A-Life BC Travel Blog

By Jessica Woollard

Victoria is home to Canada’s oldest Chinatown, so it’s only fitting that the Canada Dry Victoria Dragon Boat Festival would be one of the summer’s biggest attractions.

From August 12 to 14, join thousands of fans around the Inner Harbour and watch 70 teams and hundreds of rowers, both amateur and professional, compete in the 17th Victoria Dragon Boat Festival.

According to an old Chinese legend, dragon boat festivals commemorate the exemplary life and tragic death of Qu Yuan, a 4th century BCE poet and statesman, who was exiled from his home province for promoting ethics and equality.

Banished, he devoted his time to his poetry until one day, he heard that his home province was under attack. Utterly devastated by the news, he threw himself into the Mi Lo River and took his life.

By Jessica Woollard

From Thailand’s world famous night bazaars to Germany’s holiday Christkindlmarkts, food and artisan markets have become a popular attraction in communities around the world, including Sidney, BC, just 35 minutes from downtown Victoria.

Now in its 11th year, the Sidney Summer Market boasts more than 200 vendors, displaying everything from hand-crafted jewellery, clothing, pottery, and soaps, to home-made pasta, granola, and teas.

By Jessica Woollard

After a short 10-minute drive east out of downtown, you’ll find, upon entering the municipality of Oak Bay, that you have travelled back to merry old England.

Located on the southern tip of the Island, Oak Bay—like many of Victoria’s adjacent municipalities—has developed its own distinct, local flavour, and Oak Bay’s local flavour is “More English than England itself.” (Proclaims the local stereotype!)

By Jessica Woollard

Thirty years ago, Guy Laliberté and his theatre troupe started performing circus tricks for locals on the streets of Baie-Saint-Paul, Québec. They walked on stilts, breathed fire, danced, juggled, and eventually took their popular show on a tour of the province.

Cirque du Soleil, the company founded for this provincial tour, is now one of the world’s most profitable artistic companies of all time—born on the streets of a small village in Québec.

You could see the next rags to riches street-act story in downtown Victoria at the first Victoria International Buskers Festival (VIBF), which launched this past weekend and continues this week (12-10pm July 18-23, 12-5pm July 24).

World-class street performers from Canada, USA, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand will perform free shows around the Inner Harbour, in Bastion Square, and at the Bay Centre. Musicians, magicians, contortionists, hoola hoopers, comics, clowns, mimes, pyrotechnicians, dancers, artists—they’ll all be here, captivating us with their comedy, surprising us with their stunts, and dazzling us with their daring.

By Jessica Woollard

In France, the 14th of July commemorates the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution. In Canada, it’s an excuse (as if you needed one!) to dine à la French cuisine.

Victoria is blessed with five, fabulous French restaurants, each celebrating France’s glorious gastronomy while offering a different take on the country’s rich culture.

Sit back, relax, and let me indulge your palate on a mouthwatering journey!

By Jessica Woollard

From dinner theatre to ballet under the stars to theatrical bike rides, the performing arts are as varied as the flowers in Victoria.

Take a look at my favourite picks for July and August—there is something for every taste and budget.

Murder on the Oriental Rug – Dinner Theatre – Black Box Productions

This hilarious Agatha Christie/murder-mystery spoof comes with a three-course meal catered by the Upper Deck Sports Lounge. Get ready to participate: the audience helps solve the crime!

By Jessica Woollard

Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary is not majestic.

It’s not a larger-than-life, west coast experience with giant trees or snow-capped mountains or flowers from every colour of the rainbow.

But Swan Lake is a special place, a place of simple beauty, a peaceful oasis within a bustling city.

Located just off the Galloping Goose Trail (near its merger with the Lochside Trail), a walk around Swan Lake rejuvenates the body and mind. Though it is surrounded by a residential area, once in the park, you might as well be a hundred miles from the city.

By Jessica Woollard

The 27th annual TD International JazzFest will take centre stage in Victoria from June 24 to July 3, infusing our great city with the sublime sounds of smooth brass solos, sultry piano scales, and seductive rhythm sections.

If, like me, classic jazz isn’t really your thing, don’t be fooled by the name of the festival—JazzFest’s line-up includes other styles: blues, R & B, funk, world, Latin/Cuban, avante-garde, electronica, and roots.

According to the Times Colonist, by broadening the style of music JazzFest hopes to attract over 43,000 people, including jazz connoisseurs, newbies to the genre, and everything in between.

This year’s headlining acts include Grammy winner Christian McBride, Trombone Shorty, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle and the Dukes, and Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra, amongst others—hundreds of others!

By Jessica Woollard

Like many tourists, you will probably drive along the southern coast of Victoria to marvel at the view of the majestic Olympic Mountains.

As you approach the Victoria Golf Club on Beach Drive, you might try to count the dozens of white sailboats navigating the bumpy waters.

You might be surprised at how many locals are out getting exercise by the oceanside, running, jogging, or walking with their dogs.

By Jessica Woollard

Following in the tradition of downtown Victoria’s fabulous summer buskers, four wild seals who call Oak Bay Marina home have discovered the key to the good life: wait for a crowd, splash around the water, and smile pretty for the cameras.

Without fail, audiences eat up the entertainment provided by these buskers of the sea, and likewise, the buskers eat up their reward: frozen fish treats, which can be purchased for a mere $2 in the Marina Store.

Local lore professes that these seals have been connected to the Marina since its early days as Sealand of the Pacific, an aquarium that closed in the early 90s after a girl fell in the whale tank and was tragically killed.

When the facility closed down, the whales and larger animals were sent away to other aquariums, but the seals were released into the wild.