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Victoria · Canada

Beacon Hill Park, the World's Tallest Totem Pole, Mile 0 & Dallas Road Waterfront Trail

Ten minutes south of the Inner Harbour: 200-acre Beacon Hill Park, Mile 0 of the Trans-Canada Highway and the Ogden Point Breakwater.

Starting literally two blocks south of the Royal BC Museum and Parliament Buildings, 200-acre (81-hectare) Beacon Hill Park stretches all the way to the wind-swept rocky cliffs of Dallas Road—where the southern tip of Vancouver Island faces the open waters of the Juan de Fuca Strait and the snow-covered wall of Washington's Olympic Mountains.

Stone arch bridge over Goodacre Lake and free-roaming peacocks among Garry oak meadows in Beacon Hill Park, Victoria
Established as a protected public park in 1882 on a sacred Lekwungen camas-bulb harvesting hill, Beacon Hill Park is home to stone bridges, lakes and dozens of wild peacocks.

1. Walking Through Beacon Hill Park (Free 24/7!)

For thousands of years before European arrival, the sunny Garry oak meadows of Mee-acan (Beacon Hill) were cultivated by the Lekwungen Peoples for blue camas lilies. Walk south from Douglas/Belleville Streets past Goodacre and Fountain Lakes (crossing the 1889 cobblestone bridge while spotting free-roaming blue peacocks, painted turtles and great blue herons) up to the summit of Beacon Hill:

  • The 38.8-Metre (127-Foot) Kwakwaka'wakw Story Pole (1956): standing on the southern slope overlooking the sea is one of the tallest free-standing, single-log totem poles in the world—carved in 1956 from a single 38.8-metre ancient red cedar tree by Kwakwaka'wakw Chief Mungo Martin, his son David and Henry Hunt!
  • Beacon Hill Children's Farm & The 'Goat Stampede': traveling with kids? Every morning at 10:10 AM and afternoon at 17:10 PM (spring to autumn), dozens of excited baby pygmy goats sprint in a joyful 'Goat Stampede' from their barn into the petting corral!
The Mile 0 wooden monument marking the western Pacific terminus of the 7,821-kilometre Trans-Canada Highway on Dallas Road
At the corner of Douglas Street and Dallas Road stands the Mile 0 monument—where the 7,821-kilometre Trans-Canada Highway begins its journey to St. John's, Newfoundland.

2. Mile 0 (Trans-Canada Highway), Dallas Road Cliffs & The Ogden Point Breakwater Walk

At the southwestern corner of Beacon Hill Park where Douglas Street meets the ocean stands the Mile 0 Monument—the official western starting point of the 7,821-kilometre (4,860-mile) Trans-Canada Highway, right beside the bronze statue of Canadian hero Terry Fox! From Mile 0, turn right (west) onto the Dallas Road Waterfront Trail: a spectacular paved cliff-top path overlooking driftwood beaches, kite-surfers and the Olympic Mountains that leads in 20 minutes to the 800-metre-long granite Ogden Point Breakwater—where you can walk half a mile straight out into the deep ocean channel to the white lighthouse (watching for sea otters, seals and passing whales right off the concrete wall!). Finish with a legendary soft-serve cone at Beacon Drive-In across from the park!

Walkers strolling out along the 800-metre granite blocks of the Ogden Point Breakwater to the lighthouse in Victoria
Completed in 1916 with 10,000 granite blocks and protected by painted First Nations murals, the Ogden Point Breakwater lets you walk 800 metres straight out into the Juan de Fuca Strait.

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