The park is popular both with tourists and locals, and contains a number of amenities including woodland and shoreline trails, two playgrounds, a waterpark, playing fields, a petting zoo, tennis and pickleball courts, many ponds, and landscaped gardens.

[2] The hill is culturally significant, having been a burial site for the First Nations Coast Salish people, who are the original inhabitants of the Greater Victoria region.

The land ultimately made into the park was set aside as a protected area by Sir James Douglas, governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1858.

Garry oak, arbutus, Douglas-fir, western redcedar, camas, trillium, snowberry, Oregon grape, and fawn lily still remain in the park, as well as the threatened Yellow Montane Violet.

Most prominent is the world's fourth-tallest totem pole, a 38.8-metre (127 ft) work carved from a single cedar tree by Kwakwaka'wakw craftsman Chief Mungo Martin, his son David, and Henry Hunt.