Victoria

Located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, Victoria, the capital of British Columbia is one of the oldest cities in the Pacific Northwest. First visited in the late 1700s by Spanish explorer Juan Perez and a few years later by British explorer James Cook, it was established as a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post in 1843 and incorporated as Fort Victoria in 1849. Southern Vancouver Island is the indigenous home of the Coast Salish people.

Now Victoria is a hi-tech hub and tourism hotbed with a population of approximately 344,000. The area boasts a subtropical climate where palm and banana trees can be found amongst giant Douglas fir and Sitka spruce. With the Sooke hills to the west and the Olympic Mountains to the south in Washington, the city enjoys the benefits of a rain-shadow effect, within the rain forest. Victoria also has the driest summers, the mildest average temperatures and the least amount of snow in Canada. It’s an ideal climate for runners.

The city is located 100 kilometres west of Vancouver and the same distance north of Seattle. With hundreds of kilometres of mixed-surface trails that intersect the city and with lakes minutes from downtown, Victoria is a recreation mecca. It is home to the National Rowing Centre, National Triathlon Centre and the Pacific Cycling Centre. The area offers year-round recreational opportunities on land and water.