Helmcken House Travel Guide

(daily 10am-5pm; $4) stands strangely isolated in Thunderbird Park directly adjacent to the museum, a predictable heritage offering that showcases the home, furnishings and embroidery talents of the Helmcken family. Built in 1852, it is the oldest standing home on the island. Dr John Helmcken was Fort Victoria's doctor and local political bigwig, and his house is a typical monument to stolid Victoria values. Upstairs it also contains various attic treasures and some of the good doctor's fearsome-looking medical tools. It's probably only of interest, however, if you've so far managed to avoid any of the Northwest's many hundreds of similar houses. If you do visit, pick up the free guided tapes and listen to "voices from history" (actors and actresses) that give a more personalized slant to the building: listen, for example, to "Aunt Dolly" as she tells why she left the good doctor's room untouched as a shrine after his death. Just behind the house there's another old white-wood building, the St Anne's Pioneer Schoolhouse ($2), originally purchased by a Bishop Demers for four sisters of the Order of St Ann, who in 1858 took it upon themselves to leave their Québec home to come and teach in Victoria. Built between 1843 and 1858, it's believed to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest, buildings in Victoria; $2 buys you a peek at the old-fashioned interior and period fittings.