From the oversized soaking tub that doubled as his makeshift lookout post inside our Sooke Harbour House, my 12-year-old son aimed his birding scope toward the large windows overlooking the Salish Sea. Wearing a camouflage hat lined with lichen he’d forged earlier, he settled into the Vancouver Island landscape — the land of my great-grandparents and the place I had returned to share with my own children.
Twenty years earlier, my husband and I had celebrated our honeymoon on this beloved island retreat perched on the British Columbia coast west of Victoria. It was the second night of our honeymoon and a splurge for us at the time. The experience was delightful — until we realized the booking to stay there for the night did not exist. While the reason for the mishap has been forgotten, we pledged we’d return to stay at the inn, hopefully with kids in tow.
Now, our 12-year-old explored and our 15-year-old son lounged while eating a Nanaimo Bar, tasting the same rich and creamy texture of my grandmother’s homemade bars. In 1944, my grandmother moved from California to marry my homesteading Canadian grandfather, Martin Straith, who helped run his family’s fine woolen goods shop, established in Victoria in 1917. As a child, I took many family trips to the island from my home in Seattle. This first visit with my husband and sons was a kind of homecoming, a nostalgic introduction to my family’s deep Vancouver Island connection.
Returning to Sooke Harbour House
While it would take a full week to thoroughly enjoy the locally foraged meals, chartered fishing trips and cozy interiors of the Sooke Harbour House, we were still grateful for a two-day stay. The verdant island paradise called us to explore farther afield.
We were first lured in with the sight of leafy branches dripping with moss and lichen at Goldstream Provincial Park, a beloved slice of southern island wilderness with waterfalls, hiking trails and trees aplenty, some of which are more than 500 years old.
A little farther down the Trans-Canada Highway is the Malahat SkyWalk, where we rose above the tree line to clearly view the glacier-carved fjords, bays, islands and inlets that make up this land of sea, forest and sky. The view from the spectacular spiral tower lookout spanned from the San Juan and Gulf islands to the Saanich Peninsula (where I spied my great-grandparents’ former farm in Sidney).
My childhood memories of the island did not include these stunning views (the structure was built in 2021), but I knew just where I wanted to stop once we hit Victoria: Murchie’s Fine Tea & Coffee, roughly an hour’s drive away.
Murchie’s has been an institution in the city since 1894, and it was always the first stop my mother would make after we disembarked from the FRS Clipper (Seattle to Victoria ferry), which still arrives daily from Seattle into Victoria’s vibrant Inner Harbour, a central, scenic waterfront area in British Columbia, known for historic architecture. While Seattle may be known for coffee, it’s got nothing on the grip that tea has on both the people of Victoria and my own family — handed down through generations from England, Ireland and Scotland. After a midday treat from the pastry counter, we all chose our own assortment of loose teas. Sadly, my own stash has not outlasted my craving for these exceptionally high-quality brews.
Of course, afternoon tea service is taken seriously in Victoria, namely at the Fairmont Empress Hotel. With a teen and preteen in tow, we opted for a more singular, less formal experience at the Tea House at Abkhazi Garden inside the once private home of Peggy Pemberton-Carter and her husband, Prince Nicolas Abkhazi, from an ancient line of kings of Abkhazia on the Black Sea. The couple’s story and spectacular garden setting is still on my mind long after we enjoyed Earl Grey tea, petit fours and smoked salmon blinis.
Exploring Victoria
Our stay was sweetened by a family-friendly Victoria hotel, The Parkside Hotel & Spa, complete with an indoor pool, luxurious amenities and free bikes to take through town.
Our spacious room looked out onto the edges of Beacon Hill Park, which offered a dazzling display of blooming daffodils, manicured gardens, roaming peacocks and a children’s farm. It’s also a hop, skip and jump from the Royal BC Museum, a must for anyone visiting Vancouver Island with kids. We spent a good part of a day exploring the life-like dioramas of wildlife, reconstructed Gold Rush-era Old Town, the HMS Discovery ship and an Indigenous longhouse and totem poles, all illustrating both the cultural and natural landscape. Highly recommended.
There was no agonizing about things to do in Victoria with kids. I had a long list of stops I couldn’t wait to return to. We rode bikes throughout the compact downtown area, stopping at old favorites, including Munro’s Books, Chinatown’s Fan Tan Alley, as well as my grandfather’s former storefront and other fun shops on Government Street. We searched for sea glass on the beaches along Dallas Roadand had unforgettable dockside meals at Red Fish Blue Fish(casual canteen-style dining), Flying Otter Grill(a sit-down waterfront restaurant) and Breakwater Bistro & Bar (with views of the Olympic Mountains).
After meeting some members of my Straith family and taking a spontaneous tour of my great-grandparents’ farm — which happened to be up for sale when we found it — our trip both reignited long-lost connections and provided a wealth of new memories on an enchanted isle in the Salish Sea.
Elisa Parhad is a travel and lifestyle writer, author and photographer based in L.A.
