The Commerce Canoe was originally installed in Bastion Square in 2008, commissioned by the City of Victoria and created by artist Illarion Gallant. It is made of aluminum, fiberglass, and stainless steel, and measures 36’ wide and 36’ tall. Many mistake the structure as representing a canoe suspended in tulips. Gallant’s true intention for the piece was “the canoe as the vessel of commerce which plied the local coastal waters pre European contact.” In the same statement, he communicates that “the sculpture is reminiscent of my canoe trips in Ontario’s Algonquin Park when the canoe made a scraping sound when it drifted in the reeds. Traditionally, First Nations would harvest rice in waterways by tapping ripened kernels into the canoes, thus the red seed pods depict starch as a commodity.”  

The sculpture was moved to its current location in 2019, which was initially going to be the site of a different piece: a collaboration proposed by artists Luke Ramsay and Lindsay Delaronde. Their project, a series of surfboards that would mimic the shape of an orca breaching, received public pushback when it was projected to cost far more than its $250 000 budget, and the decision was made via public vote to move Commerce Canoe here instead. This marked a turning point in the public perception of the piece, which was originally controversial itself, considered by some to be too modern and oversized to be in historic Bastion Square.