Royal Roads
Map
In 1846, Captain Henry Kellett of the HMS Herald gave the name “Royal Bay” to an area just outside of Esquimalt Harbour.1 The epithet “Royal Roads” eventually became more popular, as vessels would wait at Royal Bay before they entered into Victoria and Esquimalt Harbours—a roadstead, which is shortened to “roads”, is a less-protected anchorage than a harbour.2
Manuel Quimper originally named the area Rada de Valdés y Bazan in 1790, in honour of the Spanish minister of marine at the time, Antonio Valdés y Bazan.3
  • 1. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Placenames (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 512.
  • 2. Ibid.
  • 3. Ibid.
Mentions of this place in the documents
    The Colonial Despatches Team. Royal Roads. The Colonial Despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1846-1871, Edition 2.0, ed. The Colonial Despatches Team. Victoria, B.C.: University of Victoria. https://bcgenesis.uvic.ca/royal_roads.html.

    Last modified: 2020-03-30 13:22:16 -0700 (Mon, 30 Mar 2020) (SVN revision: 4193)