The Fairmont Empress sits on what was once the murky, industrial floor of Victoria's Inner Harbour. When the city decided it needed cleaning up in the early 1900s, engineers drained the whole thing, built a dam, and sank a forest of wooden pillars into the mud. The hotel that rose above it in 1908 was designed by Francis Rattenbury, a 25-year-old fresh off the boat from England who had just won the commission under an anonymous name.

When renovators stripped away the famous ivy blanketing its facade, they found countless bird nests stuffed with shiny trinkets, pilfered from open windows for decades. In 1965, it nearly came down entirely. The rescue fund was called "Operation Teacup."

VoiceMap's tours trace Rattenbury's remarkable Victoria career, connect the Empress to the city's gold rush transformation, and unravel the architect's scandalous personal story of adultery and murder.