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UER Mobile > Canada: Alberta / BC > Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels. (Viewed 1805665 times)

post by J Peterman

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4000 on 9/8/2020 4:44 PM >

I'm so glad to see this thread alive and bubbling with interest after all these years. This hobby we share fuelled my adolescent and then teenage imagination in a world I found bland, uninspiring, and without mystery. It is responsible for my continued sense of curiosity to this day and has shaped my appetite for adventure as I continue my adult life.

I've written the following post in appreciation for this thread and for all of you, based on aspects of information from these many pages combined with my personal research and experiences. Enjoy! and stay curious!

Ask anyone in Victoria and they will tell you that they have heard about the tunnels. Mention them at a party and more than one person will launch into a tale of hidden passages and dark events. You will hear about tunnels built for opium and people smuggling. Under the streets of Victoria, British Columbia lies a network of secret tunnels. Though their existence is officially denied, the tunnels are connected ostensibly to British Imperialism, free trade, opium wars, illegal immigrants and indentured labour, secret societies, satanic cults, pagan ritual, and human sacrifice. The tunnels are also where Victoria’s homeless coagulate.

There are plenty of urban myths floating around Victoria. With each new story the pulse quickens and the mind salivates with the anticipation of finding these passages. Each story is accompanied by a heartfelt warning that bad things will happen to those who pursue these tunnels. It is said that others before have vanished for being to curious. To some these warnings may do little to deter the urge to penetrate the dark underbelly of Victoria, but the fact that not a single storyteller knows the exact location of these tunnels is a much more successful deterrent.

Research and investigations into the rumors lead to the debunking of many “tunnels” as simple storm drains which are very interesting and yield beautiful aesthetics, but clearly do not live up to their descriptions in the urban legends. The debunking of local myths is a time consuming, but rewarding. In order to uncover clues pertaining to Victoria’s underground, hours must be spent in the city archives pouring over maps and schematics. Casual personal interviews yield a lot of information that must be sorted through in order to find the odd splinter of truth. These have been conducted with everybody from local shop owners to city officials and even local historians.

There are a few local businesses which use the legends of tunnels to entice customers. Bicycle-cab workers tell their customers stories of tunnels under the downtown streets. They tell passengers tails of Satanic cults utilizing the tunnels for terrifying purposes. Even local historical tour guides speak rumors of the tunnels to patrons. These tunnels play an important part in Victoria’s tourism economy. The tunnels benefit local tourism companies while simultaneously providing many homeless with safe places to sleep. Opposite to the businesses that benefit from the urban legends pertaining to these tunnels, is the homeless community. To them, these places are home, and for the price of a sandwich and a soda they will indulge an investigator with stories they have heard and even some specific directions to some tunnels. The homeless community provides individuals who can offer some of the most concrete information on the existence of tunnels in Victoria.

Many of the myths that surround Victoria’s tunnels are similar in that they reference a tunnel deeply rooted with a rich history and the with the capability of absorbing flesh and rendering it a part of it’s own legend. The first real clues that became evident tied into the reoccurring theme of Satanism. One source of many of the Satanic tales that surround Victoria is the book “Michelle Remembers” The author, Michelle Proby is daughter of Jack and Virginia Proby was born on September 27, 1949. She has two sisters, Tertia and Charyl who along with their father, have discredited Michelle’s accounts. From 1976 to 1977 Michelle began recounting tales of ritual abuse to her psychiatrist Dr Lawrence Pazder. Pazder was the first to use the term “ritual abuse”. Michelle recalls events that happened to her in 1954 when she was only 5 years old. According to Michelle she was offered up to a local Satanic cult by her parents. The cult performed all sorts of horrifying rituals on her to prepare her to be sacrificed to Satan for the Feast of the Beast, and important Satanic ritual. Most of her torture took place in a private residence where Satanists would meet. The rest of the abuse took place in supposed tunnels underneath Ross Bay Cemetery. She recalled how she was kept in a dirt cage and tortured by being fed dead and being beaten. Incidentally, there are old tunnels beneath Ross Bay Cemetery.

In 1977 the book “Michelle Remembers” was published by Proby and Pazder. In her book she goes by her married name, Michelle Smith. After recalling these events but before the book was written she married her psychiatrist, and is now Michelle Pazder. Denna Allen and Janet Midwinter interviewed Michelle’s father for their 1990 article entitled “The Debunking of a Myth”. Jack Proby, now deceased, stated “It was the worst pack of lies a little girl could ever make up. The book took me four months to read, and I cried all the time”. The book is classified as fiction, the author is widely discredited. Her claims are viewed as is false. The book is out of print. The Greater Victoria Public Library a copy or two, and there are dozens of “holds” placed on the title. The waiting list stretches over years. One library patron has said that the holds are artificial, intended to keep the story from the public, that the claims are true and that city officials have smeared the author

Although Michelle’s story is not entirely believable, If you are searching for mystery this may make it easier to imagine a slight a speck of truth. There are Satanists. Satanism is an official religion that exists across the world. There are many references that state Victoria, BC has one of the highest number of Satanists of anywhere in the world. This is hard to verify, Satanists most likely don’t really like to be counted, but at least some do reside here in Victoria.

According to Michelle Pazder Satanists tend to gather at a member’s house to celebrate holidays and participate in rituals. They gather secretly because they can’t exactly have a normal visible church of their own out of fear of being harassed. Urban legend states that there must be such a house in the city. And rumors point to an old house that supposedly had been used for years as a gathering spot for Satanists. This old Victorian style house made of stone blocks and protected by the Victoria Heritage Society is plastered with “No Trespassing”, “Keep Out”, and “Beware Of Dog” signs. The front gate possesses two devilish looking gargoyle faces on cement pillars. It is very easy to be convinced that this house is the house which Michelle refers to in her book. The living room that Michelle describes in her book exactly matches the living room of this residence. The room has no corners, with a large white marble fireplace, and old wooden floors.

Another source of Satanism stories comes from an event that happened on the twenty fourth of March 1991. A young boy was playing in a playground across the street from his parents. They looked away momentarily and when they looked back he had vanished. No trace of him was ever found. At the time the tabloids were alive with ludicrous conspiracy theories of a Satanic connection, but there are a couple more concrete connections that the tabloids didn’t discover. The most important is that the Feast of the Beast for which Michelle was to be sacrificed occurs once every 25 years on March 24th. And in 1991 was the twenty-fifth year of the Age of Satan (which started with the founding of the Church of Satan in 1966) Which is quite the coincidence for even the staunchest disbeliever to dismiss. The boy and Michelle Pazder share similar first names. Also the name of the missing boy was also the name arc angel who threw Satan out of heaven. The fact that he was abducted on Feast of the Beast is the most curious coincidence indeed. Michelle claims to have been given up in preparation for the very same ritual. The chance of this correlation happening due to chance is 1 in 365.

The final and most disturbing connection involves a possibility so unthinkable that the just thinking about it can send a chills down a spine. The playground where they boy disappeared from is just a half block away from the rumored Satanist house in which Michelle Pazder survived her ordeal. The spot the boy was abducted from is spitting distance from the entrance to the ever-illusive tunnels. It is entirely possible that the kidnappers used the tunnel as an escape route to disappear with the boy undetected by the authorities. To this day the case remains a top priority to local police. “Sixteen years after he went missing, police are still chasing leads into the disappearance of Michael Dunahee. Dunahee remains one the most high-profile missing children in Canadian history, his case still spawning more than 1,000 tips from across the world.”

Research looking into Victoria’s creepy underworld provides many spooky stories and a creepy house, but no tunnels. The city archives have many things written about Victoria’s tunnels. Many people have claimed that the tunnels exist, using no proof other than a heart-felt belief. Just as common are the frequent denials of their existence using an equal lack of evidence. Hard facts are very rare in the pursuit of truth. The closest thing real evidence of tunnels is an outdated map of a large, abandoned, very old brick storm drain tunnel that travels for miles under the city. Accessing this conduit proves to be unexpectedly difficult. Most of the entrances that are on the map did not endure the ravages of city planning over the years. One entrance is in an impound lot protected by razor wire and security cameras. Another is in the middle of the busiest street in the city. One is under a busy 24 hour drive through. And one is even in a Department of National Defense compound, and frequently has an army vehicle parked on top of it.

The investigation of a safe access point provided two concrete stories about tunnels in Victoria. The first was a man who claimed that many years ago he had walked into the emergency outflow of a tunnel at low tide. He followed it underneath Victoria. His description of the tunnel, and the location of the entrance, exactly matched with my findings. But he said that after walking a mile or so up the tunnel, he had encountered a crazy-looking man that had threatened him with a gun, and he had fled for his life. A far-fetched story, but he swore it happened to him, and he said it with fear in his eyes. The furious interrogation of every person with knowledge about the tunnels ensued. This provided the second story from a store clerk in Chinatown. He was once told by his boss about a tunnel that ran beneath the streets of the city. After pinpointing the whereabouts he went alone one night and pried open the entrance. He jumped in and landed in an ancient brick tunnel with no ladder on the side to climb back out. His flashlight hit the tunnel floor and was extinguished. Hurt from the fall, wearing running shoes, and without a light, he stumbled through the dark for hours searching for a way out. Scrambling up waterfalls in the pitch black and bracing himself against the raging torrent of ground water in the bottom of the tunnel, he eventually found another exit. He crawled out and collapsed exhausted in the middle of the street.

His description of the location of this event was a little bit vague but still matched with the archive map depicting the abandoned brick conduit. Plans were soon made to brave the tunnel the very next night. To avoid prying eyes, the rendezvous was at midnight, and at the spot which would hopefully provide entry to this particularly obscured tunnel. The location that all of the leads had revolved around after much diligent searching. It was the full moon in October, an occasion that many pagans refer to as the Blood Moon. It was also not far from where fourteen years earlier, a small boy had disappeared forever.

Victoria’s tunnels, or at least the rumored existence of them, play a unique and important role in not only the city’s livelihood but also in its history. Although much of the tunnels’ satanic connections may be far-fetched, the theories outlined above require further investigation in order to distinguish fact from fiction.

Special thanks to the following individuals for their outstanding contributions (I've surely missed some):

A.Lien, TacDical, Reduxzero, Yoshkow, Forgotten BC, Kowalski, Matthias, Artemis, Tanuki, Team Leader, and of course KublaKhan…for being the original boat rocker.

-JP

[last edit 9/8/2020 5:04 PM by J Peterman - edited 4 times]

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post by Artemis

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4001 on 10/4/2020 11:40 PM >

Hello all! it's been awhile, it's also been a while since I've been underground. I feel an itch for the Creeper! Luigi! where you at these days bro!!

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post by KublaKhan

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4002 on 5/4/2021 7:40 PM >

Posted by J Peterman
I'm so glad to see this thread alive and bubbling with interest after all these years.

Ask anyone in Victoria and they will tell you that they have heard about the tunnels.

Special thanks to the following individuals for their outstanding contributions (I've surely missed some):

A.Lien, TacDical, Reduxzero, Yoshkow, Forgotten BC, Kowalski, Matthias, Artemis, Tanuki, Team Leader, and of course KublaKhan…for being the original boat rocker.

-JP

This is really nice, JP. It's hard to fathom...all these years later, and this thread still has legs. AND 1.5 million hits, surely the most of any thread in this venerated forum.

Lest we not forget: we owe special thanks to Avatar-X.

A brief note concerning one of the points made in your excellent post: Michelle Remembers sparked a massive moral panic back in the day. The evangelical crowd latched on to this like pigs to slop, and they never really let go. The sad circumstances of the boy you mentioned was a somewhat natural (in an entirely un-natural way) extension of this panic. Rock music, specifically metal, also got dragged into it.

Final analysis: the book sucks, the author is or was full of total shit, and the entire spectacle of Michelle Remembers remains as a stain on the conscience of those who suffered the agony of loss at this boy's expense. Fuck Michelle Remembers. Fuck it. And fuck its author as well. For all the shit books I've read, this one will always stand out as being the greatest waste of my time. I'd probably submit to getting ass-raped by a Clydesdale for every page I read as penance if it meant getting that time back.

Back to the tunnels: a lot has changed in Victoria since we first took on this project. Many of the sites we explored have since been transformed into (you guessed it) massively expensive condos. Ironic, isn't it? These same sites served as shelter for those who needed shelter most.

E.g. the Janion. Vury nice condos, right?

Peterman...I'm sure you recall the mission we undertook to explore the entrance and space under the Avis parking lot...the tunnel entrance to the Empress...where we discovered make-shift living quarters...the bed, a side table, a bit of rotting clothing...later after that, 'someone' lit a fire, and again, the blame-shift went to the homeless. Bullshit, right? Anyway, the entrance was sealed and the ground above it is now the foundation for a massive condo tower.

I wonder what happened to those homeless folks. Oh wait...they're still here. Different faces, different names, different stories. The problem persists. The song remains the same. Only the years change.

Another irony: my film 'Under the Garden City' featured two individuals as part of the narrative, whom I interviewed back when they were grad students. One of them is now the mayor of Victoria, and the other serves as a city councillor. I wonder how their perspective concerning Victoria's historical treatment towards the city's urban indigent has changed in the years since I sat with them.

Now that the power to enact radical change is theirs (the bike lanes, for example, are really nice), what steps have either of them taken to force the matter of homelessness in Victoria to the fore, so that real transformation can take place?

Anyhoo, thanks again for your fantastic piece of writing. One of these days, we'll drink beer and reminisce over what we discovered, and how it all played such an important role in who we became.

KK

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post by htp123

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4003 on 6/16/2021 4:39 PM >

(Warning: random drain picture heavy post)

More not-secret tunnels, but this might be an interesting piece of the puzzle for anyone nerdy about the (underground) history here. I believe this is what's left of the Johnson Street Ravine: the original culverts build to facilitate roads crossing it before it was covered/filled. I haven't found any definite dates on when they were constructed, but I would guess no later than the 1880s, and possibly as early as when HBC did the initial road layout (you can see the crossings in 1860s maps, but may have been bridges, and by 1890 the ravine was mostly covered.) If that's the case, they would be some of the oldest extant infrastructure in the city, predating the general sewage system and other drains like the Burrow and nearby Excruciation by several decades.

(Huge thanks to Rhino604 for making this possible.)

The portals were bricked over when buildings were constructed in the ravine, with smaller clay pipes carrying the flow beneath:

Small but interesting brick side pipes:

A partial collapse reveals a midden heap...

...complete with old shards of ceramic

[last edit 6/16/2021 4:55 PM by htp123 - edited 1 times]

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post by Shazam

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4004 on 6/28/2021 4:08 AM >

Awesome shots. Never even heard of excruciation, is it of similar make up as the burrow?

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post by Mowgli-dog

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4005 on 7/29/2021 2:10 AM >

https://www.chekne...n-40-years-854848/

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post by Big Sid

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4006 on 8/11/2021 4:44 AM >

getting that itch again if anyone is up to poke around. plans a while back to check out the burrow fell through and I'm yet to see it, if it's still accessible

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post by KublaKhan

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4007 on 9/4/2021 9:41 PM >

Posted by Mowgli-dog
https://www.chekne...n-40-years-854848/

Well of course developers want to erase a part of the country's history, and replace it with something profitable. The idea that 'unused property' is only beneficial if it's being used is, for some, pretty much in perfect pitch with colonialism's over-arcing mandate. Use it or lose it. Right?

Watch the film again, folks. Mayor Helps is the voice you hear discussing the history of how land became property and how the indigenous population became a nuisance during the city's early days during the Gold Rush.

[last edit 9/4/2021 9:42 PM by KublaKhan - edited 1 times]

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post by htp123

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4008 on 10/13/2021 11:11 PM >

Somewhere under downtown:

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post by reduxzero

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4009 on 10/16/2021 6:52 PM >

Posted by htp123
Somewhere under downtown:

Ooh, nice shot. That rock falling looks bad! Related to nearby construction, perhaps?

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post by htp123

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4010 on 10/17/2021 3:29 AM >

Posted by reduxzero

Ooh, nice shot. That rock falling looks bad! Related to nearby construction, perhaps?

Thanks! Good point, I hadn't even thought of that... Lots of construction downtown these days, and there definitely was some right above this recently.

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post by firestudio

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4011 on 2/9/2022 9:26 AM >

Hey, long time fan of this thread here. Pretty inexperienced in UE, just done the Hall in Victoria and attempted the Burrow. Attempted as I'm pretty sure we got our entrance wrong but the right drain as we were crawling around in a 4 foot tall brick back breaker. Anyways, just sticking my foot in the door here. I will be down to do some exploring this summer if anyone is up for it and would like to join me/show me the ropes. Here is an obligatory compressed to hell image from the Hall from a year or two ago.

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post by htp123

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4012 on 2/10/2022 5:54 AM >

Posted by firestudio
Hey, long time fan of this thread here. Pretty inexperienced in UE, just done the Hall in Victoria and attempted the Burrow. Attempted as I'm pretty sure we got our entrance wrong but the right drain as we were crawling around in a 4 foot tall brick back breaker. Anyways, just sticking my foot in the door here. I will be down to do some exploring this summer if anyone is up for it and would like to join me/show me the ropes. Here is an obligatory compressed to hell image from the Hall from a year or two ago.

448198.jpg (11 kb, 138x184)

Always happy to hit something up around here, feel free to message. Winter is good too with early darkness.

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post by theradioguy

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4013 on 2/18/2022 5:23 AM >

448198.jpg (11 kb, 138x184)

I'm always up for some subterranean adventuring. I've made it a 2022 goal to check out the Burrow (have yet to make it down there)

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post by KublaKhan

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4014 on 3/30/2022 12:41 AM >

Posted by htp123
Somewhere under downtown:

https://i.imgur.com/Sd8J2TN.jpg

Yep. Bet I know where.

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post by TacDical

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4015 on 11/25/2022 2:35 PM >

Posted by htp123
Somewhere under downtown:

https://i.imgur.com/Sd8J2TN.jpg

Curious if you crawled in the stealth way or found one the covers to drop right down

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post by htp123

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4016 on 11/25/2022 8:38 PM >

Posted by TacDical

Curious if you crawled in the stealth way or found one the covers to drop right down

One of the covers used to be tack welded in place, until one day it wasn't.

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post by Big Sid

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4017 on 1/13/2023 10:06 AM >

Posted by htp123

One of the covers used to be tack welded in place, until one day it wasn't.

You feel like going again gimme a holler

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post by Shazam

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4018 on 5/17/2023 5:29 PM >

Looks like the chasm is getting the same treatment as the graveyard did a few years back.

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post by Satanick

Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels.
<Reply # 4019 on 6/13/2023 5:42 PM >

Hey! I was originally reading this thread a couple months ago but came back to it today, I was hoping I could tag along if anyone ends up going. I don't know too much but I have the proper safety equipment and some knowledge.

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