Salt Spring Island’s largest source of stories and experiences sharing our island heritage
Stories come to life at the Salt Spring Museum
The Salt Spring Island Museum offers a window into the life of our island. A look at the lives of early settlers from the 1850s to 1950. Consisting entirely of local artifacts, donated or loaned by Salt Spring families, it illustrates many aspects of farming and homesteading on Salt Spring Island.
Admission to the museum is free. We welcome school groups and tour operators: contact us. Donations are appreciated and all go to the maintenance of the museum.
The Salt Spring Museum’s main exhibit is located in the Bittancourt House, originally built as a dowry house in 1884 for one of the daughters of the Bittancourt family in Vesuvius Bay. The house was donated to the Farmers' Institute and opened as a museum around 1978.

Volunteers from the Farmers' Institute have now added three extensions to the building to accommodate the expanding collection. Some of the more prominent items are a large model of the HMS Ganges, the warship from the 1800s after which the town of Ganges was named. The uniform and medals belonging to Captain Paul Bion, a Salt Spring farmer who fought for the French army in WW1 and was highly decorated. Two large murals painted by Alfred Temmel depicting the arrival of the first settlers on the island and a large collection of tools and implements used by farmers in the early 1900s. { READ MORE }
HOURS OF OPERATION

SPRING
Starting May 19
Wednesday to Friday
& Sunday
11am-3pm
SUMMER
July & August
Wednesday to Friday
& Sunday
11am-3pm
AUTUMN
September & October
Wednesday to Friday
& Sunday
11am-3pm
FALL FAIR 2023
September 9 & 10
Saturday 9am-6pm
Sunday 9am-5pm