Oak Bay is part of the traditional territories of the
Coast Salish people of the
Songhees First Nation. Evidence of historic settlement has been found along local shores, including Willows Beach, where an ancient
Lkwungen seaport known as
Sitchanalth was centred around the mouth of the river commonly known as Bowker Creek. Sitchanalth is hypothesized to have been destroyed by the great Tsunami of 930 AD. Much of this neighbourhood is built upon an Indigenous burial ground. Oak Bay takes its name from the
Garry oak tree, which is found throughout the region, and also the name of the large bay on the eastern shore of the municipality, fronting onto
Willows Beach. John Tod, in 1850, built on a farm that is today the oldest continuously-occupied home in Western Canada. Tod was the Chief Fur Trader for the
Hudson's Bay Company for Kamloops, one of the original appointed members of BC's Legislative Council. Originally developed as a middle class
streetcar suburb of Victoria, Oak Bay was incorporated as a municipality in 1906. Its first Council included
Francis Rattenbury, the architect who designed the Legislative Buildings and Empress Hotel located in Victoria's inner harbour. Rattenbury's own home on Beach Drive is now used as the junior campus for
Glenlyon Norfolk School. In 1912, the former farm lands of the
Hudson's Bay Company were subdivided to create the Uplands area, but development was hampered by the outbreak of
World War I. After the war, development of expensive homes in the Uplands was accompanied by the construction of many more single-family dwellings in the Estevan, Willows and South Oak Bay neighbourhoods. The Victoria Golf Club is located in South Oak Bay. It was founded in 1893, and is the second oldest golf course west of the Great Lakes. It is a 6,120 yard links course on the ocean side, and claims to be the oldest golf course in Canada still on its original site. The Royal Victoria Yacht Club was formed on June 8, 1892, and moved in 1912 to its current location, at the location of the old Hudson's Bay Company cattle wharf. In 1925, the
Victoria Cougars won the
Stanley Cup at the
Patrick Arena in Oak Bay, defeating the
Montreal Canadiens in four games. The arena was soon after destroyed by fire in 1929. Nowadays, the Victoria Cougars are the
Detroit Red Wings of the
National Hockey League. The Oak Bay Marina, built in 1962, was officially opened in April 1964. It replaced the Oak Bay Boat House built in 1893. The breakwater was built in 1959 and funded by the federal government. ==Geography==