Tam Kung Temple National Historic Site of Canada
Victoria, British Columbia
Yen Wo Society building with Tam Kung Temple
© Parks Canada | Parcs Canada, Christian Lieb, 2024.
Address :
1713 Government Street, Victoria, British Columbia
Recognition Statute:
Historic Sites and Monuments Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. H-4)
Designation Date:
2025-02-07
Dates:
-
1912 to 1912
(Construction)
-
1860 to 1860
(Established)
Event, Person, Organization:
-
Wilfrid Lord Watkins Hargreaves, later known as Lord Wilfrid Hargreaves (1880–1966)
(Architect)
-
The Yen Wo Society
(Builder)
Other Name(s):
-
Tam Kung Temple
(Designation Name)
-
Tangong Temple (Hanyu pinyin: Tangong miao)
(Historic Name)
-
Yen Wo Society Building
(Name of contributing resources)
Research Report Number:
2024-14, 2024-14-A
Description of Historic Place
Tam Kung Temple National Historic Site of Canada is located on the top floor of the Yen Wo Society Building at 1713 Government Street. It is within Victoria’s Chinatown (NHS, 1995), a neighbourhood of tightly built primarily two and three-storey mixed-use brick buildings in a three-block area of downtown Victoria, British Columbia. Constructed in 1912, the Yen Wo Society Building is an Edwardian-style building on a narrow lot, with three storeys in addition to a mezzanine above the main floor. It was designed by architect Wilfrid Lord Watkins Hargreaves (1880–1966). The temple predates the building in which it is currently housed, originating as a shrine in the 1860s and becoming a temple on this site by the 1870s. Official recognition refers to the entirety of the top (third) storey of the building. This includes the temple, an enclosed front balcony, meeting room/storage area, a small kitchen and bathroom, and hallway adjacent to the stairwell. The designated place excludes an exterior back balcony.
Heritage Value
Tam Kung Temple was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2025. It is recognized because:
• this temple, which originated as a shrine in the 1860s, has served as an important religious space for Chinese Canadians, and specifically the Hakka community, on Vancouver Island since the late 19th century. This temple has been in almost continuous use since the Yen Wo Society constructed this building to house the temple on its top floor in 1912, demonstrating the continuity of this religious tradition over time;
• an early and rare example of a Chinese temple in Canada, with its dome skylight above the main offering table fronted with gilded wood carving, the temple is elaborately decorated with embroidered silk banners, donated by worshippers as tokens of gratitude to Tam Kung, and furnishings such as the wooden statue of Tam Kung, censers for burning incense, a cast-iron bell, and a stone receptor for wine offerings that predate the current building.
The origins of the Tam Kung Temple can be traced to the gold rush of the 1860s when a Hakka miner placed a statue of the deity Tam Kung in a wooden roadside shrine by the Johnson Street ravine. The Hakka, who belong to a distinct Chinese cultural and linguistic group, revered Tam Kung, a sea deity, because he was believed to protect fishermen and seafarers. The shrine was moved to its current location by the 1870s and developed as a temple. Around 1887, a larger frame temple was built for Tam Kung, and this was replaced by a one-storey brick temple in 1894. In 1905, Hakka speakers in Victoria founded their own linguistic association, the Yen Wo Society. In 1912, this society built the Yen Wo Society Building, installing the Tam Kung Temple on the top storey. Since then, visitors have come to the temple to make offerings and seek advice from Tam Kung on life decisions and curing ailments.
Source: Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Minutes, June 2024.
Character-Defining Elements
Key elements contributing to the heritage value of this site include:
— the location of the temple on the top floor of the Yen Wo Society Building in Victoria’s Chinatown;
— the interior of the top storey of this building, which includes the original layout of this floor including the main temple room and an enclosed front balcony;
— its almost continuous use as a religious space for Chinese Canadians and specifically the Hakka community on Vancouver Island;
— interior elements such as wood details and dome skylight.