1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (138 page)

Raising Regional Cuisine to an Art Form

Sooke, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

It doesn’t look like the site of a revolution. On a quiet wooded promontory overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the distant Olympic Mountains sits a tidy white 1929 clapboard inn that has played a leading role in
changing how we eat and think of food today. Sinclair and Fredrica Philip’s Sooke Harbour House is justly famed as one of North America’s foremost hotel restaurants for authentic regional cuisine, and has been a leader in advancing fresh and resolutely local ingredients as the ne plus ultra of today’s best cooking.

On the grounds of the Sooke Harbour House, a special organic garden of edible plants, herbs, and flowers invites a visit.

The Sooke Harbour House dining room features inventive and delicious cuisine prepared from the freshest sources: just-caught fish and seafood from the waters off the hotel and produce and meats from local organic farms. With 400 varieties of rare and unusual herbs, edible flowers, and organic vegetables, the inn’s lovingly tended garden’s bounty is used liberally and innovatively in the menu’s ever-changing, one-of-a-kind dishes. For connoisseurs, the seven-course gastronomic menu features delicacies like seared halibut cheek with Dungeness crab and roast venison loin dusted with wild rose petals. Served in a candlelit dining room overlooking the rocky coastline, these delicious repasts are complemented by a list of more than 2,000 wines, 40 of them served by the glass.

Sampling the stellar wine selection becomes twice as enjoyable when you needn’t journey far to any of the inn’s serene yet unpretentious
guest rooms, each offering ocean views and uniquely decorated with antiques and original West Coast paintings and sculpture. All rooms have wood-burning stone fireplaces, and most have whirlpools for two, positioned to enjoy the gorgeous views.

Sooke Harbour House offers several unusual tours. Visit the organic edible flower gardens with one of the staff gardeners, or join the local “seaweed lady” for an exploration of the inn’s seaweed garden. Locally harvested seaweed is used in the inn’s specialty spa treatments as well as in evening meals.

W
HERE
: 23 miles/37 km west of Victoria; 1528 Whiffen Spit Rd. Tel 800-889-9688 or 250-642-3421,
www.sookeharbourhouse.com
.
C
OST
: from US$223/C$250 (off-peak), from US$334/C$375 (peak), includes breakfast and packed lunch; 4-course prix fixe dinner US$61/C$69.

Splendorous and World-Famous Gardens

Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

It all started as a gaping hole in the ground. Cement tycoon Robert Butchart exhausted the limestone quarry near his Saanich Peninsula home in 1904, but one person’s 50-foot-deep abandoned pit is another’s gardening
challenge. Butchart’s wife, Jennie, had the quarry filled with topsoil and gradually landscaped the deserted eyesore into the magnificent Sunken Garden. By 1908, the Butcharts had created a Japanese garden, later adding an Italian garden on the site of their former tennis court. A few years later, a fine rose garden replaced the family vegetable patch. Word spread quickly of Mrs. Butchart’s amazing green thumb, and by the 1920s some 50,000 visitors were coming each year to visit the Butcharts’ private gardens.

Now extending across 55 acres, the Butchart Gardens, still family-run, today is Canada’s most-visited private attraction, drawing over a million visitors a year. Over a million bedding plants in some 700 varieties are planted throughout the gardens to ensure uninterrupted bloom from March through October. Not for the faint of heart, the midsummer display is absolutely riotous, with the gardens transformed by thousands of strands of twinkling lights. Spring is another colorful time to visit, when 300,000 tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and other bulbs are in bloom. Fall and winter present a more subdued landscape, but it’s an opportunity to enjoy the quiet and appreciate the underlying architecture of the gardens and indoor displays. A small ice-skating rink has been added to take your mind off the warm-weather spectacle you’re missing.

Each season at Butchart Gardens promises a beauty all its own.

From the first weekend in July until September, a variety of musical entertainments are offered on outdoor stages, both afternoons and evenings. On summer Saturday evenings
the immensely popular fireworks display is followed by a pipe-organ concert. Throughout the year, the Dining Room Restaurant—located in Benvenuto, the Butcharts’ original home—serves traditional afternoon tea, with lunch and dinner served in season.

W
HERE
: Brentwood Bay (14 miles/23 km north of Victoria), 800 Benvenuto Ave. Tel 250-652-4422;
www.butchartgardens.com
.
D
INING
R
OOM
: Tel 250-652-8222.
When:
tea service daily; lunch daily, Apr–mid-Oct; dinner daily, mid-June–mid-Sept.
Cost:
dinner US$50/$C55.
B
EST TIMES
: Mar–Apr for spring bulbs; May–June for rhododendrons and azaleas; mid-June–mid-Sept for evening magic; July–Sept for roses and summer annuals; July–Aug for fireworks every Sat; Oct for fall colors; Dec–Jan for Christmas lights.

Outpost of Old World Charm

Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

The word “palatial” was created to describe landmarks like the Fairmont Empress—larger than life, shaped by marvelous architecture, and filled with a sumptuous refinement of detail. The city, named after Queen Victoria,
Empress of India, was the first European settlement on Vancouver Island. When it became the capital of British Columbia in 1868, an appropriate hotel befitting its new status was needed; that did not arrive until 1908. Designed by Francis Rattenbury, who also designed the Parliament buildings just across the way ten years earlier, the Empress is one of Canada’s most beloved hotels.

The Empress rises imposingly over Victoria’s Inner Harbour, a grand lodging with the style and furnishings of another, more gracious era, but with all the comforts and conveniences of a modern luxury hotel. Over the years, the ivy-covered Fairmont Empress has become the very symbol of Victoria, the most British of Canada’s cities, and a beautifully preserved showcase of Edwardian-era architecture.

For most visitors, taking afternoon tea at the Empress is a Victoria tradition. While sitting in the opulent Tea Lobby, partake of the hotel’s secret Tea at the Empress blend served in fine Royal Doulton china, accompanied by freshly baked raisin scones served with Devon-style double clotted cream and strawberry preserves. You won’t be thinking about dinner anytime soon.

If tea is not your thing, there’s no better spot for a fortifying beverage than the richly atmospheric Bengal Lounge, with colonial furnishings and leather wingback chairs redolent of a London gentlemen’s club; the huge wall-mounted tiger skin was donated by the King of Siam. The Bengal Lounge’s curry buffet is a favorite for those seeking a bit of spice and raj recollection. If you prefer to experience the full force of Northwest cuisine, reserve a table in the regally decorated Empress Room, the hotel’s deservedly acclaimed dining room with tapestried walls and refined service.

For the classic Fairmont Empress experience, reserve a Harbour View Deluxe or Fairmont Gold room, which offer sumptuous decor and magnificent views over the Inner Harbour, downtown Victoria, and the Parliament buildings. In addition to every other amenity known to purveyors of luxury, the hotel also offers Willow Stream spa, a new C$6 million therapeutic and beauty treatment center.

W
HERE
: 721 Government St. Tel 888-705-2500 or 250-384-8111;
www.fairmont.com/empress
.
Cost:
from US$177/C$199; tea US$30/C$35; dinner at Bengal Lounge US$26/C$29; dinner at Empress Room from US$70/C$79.
B
EST TIME
: last weekend in July for Victoria International Flower and Garden Festival (
www.flowerandgarden.com
) in Topaz Park.

Showcase of Region’s Natural and Human History

Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

The Royal British Columbia Museum sits between two of Victoria’s most famous landmarks, the beloved Fairmont Empress Hotel (see previous page) and the British Columbia Parliament Building, but offers more history
than either. Bypassing world history to focus on the importance of this intriguing niche of the globe, the museum is considered one of the best regional museums anywhere. Its three galleries focus on British Columbia’s natural environment, its settlement history, and the rich art and culture of its First Nations peoples.

Visitors follow a time line of the province’s history, from the Ice Age (the 10-foot woolly mammoth is a guaranteed hit with children) to its mining and fishing heyday. An excellent exhibit features a partial re-creation of George Vancouver’s ship the HMS
Discovery,
in which the English sea captain explored the Northwest Pacific Coast in the 1790s. The natural history gallery contains many lifelike dioramas illustrating the province’s broad range of wildlife and flora.

Perhaps most compelling, and always the most visited, is the First Peoples Gallery, which details the history and culture of the region’s several distinct coastal nations. These cultures reached their zenith in the late 18th century, when European traders began making incursions into the Northwest. However, contact with the Europeans’ diseases, to which the Native population had little resistance, decimated them. The museum’s displays of hand-carved masks, ceremonial garb and headdresses, decorative accessories and textiles, and iconic totem poles bring to life vibrant Native cultures dating back thousands of years.

Directly behind the museum is Thunderbird Park, with a thicket of towering totem poles carved by 20th-century Native artists. On-site wood-carvers occasionally demonstrate their age-old skills. A genuine ceremonial longhouse stands beside the totem poles, reserved for traditional First Nations gatherings.

W
HERE
: 675 Belleville St. Tel 888-447-7977 or 250-356-7226;
www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca
.
B
EST TIME
: early Aug for Victoria’s First Peoples Festival.

A full-size woolly mammoth welcomes you to the Royal British Columbia Museum.

North America’s Top Ski Resort Doubles the Pleasure