If you are interested in the history of the Victoria then you will certainly be familiar with Danda Humphreys. Danda has been entertaining and enlightening visitors and locals with her books, walking tours and talks about the history of Victoria for more than ten years. I recently had the chance to chat with her about the richness of James Bay’s past.

Q: How did you come to write about the history of Victoria?

A: Very basically, the street names fascinated me because they don't exist anywhere else. People kept asking me to meet them at an intersection. 'Yes we've got a job, our office is at Douglas and Yates,' and I'd be looking at the names and thinking I don't remember seeing that anywhere across Canada. So I was spending an awful lot of time on street corners. I was getting quite a reputation. And I decided to start looking into who these people were, and why we chose to name our streets after them. So that's the basic story of how I got into it. It was just curiosity.

My first contract with the Times Colonist was for three articles, but I ended up writing close to five hundred. People reacted to them. 'Oh Wow! What about my street,' they said. It was something that people could relate to, which kept the interest going, and the more I wrote the more interested I got in it.

Q: What aspects of James Bay's history are people most interested in?

A: They are most interested in the fact that we are so much more than a little bit of old England. Which is how Victoria was being sold by the travel people, particularly in the sixties. Anybody who came here around then thought that's all we were. But what is interesting is why the settlement here is different. It was not just a group of hardy pioneers. It was actually an international fur trading company, which brought a whole different breed of men, with a different focus. Then in 1858 all that changed with the gold rush, so we left that behind and became a commercial centre, as people came to service people who made money in the gold rush.

People also want to knowwhat happened in all the old buildings. Victoria has more commercial heritage buildings than any other city I've lived in. Vancouver has a few. Toronto has about three, I don't know, I'm just guessing. But, you know, in those cities, there's more focus on building new stuff. I think we're very fortunate here that we have a couple of people on city council who are very concerned about heritage. Otherwise, we would be going the same route as Vancouver. We'd be losing them all, and really right now our heritage is our biggest selling point.

The other thing I think people are interested in is the myths. Very often they'll say 'Oh I heard there were tunnels under China town where they smuggled people in and out,' and different myths that they've heard. It's fun to go through them because we all want to believe stories, but it's even more fun to find out what the real story was.

Q: What is the most interesting thing about James Bay to you?

A: Well it was the first residential area in Victoria, apart from the Fort and the buildings surrounding the Fort downtown. It was supporting the Fort with farms and bakeries and everything else. Once the first legislature buildings were built on the South side of James Bay that opened everything up. They had to build a bridge to access those buildings. The people who were settling didn't want to be in the downtown Fort area so they moved to James Bay. They built grand old beautiful homes, especially along the waterfront, a lot of which are gone. Probably the only remenant on Bellevile is the Pendray house, which is now the Gatsby Mansion, but they were all beautiful old homes like that along there. So James Bay was the first residential area. I think that was the most important part.

Q: What do you think are the most significant events that have happened in James Bay?

A: One of the most significant by far from an arts point of view was the birth of Emily Carr and the construction of her family home. Richard Carr built the second residence along what is now Government Street, but used to be called Carr Street. And that his daughter should have gone on to fame and fortune, albiet alot of it posthumously, is very significant. We're very proud of the fact that she's a native daughter, and that she's known all over Canada. I do tours of her childhood neighbourhood in connection with Carr House. I take groups to the house and they do a tour there, and then we go on a walking tour around Emiliy's neighbourhood, and we go past all the places were she lived and worked and died, all within one city block. That's pretty special.

Another significant event was the creation of Beacon Hill Park at such an early time. James Douglas set that aside, in theory anyway, way back in 1843. It wasn't actually named as a park by the city until later, but it was never used for anything else, but parkland. We're incredibly fortunate to have that, 154 acres smack bang in the middle of the city like that.

But what makes James Bay unique? It's surrounded on three sides by water, and the fourth side by a park. I mean that's wonderful. There's nothing else like that around.

Q: Why is it important to learn about the history of the neighbourhood you live in?

A: One thing about Victoria is we don't have an awful lot of people who were actually born here. Most of us have come from somewhere else, and that does make a difference to the history. And because this is an island a lot of people who were born here ended up leaving the island to go to University or to different parts of Canada and different parts of the world. And a lot of them never did come back, so we lose that continuity. Because by the middle aged years it's hard to come back. Things are expensive on this island. Eighty per cent of the things we use, pretty well, come across the water that drives all the prices up. People are tempted to stay somewhere a little bit cheaper. Which is a shame because, again, the continuity is lost.

I believe history gives you a sense of belonging. Otherwise it's just living on the surface of a place, and not really appreciateing how it started and how it grew, who came here, what contributions they made, where they ended up.

I think we have a responsibility to protect the past. We need to look after our older structures, our older people, and their stories, and make sure that those connections with the early settlement of this area aren't lost. Whether that's First Nations settlement and First Nations existance in these parts, or European. Our European history is just so short, 1842 really that's nothing when you think about the Eastern part of Canada, or any other place in Europe. I always say to people 'It may be short, but it's very colourful.' because the people who came were such characters.

Danda Humphreys has published four books on the history of Victoria:

On the Street Where you Live: Pioneer Pathways of Early Victoria
On the Street Where you Live: Victoria's Early Roads and Railways
On the Street Where you Live: Sailors Solicitors and Stargazers of Early Victoria
Building Victoria: Men, Myths and Mortar

Each of these books can be found in local bookstores. You can also visit Danda's website to find learn more about her guided tours, events and speaking engagements.

This is the first in an irregular series of posts about the people in James Bay who go the extra mile to make a difference. We're on the look out for passionate people who are dedicated to our neighbourhood to feature in this section. If you know anybody who fits the bill please let me know: joel[at]jamesbay.org.