ALL IN THE FAMILY

During their weeklong visit to B.C. and Yukon, Prince William, Kate and their children will have their home base in Victoria, which was named in 1844 after the Prince’s great, great, great, great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. Parts of the city still resemble a slice of England, complete with Tudorstyle mansions and double-decker buses painted with the Union Jack. And one of the city’s most prominent landmarks — the Fairmont Empress Hotel — was named after Queen Victoria’s additional title, Empress of India. According to Monique Goffinet Miller, a spokeswoman for the Monarchist League of Canada, the lights of the B.C. legislature building in Victoria “are there because they were lit for the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria (in 1887) and they’ve been burning ever since . ... It was meant to look like Her Majesty’s crown.” While in Victoria, the royals will be staying at Government House, the official residence of the lieutenant-governor.