Willows Beach

Willows Beach, Victoria is a beachfront in the Municipality of Oak Bay, in Victoria, British Columbia. Along Willows Beach is Willows Park, where a tea-room is run by the Kiwanis Club in spring and summer. It takes its name from the Willows Fairground built in 1891[1] and which remained Greater Victoria's main horse-racing venue during the early years of the twentieth century. The Willows Racetrack was situated nearly a kilometre (about a half a mile) inland from the beach, so named because of the willow trees that grew there.

This was the site of the ancient Salish Sea seaport of Sitchanalth.[2] Archaeological digs[3] have identified a Coast Salish permanent encampment of several thousand people for generations. The centre of the community was at the mouth of Bowker Creek where currently the well known private school Glenlyon Norfolk School (GNS) is located. This is the site of what is hypothesized to be the main long-house of the village. The latest theory is that the whole seaport was destroyed by the Great Salish Sea (Seattle) tsunami of 930AD.[4][5]

  1. ^ Terry Reksten, More English than the English, Victoria: Orca Books, 1986, p. 117
  2. ^ "Sitchanalth". Burnt Embers.
  3. ^ Weathers, Beth. "Indian Bowls". North West Coast Archaeology. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  4. ^ "Seattle Fault Zone – 900–930 AD earthquake larger than previously thought". Phys.org. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  5. ^ Smith, William. "Canada's Pompei". Cattle Point Foundation. Retrieved 3 June 2016.