Oak Bay is on the southeastern end of Vancouver Island, just east of Victoria. It draws its name from the wealth of Garry Oak trees that grow on the surrounding
lands.1
John Tod was the first European to settle permanently in Oak Bay, which is now an affluent
municipality; he built a home and farm in the early 1850s.2 Oak Bay appears on Captain Kellett's Royal Navy survey map of 1847, and as Bone Bay on an 1830s HBC map.3
1. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 434.