Saanich City Map Poster

About Saanich

Saanich is home to the Saanich Commonwealth Place, a large sports and entertainment complex which includes the Pan Pacific Centre arena, several restaurants and shops. The District also contains many parks such as Mount Work Regional Park in the north of municipality. It is also home to many beaches including Wainwright Beach Provincial Park on Vancouver Island's west coast. The name "Saanich" comes from , meaning "emerging land", or "emerging people". This name was given by their Salish neighbours (the Songhees) who came upon them while they were exploring new territory during an emergence ceremony when they left their winter villages along local rivers for summer fishing grounds at Camosun Bog (near present-day Victoria). The Songhees described seeing a group of men emerge from blankets that had been laid over willows just above high tide line where they had been hiding under cover waiting for low tide so that they could move upriver without being seen by others in canoes passing nearby on river routes used since time immemorial; hence, .