The highlight of our exploration of Victoria’s Chinatown (the oldest in Canada) was Fan Tan Alley, North America’s narrowest commercial street and the only one in North America to retain its original 19th century streetscape, Running 72 m. (238 ft. or 0.45 mi.) south, from Fisgard Street to Pandora Avenue, at the block between Government Street and Store Street, it measures just under 0.9 m. (3 ft.) wide at its narrowest and tightest point.
The alley, with its narrow, tight brick corridors where pedestrians often need to yield to pass one another, was established in 1858 during the gold rush in Canada’s oldest Chinatown. It originally housed legal and illegal (it was made illegal in 1908) opium factories, secret gambling dens (with hidden escape doors, and watchmen to warn against police), and maze-like escape routes for the Chinese gambling game Fan-Tan during the 1910s (after whom it was named).
The surrounding brick buildings (such as 10-14 Fan Tan Alley), featuring 2-storey vernacular red brick designs, wooden storefronts and upper floor tenements, were designed by Charles Edward Watkins and built around 1912. In the 1950s and 1960s, police raids on the illegal gambling clubs (such as the Big Club in the mid-20th century) and declining visitors led to the closure of the gambling clubs. Fan Tan Alley fell into disrepair and buildings were condemned at the time.
During the 1970s and 1980s, it was later cleaned up, transformed and revitalized under urban planner David Chuenyan Lai and, in 2001, was designated as a municipal heritage property. In 2006, material salvaged from the alley’s original gate was donated to the Six String Nation project. It now serves as kerfing on a guitar located there. Faded graffiti, still etched on the mortar, speaks of long-ago customers, waiting to participate in the shadow economies of opium dealing, gambling and prostitution.
Today, it is decorated with hanging red lanterns (which reminds you that this was once a red light district) and string lights overhead and lined with an art gallery, restaurants, apartments, offices, quirky clothing shops, modern coffee shops and the Victoria Chinatown Museum (closed during our visit) at the Hoy Sun Ning Yung Benevolent Association Building.
It is also home to small, unique local businesses such as Saltspring Soapworks (handcrafted soap and body products), the whimsical, one-of-a-kind Umbrellatorium (umbrellas, including drip-free inverted photography umbrellas, handcrafted walking canes, shoehorns, etc.), Turntable (a record store), and Triple Spiral (books, jewelry, incense, crystals, candles, tarot, etc.), making it a fun place to explore. In the movie Bird on a Wire (1990), Mel Gibson rides a motorcycle down the alley.
Fan Tan Alley: Chinatown, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Coordinates: 48.4290°N 123.3679°W.
How to Get There: The alley is easily reachable on foot from downtown or the Inner Harbour.