Historical Background of Victoria
General Progress on Wharf Street
List of Wharf Street Businesses
Hudson Bay Company Store and Warehouse
While Fort Victoria was dismantled in the 1860s, the Hudson’s Bay Company still maintained an important role in the commercial life of Victoria through to the 1880s. With the gold rush, commercial wholesale and retail trade increased in significance for the company. To meet new levels of demand brought by the gold rush, the Hudson’s Bay Company required new quarters. Consequently, the company built a red brick store and warehouse on Wharf Street in 1859. Even though the Hudson’s Bay Company no longer dominated trade and supply in Victoria, they were still important in the business life of the city as is evidence by the size and prominence of their building Wharf Street.
The building was five stories tall with a basement and sub-basement as well as a high slate roof. The brick walls were twenty-two inches thick and the beams were hand-hewn Douglas fir. In Book of Small, Emily Carr recalled seeing the natives coming across the harbour in their canoes to trade at the store and described the building as “…a long, low building of red brick with a veranda."46
A publication by the Hudson’s Bay Company marking the centenary of Fort Victoria noted that those who designed the building accounted for the possibility that the gold rush might pass and Victoria would return to its former ‘primitive wilderness.’ To prepare for this possible occasion, the sub-basement was equipped with ammunition and supplies in case of an attack by the local Aboriginal population. The building also housed an underground escape tunnel.47 The building was taken down and a new building was constructed in 1912 at its current location on Douglas Street as a modern department store.48
Hudson's Bay Company Warehouse - 1870s
Current Hudson's Bay Department Store on Douglas Street- 1920s