Saanich has been the home to First Nations people for thousands of years. The non-native history begins with the arrival of the Hudson's Bay Company in the 1840s.

The Craigflower Schoolhouse (originally called Maple Point School), the oldest surviving school building in Western Canada, was built on orders from Kenneth MacKenzie. He came from Scotland with his family in 1852, on the Hudson's Bay Company ship Norman Morison, to establish a farm for the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, a subsidiary of the Hudson's Bay Company. A school was needed for the children of farm employees, as well as those of arriving settlers.

The Municipality of Saanich was incorporated on March 1, 1906. The Dominion Astrophysical Observatory telescope was designed by Dr John Stanley Plaskett, astronomer with the Department of the Interior in Ottawa. The 72 inch (1.8 m) reflecting telescope was the largest of its kind in the world when it was built, though this was only the case for a few short months in 1918.

Fun Fact: The Gordon Head area of Saanich referred to the rocky headland near what is now Vantreight Park northwest of Ferndale Road. This point was noted and named on a survey by Captain Kellet of the H.M. Herald in honour of Scottish Captain the Honourable Charles Gordon in 1846. Captain Charles Gordon was in the area in connection with defining the boundary between British and American territory