St. Ann’s Schoolhouse
675 Belleville St Victoria BC V8W 9W2
It was this small log cabin, which served as the Sisters of St. Ann’s first convent, school, hospital and orphanage. Constructed in the 1840s by the Hudson’s Bay Company, it was purchased from the Hudson’s Bay Company by French Canadian, Leon Morel in 1853 and sold four years later to the of Vancouver Island Bishop Demers.
Earlier in 1857, Bishop Demers travelled to Quebec to appeal for Sisters to help in the work of establishing a school for First Nations children and Metis on Vancouver Island. A party of four Sisters of St. Ann and a lay woman reached Victoria on 5 June 1858. St. Ann’s schoolhouse was moved to its present location in the 1970s; it has been restored and is used as an interpretive centre for school programs to bring awareness to the legacy of the Sisters of St. Ann’s contribution to Education in the Pacific Northwest. It is located in Heritage Court, next to the Royal British Columbia Museum it is open from May to September.