Tod Inlet for firework two nights

People & history

• Tod Inlet — first cement factory on the west coast (1904) — The former community of Tod Inlet, within Gowlland Tod Provincial Park, is historically significant as the site of the first cement factory on the west coast, built in 1904 by Robert Butchart's Vancouver Portland Cement Company, with an associated limestone quarry and clay mine. Today visitors can find overgrown concrete foundations, moss-covered artifacts left by workers, and wooden wharf pilings still visible in the water. See Canada's Historic Places listing for details.source →
• SṈIDȻEȽ — W̱SÁNEĆ "place of the Blue Grouse" — Tod Inlet is a traditional place of the W̱SÁNEĆ (Saanich) First Nation, known as SṈIDȻEȽ (pronounced "sneed-kwith"), meaning "place of the Blue Grouse" — a symbol that the land was plentiful. It was an important area for gathering edible and medicinal plants, shellfish and building materials. Signage at the trailhead welcomes visitors to this cultural site.source →
• Gowlland Tod Provincial Park — dedicated 1995 — Established in 1995, Gowlland Tod Park was dedicated under the Commonwealth Heritage Legacy Program commemorating the XV Commonwealth Games held in Victoria in 1994. The park comprises more than 1,200 hectares and protects green space, wildlife habitat and the waters of Tod Inlet on southern Vancouver Island. It can be accessed by boat via Tod Inlet.source →
• Butchart Gardens — from exhausted quarry to National Historic Site — Adjacent to Tod Inlet is Butchart Gardens, created by Jennie Butchart, wife of Robert Butchart who founded the Vancouver Portland Cement Company at the inlet. As limestone was quarried out, she filled the exhausted pit with topsoil brought in by horse to create the Sunken Garden; the site is now a National Historic Site of Canada. Quarrying at Tod Inlet continued until 1912 when the deposits were exhausted.source →
• Diverse immigrant workforce at the cement plant — From the early 1900s to the 1920s, the Vancouver Portland Cement Company occupied the shores of Tod Inlet, and over two hundred Chinese and South Asian (Indian) immigrant workers laboured in the limestone quarry, housed in a shanty community. The site carries historic, cultural, social and spiritual values tied to this ethnically diverse workforce, and much of the inlet's history is described as grim, marked by discrimination.source →