St. Anne’s Academy Tours

By Jack Krayenhoff

The tours the Friends of St. Anne's Academy are going offer this summer sound promising. In the first place, while most of us are fairly familiar with the contributions of England to our city with Sir James Douglas, Dr. Helmcken and Bishop Cridge - the French contribution with Bishop Demers and the four sisters of St Anne from Quebec is not so well known. It should be; it was very important. For instance, over the years, 35,000 girls have studied at St Anne's.

Another reason to take one of the tours is the new tour guide, Marie-Hélène Bourret. Not only is she Quebecois, her lively speech is complemented by a full range of French gesticulations. You are not given one moment to become bored.

Right at the start of our conversation she warns me, "I talk a lot, you know. If it is too much, just stop me. Do you know how to stop a Frenchman talking? You tie his hands behind his back." There is another qualification that makes her a fun tour guide: she is actually a story teller by trade. She promises her approach is to teaching history is not by reciting dates, but by telling the individual stories and adventures of these Victorian pioneers. And adventures there were!

Imagine these four nuns coming, unprotected, to Victoria just at the start of the Fraser River gold rush, and the only building they were able to find, on which to work and live, was a small cabin, which still stands in the little park beside the Provincial Museum next to Helmcken House. Also imagine sisters having to deal with marriage proposals, not to mention less reputable propositions, from those rough gold miners.

On your tour, you might learn about the adventure of the City's first cathedral being rolled on logs to its present location on the St. Anne's grounds, where it was incorporated in the enlarging school buildings.

Altogether, It is safe to predict that the tours are going to be not only interesting, but also a lot of fun. They will be offered in both French and English.

The tours will be offered every Sunday from June 1st until the end of September. The French tours will be at 1pm, the English at 2.30pm. They start at the front entrance of St. Anne's Academy.