Francis Rattenbury, the man behind the provincial legislature, The Empress and other well-known Victoria buildings, never had formal training as an architect.
This little-known fact is one of many brought to life in a series of history videos produced by the Provincial Capital Commission and posted to the website YouTube.
"We wanted to find a way to connect people anywhere in the province to the capital," said Denis Johnston, the commission's director of outreach.
Johnson hired a local communications firm to produce and direct the 26 videos. Topics range from the building of the legislature and Government House in Victoria to the railways of Vancouver Island and colourful characters such as Emily Carr and Amor de Cosmos.
Each video is two or three minutes long and cost about $5,000 to research, write and produce.
Johnson said it's money well spent. "It's a tangible product we can just keep using," he said, adding the scripts were written in such a way as to not date the videos prematurely.
He added the videos often complement school projects and are a hit with young people.
"That's the demographic of YouTube," he said.
According to the website's view counter, the Doukhobors, Emily Carr and sa国际传媒's Jewish history are most popular with viewers.
The commission produced the first dozen videos in 2006 and aired them on Shaw television. Another dozen videos were produced in conjunction with sa国际传媒's 150th anniversary in 2008, but one outdated video has since been pulled down.
Videos featuring Crystal Gardens, CFB Esquimalt and the Pemberton operating room at Royal Jubilee Hospital are the latest additions to the series.
"I see this as something we can add to every year and create a catalogue," Johnson said.
Future videos might explore the 100th anniversary of the Komagata Maru incident in 2014 -- where a ship full of hundreds of prospective immigrants from India were turned away at Vancouver -- the mining history of Cumberland and the agricultural history of the Okanagan.
