Maureen Duffus has written books and articles about the early history of Victoria and Vancouver Island. The lives of her great grandparents, James and Mary Yates who came to Fort Victoria in 1849, sparked the original research and led to a special interest in the Colonial years. Click on books for more information.
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 A Most Unusual Colony:
Vancouver Island 1849-1860
Invented letters by the real Mary Yates and reminiscences of the fictional child Kate Murray combine to give an authentic picture of colonial Fort Victoria.
“The author has done an exceptional job of portraying the life and times of early colonial women, ensconced in the political and economic history of Vancouver Island’s earliest days.”
(Excerpt from British Columbia Historical News, Fall, 1997)
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 Old Langford: An
Illustrated History 1850-1950
For most of the past century Langford was a rural community with a reputation as the underprivileged poor relation of Greater Victoria. A short-lived goldrush in the 1860s; a posh 1880s Goldstream resort; BC’s first hydro electric plant in the forest at Goldstream; the extraordinary life of the controversial Captain Langford and his family, along with other early settlers’ stories, are all part of Langford’s almost forgotten past.
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 Craigflower Country:
A History of View Royal, 1850-1950
Three of Victoria’s six remaining colonial buildings remain on their original sites in View Royal – the famous 1856 Craigflower Manor and two 1850s coaching stops, the Four Mile House and Six Mile House. This book also recounts the tale of the HBC’s troublesome sawmill begun at Millstream in 1848, and the Royal Navy’s 1860 Magazine Island in Esquimalt Harbour.
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 Beyond the Blue Bridge:
Stories from Esquimalt
A collection of stories by the Esquimalt Silver Threads Writers group, with additional material by editor Maureen Duffus, includes personal stories as well as glimpses of the naval presence that played a large role in the development of the area from its earliest days. A place “of jollity and laughter,” and “notable houses and notable people,” as early history writer Edgar Fawcett remembered.
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