Sidney is a town located at the northern end of the
Saanich Peninsula
Saanich Peninsula () is located north of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It is bounded by Saanich Inlet on the west, Satellite Channel on the north, the small Colburne Passage on the northeast, and Haro Strait on the east. The exact southern ...
, on
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...
in the
province
A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
of
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
. It is one of the thirteen
Greater Victoria
Greater Victoria (also known as the Greater Victoria Region) is located in British Columbia, Canada, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. It is usually defined as the thirteen municipalities of the Capital Regional District (CRD) on V ...
municipalities. It has a population of approximately 11,583. Sidney is located just east of
Victoria International Airport
Victoria International Airport serves Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It is north northwest of Victoria on the Saanich Peninsula, with the bulk of the airport (including the passenger terminal) in North Saanich, British Columbia, North Saa ...
, and about south of
BC Ferries
British Columbia Ferry Services Inc., Trade name, operating as BC Ferries (BCF), is a former provincial Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation, now operating as an independently managed, State-owned enterprise, publicly owned Canadian c ...
' Swartz Bay Terminal. The town is also the only Canadian port-of-call in the
Washington State Ferries
Washington State Ferries (WSF) is a public ferry system in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. It is a division of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and operates 10 routes serving 20 terminals within Puget ...
system, with ferries running from Sidney to the
San Juan Islands
The San Juan Islands is an archipelago in the Pacific Northwest of the United States between the U.S. state of Washington and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The San Juan Islands are part of Washington state, and form the core of ...
and
Anacortes
Anacortes ( ) is a city in Skagit County, Washington, United States. The name "Anacortes" is an adaptation of the name of Anne Curtis Bowman, who was the wife of early Fidalgo Island settler Amos Bowman.Highway 17, which bisects the town from north to south. It is generally considered part of the Victoria metropolitan area.
The town west of Highway 17 (also called Patricia Bay Highway, locally abbreviated as the Pat Bay Highway) has a mixture of single-family residences and light industry. The
majority of the town is located east of Highway 17. Single-family units are also present east of the highway, but the eastern sector also has many
condominium
A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual own ...
-type buildings, plus most of the service and retail outlets. The island-studded
Haro Strait
The Haro Strait is one of the main channels connecting the Strait of Georgia to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, separating Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands in British Columbia, Canada from the San Juan Islands of Washington (state), Washington st ...
, part of the
Salish Sea
The Salish Sea ( ) is a List of seas on Earth #Terminology, marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean located in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia and the States of the United States , U.S. state of Washingto ...
, forms Sidney's eastern boundary. There is a large boating and marine industry in the area, ranging from marinas to boatbuilders and marine suppliers.
Sidney takes its name from nearby Sidney Island. In 1859, Captain Richards named that island for Frederick W. Sidney, who, like Richards served in the survey branch of the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
Statistics Canada
Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...
, Sidney had a population of 12,318 living in 5,981 of its 6,321 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 11,672. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
Sidney has a median age of 60.4 in 2001 as compared with the British Columbia median age of 38.4. Sidney had more than 35% of their population over the age of 65.
Ethnicity
Religion
According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Sidney included:
*
Irreligion
Irreligion is the absence or rejection of religious beliefs or practices. It encompasses a wide range of viewpoints drawn from various philosophical and intellectual perspectives, including atheism, agnosticism, religious skepticism, ...
(6,150 persons or 52.2%)
*
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
(5,330 persons or 45.2%)
*
Judaism
Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
(55 persons or 0.5%)
*
Sikhism
Sikhism is an Indian religion and Indian philosophy, philosophy that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent around the end of the 15th century CE. It is one of the most recently founded major religious groups, major religio ...
(55 persons or 0.5%)
*
Buddhism
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
(35 persons or 0.3%)
*
Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
(25 persons or 0.2%)
*
Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for a range of Indian religions, Indian List of religions and spiritual traditions#Indian religions, religious and spiritual traditions (Sampradaya, ''sampradaya''s) that are unified ...
(15 persons or 0.1%)
*Other (105 persons or 0.9%)
Labour force
Sidney is mainly an industrial town, with most people working in the construction, manufacturing, and warehousing fields (26%). Retail accounts for approximately 10% of the employment. Healthcare and social assistance employs 13%. There are over 4,000 people employed in Sidney, with an unemployment rate of 6.1%. It should also be taken into consideration that some of this labour force commutes from neighbouring municipalities, such as Saanich or Victoria. The median income is $24,638. The median income for a household in the town is $63,840 Renting costs in Sidney have increased substantially over the past few years, with a Standard 2 Bedroom Suite reaching as much as $2500 a month. The average cost of a house in Sidney in March 2019 was $645,500.
Government
The Town of Sidney is a municipality governed by an elected Council The elected Council, 2015–2018 consists of one Mayor and six Councillors. Mayor Steve Price, Councillor Erin Bremner-Mitchell, Councillor Tim Chad, Councillor Barbara Fallot, Councillor Mervyn Lougher-Goodey, Councillor Cam McLennan, and Councillor Peter Wainwright.
Sister Cities
A sister city or a twin town relationship is International relations, a form of legal or social agreement between two geographically and politically distinct localities for the purpose of promoting cultural and commercial ties.
While there ar ...
Sidney's most popular attraction is its position on the Salish Sea. Sidney-by-the-Sea is the gateway to the southern Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, and is an eco-tourist destination, with whale-watching, bird-watching, kayaking and scuba-diving. It is home to the new Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre. Shoal Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary is located within Sidney and the adjoining Sidney Channel Important Bird Area, an internationally recognized site important to a variety of seabirds and waterfowl.
Sidney has its own local history museum, the Sidney Museum and Archives, which features displays about the history of the surrounding Peninsula as well as temporary exhibits. As home to the
Victoria International Airport
Victoria International Airport serves Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It is north northwest of Victoria on the Saanich Peninsula, with the bulk of the airport (including the passenger terminal) in North Saanich, British Columbia, North Saa ...
Sidney also hosts the British Columbia Aviation Museum which features displays, artifacts, restored historical aircraft and a vintage aircraft restoration workshop.
During the summer, Sidney hosts a street market on Thursday evenings on the main street (Beacon). "Sidney days" is another event that occurs at the beginning of July. To celebrate, Sidney has a parade, a build-a-boat contest, a small fair and
fireworks
Fireworks are Explosive, low explosive Pyrotechnics, pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a large numbe ...
in the evening. In the winter, Sidney has a holiday parade as well as a lighted sailpast boat parade. Sidney has many dining places including Greek, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and west-coast restaurants. With 12 bookstores, Sidney is officially one of Canada's 2
book town
A book town is a town or village with many used book or antiquarian bookstores. These stores, as well as literary festivals, attract bibliophile tourists. Some book towns are members of the International Organisation of Book Towns.
List of ...
Almost all of the land within Sidney's boundary is either flat or very gently sloping, providing a
topography
Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps.
Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...
which is favourable for the town's elderly people. Most soils are
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...
ey, and poorly drained in their natural state. In some parts of town, this clay is overlain by deposits of
sand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...
and
gravel
Gravel () is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally on Earth as a result of sedimentation, sedimentary and erosion, erosive geological processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone.
Gr ...
which are well drained.
Climate
Sidney enjoys a cool
Mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate ( ), also called a dry summer climate, described by Köppen and Trewartha as ''Cs'', is a temperate climate type that occurs in the lower mid-latitudes (normally 30 to 44 north and south latitude). Such climates typic ...
(Csb) with year-round mild temperatures and moderate rainfall. Most years see very little snow. Daily temperatures seldom climb above , or dip below . In the mildest winters, minimum temperatures stay above . Damaging winds are less frequent than in most other maritime areas of Canada.
Fauna
The environs of Sidney provides habitat for a diverse array of fish and wildlife, both terrestrial and marine, coming and going with the seasons. For this reason it is a growing mecca for bird watchers, whale watchers, scuba-divers and eco-tourism. Sidney's most famous inhabitant is the
bufflehead
The bufflehead (''Bucephala albeola'') is a small sea duck of the genus ''Bucephala'', the goldeneyes. It breeds in Alaska and Canada and migrates in winter to southern North America. This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his lan ...
featured prominently on its coat of arms. The bufflehead is just one of many species of waterfowl that overwinter in Shoal Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary, one of the oldest marine sanctuaries on the west coast. Sidney overlooks Sidney Channel Important Bird Area, an internationally recognized site of major importance for many species of seabirds such as
common murre
The common murre or common guillemot (''Uria aalge'') is a large auk. It has a Subarctic, circumpolar distribution, occurring in low-Arctic and boreal waters in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. It spends most of its time at sea, only coming ...
cormorant
Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) ado ...
s, and several gull species, including the unusual Heermann's gull. Another resident bird is the
bald eagle
The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche ...
which has nested continuously in 'Beaufort Grove' for twenty-five years. In summer large numbers of
great blue heron
The great blue heron (''Ardea herodias'') is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North and Central America, as well as far northwestern South America, the Caribbea ...
s gather in Roberts Bay (part of Shoal Harbour Sanctuary) to feed on the abundant small fish. A variety of songbirds (
towhee
A towhee is any one of a number of species of birds in the genus ''Pipilo'' or ''Melozone'' within the family Passerellidae (which also includes American sparrows and juncos).
Towhees typically have longer tails than other Passerellidae. Most sp ...
s,
American robin
The American robin (''Turdus migratorius'') is a migratory bird of the true thrush genus and Turdidae, the wider thrush family. It is named after the European robin because of its reddish-orange breast, though the two species are not clos ...
chickadee
The chickadees are a group of North American birds in the family Paridae included in the genus '' Poecile''. Species found in North America are referred to as chickadees; species found elsewhere in the world are called tits. They are small-si ...
s etc.) are found in back yards, along with the common northwestern crow, and introduced species such as the
common starling
The common starling (''Sturnus vulgaris''), also known simply as the starling in Great Britain and Ireland, and as European starling in North America, is a medium-sized passerine bird in the starling family, Sturnidae. It is about long and ha ...
and
house sparrow
The house sparrow (''Passer domesticus'') is a bird of the Old World sparrow, sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. It is a small bird that has a typical length of and a mass of . Females and young birds are coloured pa ...
. The airport lands around Sidney are the only place in North America where the song of the European skylark can be heard.
Marine mammals include the ubiquitous harbour seal and the small
harbour porpoise
The harbour porpoise (''Phocoena phocoena'') is one of eight extant species of porpoise. It is one of the smallest species of cetacean. As its name implies, it stays close to coastal areas or river estuaries, and as such, is the most familiar ...
. Occasionally
gray whale
The gray whale (''Eschrichtius robustus''), also known as the grey whale,Britannica Micro.: v. IV, p. 693. is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of , a weight of up to and lives between ...
s and
killer whale
The orca (''Orcinus orca''), or killer whale, is a toothed whale and the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. The only extant species in the genus '' Orcinus'', it is recognizable by its black-and-white-patterned body. A cosmopolit ...
s can be seen from Sidney's waterfront. Marine-adapted river otters are common coastal inhabitants, along with
raccoon
The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the North American, northern or common raccoon (also spelled racoon) to distinguish it from Procyonina, other species of raccoon, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest ...
, and
mink
Mink are dark-colored, semiaquatic, carnivorous mammals of the genera ''Neogale'' and '' Mustela'' and part of the family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels, otters, and ferrets. There are two extant species referred to as "mink": the A ...
. Adjacent woodlands and farmlands are home to the small, shy
black-tailed deer
Black-tailed deer or blacktail deer occupy coastal regions of western North America. There are two subspecies, the Columbian black-tailed deer (''Odocoileus hemionus columbianus'') which ranges from the Pacific Northwest of the United States and ...
. In recent years, the introduced, invasive eastern grey squirrel has become abundant.
The waters around Sidney once supported a large sports fishery, based largely on
Chinook salmon
The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Oncorhynchus, Pacific salmon. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other vernacular names for the species include king salmon, quinn ...
, along with ground fish such as ling cod, and various rockfish ('' Sebastes''), but overfishing and poor management have greatly reduced the sports fishery. Also, ecological change and the decline of critical forage species such as the Pacific herring and the sand lance have had significant impacts on the larger predators, including salmon, killer whales and seabirds. Many of the common fish species and other marine fauna can be seen at the Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre on the Sidney waterfront.
Flora
Sidney is situated within the coastal Douglas fir ecosystem, one of the most restricted ecosystems in Canada, dominated by large Douglas firs, along with its most distinctive species, the ''
Arbutus
''Arbutus'' is a genus of 12 accepted speciesAct. Bot. Mex no.99 Pátzcuaro abr. 2012.''Arbutus bicolor''/ref> of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae, native to temperate regions of the Mediterranean, western Europe, the Canary Islands a ...
red alder
''Alnus rubra'', the red alder,
is a deciduous broadleaf tree native to western North America (Alaska, Yukon, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho and Montana).
Description
''Alnus rubra'' is the largest species of alder in ...
quaking aspen
''Populus tremuloides'' is a deciduous tree native to cooler areas of North America, one of several species referred to by the common name aspen. It is commonly called quaking aspen,
willow
Willows, also called sallows and osiers, of the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions.
Most species are known ...
. Coastal areas contain several unique plant communities including sea asparagus, salt grass and eelgrass, documented by the renowned botanist and explorer, John Macoun, after he retired as curator of the National Museum in 1912.
Many non-native plants also occur, including many invasive species such as
English ivy
''Hedera helix'', the common ivy, European ivy, King's Choice ivy, or just ivy, is a species of flowering plant in the family Araliaceae. It is native to most of Europe and parts of western Asia. Ivy is a clinging evergreen vine that grows on t ...
Himalayan blackberry
''Rubus armeniacus'', the Himalayan blackberry or Armenian blackberry, is a species of ''Rubus'' in the blackberry group ''Rubus'' subgenus ''Rubus'' series ''Discolores'' (P.J. Müll.) Focke. It is native to Armenia and northern Iran, and widel ...
red clover
''Trifolium pratense'' (from Latin prātum, meaning meadow), red clover, is a herbaceous plant, herbaceous species of flowering plant in the bean family, Fabaceae. It is native to the Old World, but planted and naturalised in many other regions ...
. Long-established exotic trees include
London plane
The London plane, or sometimes hybrid plane, ''Platanus'' × ''hispanica'', is a tree in the genus ''Platanus''. It is often known by the Synonym (taxonomy), synonym ''Platanus'' × ''acerifolia'', a later name. It is a Hybrid (biology ...
catalpa
''Catalpa'' (, ), commonly also called catawba, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to warm temperate and subtropical regions of North America, the Caribbean, and East Asia.
Description
Most ''Catalpa'' are decidu ...