[2024 Colwood Attraction] Travel Guide for Fort Rodd Hill and Fisgard Lighthouse NHS (Updated Dec)

Fisgard Lighthouse National Historic Site, on Fisgard Island at the mouth of Esquimalt Harbour in Colwood, British Columbia, is the site of Fisgard Lighthouse, the first lighthouse on the west coast of Canada. Fisgard Lighthouse is about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) by boat or 12.5 kilometres (7.8 miles) by car from downtown Victoria. Automated in 1929, the light shows a white isophase light of 2 second period in a sector from 322° to 195° at 21.6 metres (71 ft) above mean sea level, and in other directions it shows red shutters. The white 14.6-metre (48 ft) tower is floodlit below balcony level. Fisgard Lighthouse was built in 1860 to guide vessels through the entrance of Esquimalt harbour. It was named after HMS Fisgard, a British Navy ship that spent time in the Pacific. Fisgard Lighthouse and its sister station Race Rocks Light, were constructed in 1859–60, to ease the movement of naval ships into Esquimalt harbour and merchant ships into Victoria Harbour. The light stations were also seen as a significant political and fiduciary commitment on the part of the British government to the Colony of Vancouver Island, partly in response to the American gold miners flooding into the region: some 25,000 arrived in 1858 for the Fraser gold rush. Local legend claims that the brick and stone used in construction were sent out from Britain as ballast; in fact local brick yards and quarries supplied these materials, while the lens, lamp apparatus and lantern room were accompanied from England by the first keeper, Mr. George Davies, in 1859. The cast-iron spiral staircase in the tower was made in sections in San Francisco. Fisgard first showed a light from the tower at sunset on 16 November 1860. The former lighthouse keeper's residence is open to the public and contains displays and exhibits about the site's history. The attached tower is not open to the public as it is an operational aid to navigation. #FisgardLighthouse #BritishColumbia

Fort Rodd Hill National Historic Site is a 19th-century coastal artillery fort on the Colwood side of Esquimalt Harbour, (Greater Victoria Metropolitan Area). The site is adjacent to Fisgard Lighthouse National Historic Site, the first lighthouse on the west coast of Canada. Both the fort and lighthouse are managed and presented to the public by Parks Canada. Rodd Hill was named after John Rashleigh Rodd, First Lieutenant on HMS Fisgard under Captain John A. Duntze. Rodd was later promoted to rear admiral in 1877; vice admiral in 1884, and admiral in 1888. He died in 1892. Guns were first installed here in 1864 to protect Esquimalt Harbour. Britain's Royal Navy began using Esquimalt harbour in the 1840s, at first merely for anchorage, watering and for lumber; but the establishment of three hospital huts during the Crimean War of 1854–1856 marked the start of what is still an active naval base of the Royal Canadian Navy. In 1862, the Royal Navy's Pacific Squadron was relocated to Esquimalt harbour from Valparaíso, Chile (where it had used floating storeships rather than built facilities ashore). This increased presence, eventually including storehouses and workshops ashore, required some form of coastal defence to deter naval attack by an enemy. This need was reinforced by the influx of American gold miners during the Fraser River Gold Rush of 1858, and by the armed standoff of U.S. and British forces during the San Juan Islands Pig War of 1859 and continuing tensions associated with that dispute until its resolution in 1871. It was not until after the Colony of Vancouver Island had joined the mainland of British Columbia in 1866, and then Canada in 1870, that the first fixed coastal defences were emplaced to protect the naval base. During the Great Eastern Crisis in 1877–1878, increased tension between Britain and Russia over the latter's declaration of war on Turkey focused attention on the lack of defences for Britain's only naval station on the western seaboards of both North and South America. Volunteers for artillery training were mustered in Victoria on 18 May, while Lieutenant-Colonel De La Chevois Irwin, Inspector-General of Artillery at Kingston, Ontario, was sent (by train, across the United States) to organize the defences. Five batteries of guns (mainly 64-pounder naval rifled muzzle loader) were constructed quickly, using earthen ramparts shored with timber. The largest guns of these defences were three 7-inch RML guns at Macaulay Point (covering the entrance of both Victoria and Esquimalt harbours), and one 8-inch RML on Brothers Island (at the mouth of Esquimalt harbour). #FortRoddHillNationalHistoricSite