Vancouver Island Wallmap Mural
[Three 'markers' a part of this mural. They are entitled: Pemberton Family, Vancouver Island, and Fort Victoria.]
Pemberton Family
J.D. Pemberton, engineer and surveyor for the H.B.C., arrived in 1851 by canoe in the last stages of his journey from England when this settlement numbered about 300. He built the first schoolhouse, was the first settler to cross the Island, and was the first Surveyor General of the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. As population swelled during the Cariboo gold rush, Pemberton laid out new townships. A member of the first Legislative Assembly, he founded Pemberton & Son in 1887. In 1947 the firm move to this site.
Vancouver Island
Royal Navy Capt. James Cook landed at Nootka in 1778. Capt. George Vancouver, arriving in 1792, befriended Capt. Bodega y Quadra of the Spanish Navy as the debated coastal sovereignty before the Nootka Convention, and this island was originally named Vancouver and Quadra’s Island. They enjoyed a good relationship with Mowachaht Chief Maquinna. Capt. Vancouver circumnavigated the island surveying its coastline, missing the cross-continent explorer Alexander McKenzie by two weeks on the mainland Bella Coola coast.
Fort Victoria
Fort Victoria was established in 1843 by Hudson’s Bay Company Chief Factor James Douglas who thought the area “a perfect Eden.” The fort’s southeast corner was here. Douglas was named Governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island and the Colony of British Columbia before union with Canada in 1871. This city, named for Queen Victoria, is the provincial capital.
Marker is at the intersection of Broughton Street and Government Street on Broughton Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
