Victoria — Old Town, Chinatown & Inner Harbour
Bastion Square — Site of Fort Victoria
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
Bastion Square occupies part of the ground once dominated by Fort Victoria, the Hudson's Bay Company post established in 1843.
The fort was not a military castle in the European sense. It was a commercial compound: warehouses, offices, dwellings and defensive palisades supporting the fur trade and company administration.
As the gold rush transformed the settlement after 1858, the town expanded so quickly that the fort became obsolete. Its structures were removed and city streets absorbed the site.
That disappearance tells us how fast Victoria changed from company town to colonial city.
The square later became associated with courts, law offices and civic institutions.
A fur-trade fort turning into a legal district is a neat summary of colonial consolidation: commercial occupation first, formal urban government later.
Look for the outline markers and interpretive signs. The fort is gone, but the street pattern still remembers where power first concentrated.