This unmarked grave at Ross Bay Cemetery (H80 E19) is the focus of a special project of the BC Black History Awareness Society, which is now seeking donations for a grave marker for Sydna Edmonia Robella Francis—“suffragist, abolitionist, devoted daughter, wife, mother, and property owner.” Sydna Francis (née Dandridge) was born in Virginia in 1815. She also lived in Buffalo, NY, and Portland, OR, before moving to Vancouver Island in 1860; she died in 1889. Her mother and husband are buried at the Old Burying Ground. The family home, Dandridge House, still stands on Rudlin Street and received a heritage designation in 2003.
In 2026, the BC Sports Hall of Fame will celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of its founding in Vancouver in 1966. Last year it created the designation of “Sport Heritage Community” to recognize BC municipalities “that have consistently put sport first from generation to generation.” The City of Kamloops, “Canada’s Tournament Capital,” was first to receive this designation. In March 2025, as reported by the Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame and the Times Colonist, Greater Victoria was designated BC’s second “Sport Heritage Community”; this event coincided with the 100th anniversary celebration of the Victoria Cougars’ Stanley Cup victory in 1925. Many people who participated in Greater Victoria’s rich sporting history are buried in our heritage cemeteries. Cemetery theme tours can promote and raise awareness of BC’s sport heritage and culture.
A short video interview on Ross Bay Cemetery (8:46) with OCS Founding President John Adams is a recent addition to the British Columbia Review Interview Series—an important series of short videos produced over the past year. In his segment, John discusses Ross Bay Cemetery, his books, and his walking tours. The series features the personal reflections of many familiar scholars, journalists, and authors who have contributed to BC public history—Barry Gough, Michael Layland, Wendy Wickwire, Richard Mackie, Kathryn Bridge, Daniel Marshall, Valerie Green, Ben Clinton-Baker, and others.
Since 2023, Victoria’s Tam Kung Temple—the oldest Chinese temple in Canada and a Chinatown landmark—has been raising funds to preserve and maintain its deteriorating building. In March of this year came the welcome news that Parks Canada has designated the temple as a national historic site; this recognition has already been granted to Victoria’s Chinatown (1995) and the Chinese Cemetery at Harling Point (1994). Parks Canada will provide a plaque for the building but no funding, so the community fundraising campaign will continue. Last year, a short documentary film, Benevolence, was produced to explain the origins of the Hakka-Chinese people who built the temple and who have been its caretakers. The temple was an important religious centre and a vital community hub, serving as a post office and helping newcomers find homes and write letters. The current building was constructed in 1912 and the temple is on the fourth floor.
A new exhibit at the Wentworth Villa Architectural Heritage Museum—Knight’s Victoria: The Architectural Photography of Harry Upperton Knight—will be running through the summer months. The English-born Knight (1873-1973) set up a Victoria studio in 1917 and became one of the city’s most celebrated and prolific photographers during the interwar decades. This exhibit showcases his architectural photography. Thousands of Knight’s images—capturing the businesses, residences, and portraits of prosperous Victorians, as well as street scenes—are held at the City of Victoria Archives.
Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2015-16 sparked a flurry of journalistic interest in the “wild Canadian past of the Trump family” and the origins of the Trump fortune in the Klondike goldrush. (See reports from CBC and Maclean’s.) Grandfather Frederick Trump, a German immigrant, left Seattle for the Klondike in 1898, landing in Bennett, BC, near the Yukon boundary. He ran the successful Arctic Restaurant and Hotel, which served horse meat and offered “rooms for ladies.” President Trump’s recent interest in annexing Canada has prompted the Canadian Press to revive the story. Did Frederick Trump cross paths with any of the Victorians in our heritage cemeteries who also sought their fortunes in the Klondike?
The second season of CBC’s new web series, Ghosting with Luke Hutchie and Matthew Finlan, is now streaming. In the first season of this “unscripted paranormal comedy,” the two young actor hosts— veterans of horror films—and their celebrity guests visited eight purportedly haunted Ontario historic sites. Four episodes in the second season were filmed outside Ontario—including a visit to “Canada’s most haunted castle,” Victoria’s Craigdarroch Castle. There are some attractive shots of Victoria with an introduction to Robert and Joan Dunsmuir, and a maid who fell down the central staircase, as possible ghosts. What follows is a camp parody of paranormal investigation, mostly filmed in the dark with a lot of laughter, screaming, and innuendo. Will this series inspire a new generation to
visit Canada’s historic sites? Decide for yourself.
Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria 