Joseph Pemberton laid out Victoria's town site, southern Vancouver Island and townsites along the Fraser River.

During the first three-year term of his contract, he laid out the land survey of the Victoria district including the urban and rural areas.

In 1857, as Surveyor-General for the Colony of Vancouver Island, Pemberton successfully explored from Cowichan Bay to Nitinat returning by boat down the coast from the Alberni Inlet.

In 1859, he left the HBC and was appointed Surveyor General of the Colony of Vancouver Island, a post he held until October 1864.

Pemberton, who owned the Gonzales estate, a large farm near Victoria, came to be regarded as part of the HBC's landowning élite, and was dubbed one of the "family-company compact" by reformer Amor De Cosmos.