they were looking for a new post farther north and they sent Douglas up here. He scouted around and found that Victoria Harbour was ideal and so the following year in 1843 he returned and chose the specific site beside Victoria Harbour and began the supervision of the construction of Fort Victoria. James Douglas is a very important person in the history of Blacks in British Columbia and you can’t really talk about Black history in British Columbia without reference to James Douglas.

Plaque text:

CADBORO  1842 with JAMES DOUGLAS to survey for FORT VICTORIA. Presented by Victoria Section, B.C. Historical Association 1966.