The story of Victoria's
Craigflower Manor is of major
significance to the Canada we
know today as a diverse
nation stretching between the
Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific
oceans. Built in 1853 and the
last remaining example of a
Hudson's Bay Company
agricultural settlement,

Craigflower is a classic
illustration of how colonial
Britain ensured that
territories such as Vancouver
Island would remain British
possessions as people settled
in the New World. And so the
island did until 1871, when
the Crown Colony of British
Columbia became a province

within the new Dominion of
Canada.
   Craigflower Manor
celebrated its 150th
anniversary in 2006. This
Community Memories exhibition
commemorates the event by
tracing its history from the
millennia long before contact
between the First Nations

peoples and the Europeans
right up until today. It
explores how in the 1850s the
Puget's Sound Agricultural
Company, an offshoot of the
Hudson's Bay Company, settled
Scottish farmers and set up a
village in the area and how,
by the late 19th and early
20th centuries, tenant