Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary

[1] The sanctuary includes a lake, adjacent marshy lowlands, and the Nature House, as well as a good part of the summit regions of Christmas Hill.

The two areas are joined by a connecting corridor trail along the Nelthorpe Road allowance, crossing McKenzie Avenue at a pedestrian-controlled crosswalk.

The Swan Lake portion of the nature sanctuary is bordered on the west by the Pat Bay Highway; on the east by Saanich Road; on the north by Ralph Street, Sevenoaks and Nelthorpe; and on the south by the Lockside Regional Trail.

Grant Keddie, Royal BC Museum archaeologist, describes Swan Lake as an important hunting and gathering area for the Songhees people.

Over the years, a number of arrowheads and spear tips have been found in the fields and hillsides surrounding the lake, indicating a high level of hunting in the region.

A variety of cat-tails and swamp rushes were harvested from the lake shore and used in weaving shelters, mats, baskets and clothing.

Remains of food found in ancient villages show that species of ducks and seagulls represent a large number of the birds consumed.

Scoters, grebes, geese, swans, sandhill craness, loons and cormorants, grouse, pigeons, and predator birds such as eagles and hawks were consumed.

Women plucked waterfowl and mixed the down with twisted pieces of goose skin and stinging nettle fiber twine to make a textile used for shirts and robes.

The rocky Garry Oak-forested slopes of Christmas hill would likely have been used by the Songhees for the cultivation of the Camas bulb, an important part of the First Nations people's diet.

They practiced a wide variety of cultivation techniques, including prescribed burning, to preserve the open landscape favored by the Camas lily.

It is thought that the predominance and persistence of Garry oak ecosystems across much of Greater Victoria prior to European settlement was a direct result of centuries of burning and harvesting Camas bulbs.

In 1850, the title to the territory deemed to be owned by the Kosampson people was sold to James Douglas of the Hudson's Bay Company.

There is speculation that it was named after James Gilchrist Swan, an American journalist, reservation schoolteacher, lawyer, judge, school superintendent, railroad promoter, natural historian, and ethnographer.

Sir James Douglas, then governor, led the chase himself, sailing to the Cowichan River aboard HMS Beaver.

An 1885 map of the area shows three land owners, with 100 to 150 acres each: Little is known about the Von Allman farm, other than a suggestion that it was largely fruit orchards.

Anne Alice Girling, one of the daughters, had studied photography in England before they came to Victoria, and left a treasure of photographs at Swan Lake and Christmas Hill in the early 1900s.

The lake, stratified into various levels by variations in water temperature during the summer, would "turn over" in the fall, bringing these foul-smelling gases to the surface.

Oxygen levels are still low in the deeper waters of the lake, but trout coming up from the Colquitz river are able to survive for much of the year now.

In the early 1960s, the Municipality of Saanich began acquiring lands around Swan Lake and Christmas Hill with the aim of retaining the area in its natural state, for the use and enjoyment of the public.

An imaginative proposal was produced and published by Saanich's Planning Department, which called for extensive development work on what would be a sanctuary which would preserve the unique ecological assets of the site and provide excellent educational facilities.

The society hired its first staff in the summer of 1975 to carry out an extensive survey of the lands and the lake, and to produce the first site development plans.

In the fall of 1975, under a Federal Labour Grant, the first site development projects were undertaken, with the construction of the first section of trail and floating boardwalk, the initial efforts at tree planting and the beginnings of the sanctuary's education program.

As the society did not have a building in which to base its operations, the site crew was given a back corner office space on the main floor of the Municipal Hall.

This building served until 1977, when a residence at the end of Swan Lake Road - the current Nature House site - became available.

Beginning with a grant from the Municipality of Saanich, the Society mounted a fundraising campaign, and by the spring of 1988 had raised another from the community and the Provincial Government, to build and furnish the Nature House and provide some of the displays.

The programs focus on the natural history and ecology of Southern Vancouver Island and are designed to be engaging, accessible and fun.

Education staff also offer community programs at low cost so that regional residents can learn best practices for monitoring pollinator biodiversity and freshwater water quality.

Members are invited to take part in shaping the future of the Nature Sanctuary by voting at the Annual General Meeting.

The floating boardwalk offered an unprecedented level of access to the lake water, a facility unique in the Capital Region.