Capturing Our History: Esquimalt's online collections
History meets modern technology with the Esquimalt Archives’ Capturing Our History Project. Some 3,600 images depicting the Township, its people and its history have been digitized and were made available for free online viewing in late 2014.
The images include people, buildings (residential and commercial), events, ships (naval and civilian), the military, modes of transportation, sports and landscapes – all which have in their own way shaped the municipality into what it is today.
The goal of the project—partially funded by a $9000 grant from the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at the University of British Columbia— is to bring to life on the Internet historical images of Esquimalt from the past 150 years.
No longer limited to file folders, bankers’ boxes and albums, the images are available for free online viewing by anyone from anywhere in the world. The image bank is of interest not only to residents and the general public, but also to authors, educators and historians, among others.
The department will be adding more images to the online archive on an ongoing basis in the coming years, as more photographs from the existing collection are uploaded.
If you have any questions, feedback, comments or information regarding the images, please contact the archives department. And, of course, if you have any historical image of Esquimalt you wish to donate, feel free to contact us— we want to hear from you!