British
Columbia, often
also referred to as B.C. or BC (French: Colombie-Britannique,
C.-B.), is the westernmost of Canada's provinces
and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its
Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu ("Splendour
without diminishment"). It was the sixth province
to join Confederation. Residents are referred to as British
Columbians or BCers.
British
Columbia map
Geography
British
Columbia is bordered by the Pacific Ocean on its west,
by the American state of Alaska on its Northwest, and to
the north by the Yukon Territory and the Northwest
Territories, on the east by the province of Alberta, and
on the south by the states of Washington, Idaho, and
Montana. The current southern border of British Columbia
was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, although its
history is tied up with lands as far south as the
Columbia River.
British
Columbia's land area is 944,735 square kilometers
(364,764 square miles) which is about the size of
France, Germany and the Netherlands combined. It is
larger than the total area of Washington, Oregon and
California. British Columbia's rugged coastline
stretches for more than 27,000 kilometers (16,780
miles), including deep, mountainous fjords and about
6,000 islands, most of which are uninhabited.
British
Columbia's capital is Victoria, located at the
southeastern tip of Vancouver Island. BC's most populous
city is Vancouver, located in southwest corner of the BC
mainland called the Lower Mainland. Other major cities
include Surrey, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Delta, and
New Westminster in the Lower Mainland; Abbotsford and
Langley in the Fraser Valley; Nanaimo on Vancouver
Island; and Kelowna and Kamloops in the Interior. Prince
George is the major city nearest the centre of the
province; however, a small town called Vanderhoof, 100
km to the west, is much nearer to the geographic centre.
The
Coast Mountains, Canadian Rockies and the Inside
Passage's many inlets provide some of British Columbia's
renowned and spectacular scenery, which forms the
backdrop and context for a growing outdoor adventure and
ecotourism industry. 75% of the province is mountainous
(more than 1,000 meters or 3,280 feet above sea level),
60% is forested, and only about 5% is arable. The
Okanagan area is one of only three wine-growing regions
in Canada and also produces excellent ciders,
but exports little of either beverage. The small rural
towns of Penticton, Oliver, and Osoyoos have some of the
warmest and longest summer climates in Canada, although
their temperature ranges are exceeded by the even-warmer
Fraser Canyon towns such as Lillooet and Lytton.
Much
of the western part of Vancouver Island is covered by
temperate rain forest, one
of a mere handful of such ecosystems in the world
(notable others being on the Olympic
Peninsula of Washington and in Chile, New Zealand and
Tasmania). The province's mainland outside of the Lower
Mainland has snowy, cold winters, especially in the
north. The Coast and Vancouver Island are temperate in
most places, as the climate is moderated by the Pacific
Ocean. In the Interior, summer temperatures can be quite
warm, even notably hot and there are large semi-arid
areas and a few localities classifiable as pocket
deserts, including the towns of Osoyoos and Lillooet.
There is more than one spot in British Columbia that has
recorded peak summer temperatures of 43.3 °C (110 °F)
and an ongoing rivalry exists between the Fraser Canyon
towns of Lytton and Lillooet for the title of
"Canada's Hot Spot".
History
Pre-Confederation
The
discovery of stone tools on the Beatton River near Fort
St. John date human habitation in British Columbia to at
least 11,500 years ago. The First Nations population
spread throughout the region, mostly on the coast, where
aboriginals achieved the highest density of any place in
Canada. At the time of European contact, nearly half the
aboriginal people in present-day Canada lived in BC.
The
explorations of James
Cook in the 1770s and George Vancouver in the 1790s,
and the concessions of Spain in the 1790s established
British jurisdiction over the coastal area north and
west of the Columbia River. In 1793, Sir Alexander
Mackenzie was the first European to journey across North
America overland to the Pacific Ocean, inscribing a
stone marking his accomplishment on the shoreline of
South Bentinck Arm near Bella Coola. His expedition
theoretically established British sovereignty inland,
and a succession of other fur company explorers charted
the maze of rivers and mountain ranges between the
Prairies and the Pacific. Mackenzie and these other
explorers — notably John Finlay, Simon Fraser, Samuel
Black, and David Thompson — were primarily concerned
with extending the fur trade, rather than political
considerations.
Their
establishment of trading posts under the auspices of the
North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC),
however, effectively established a permanent British
presence in the region, which (south of 54-40 latitude)
was, as of the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, under
the "joint occupancy and use" of citizens of
the United States and subjects of Britain (which is to
say, the fur companies). This co-occupancy was ended
with the Oregon Treaty of 1846.
Some
of these early posts would grow into settlements,
communities, and cities. Among the places in British
Columbia that began as fur trading posts are Fort St.
John (established 1794); Hudson's Hope (1805); Fort Nelson
(1805); Fort St. James (1806); Prince George (1807);
Kamloops (1812); Fort Langley (1827); Victoria (1843);
Yale (1848); and Nanaimo (1853). Fur company posts that
became cities in what is now the United States include
Vancouver, Washington (Fort Vancouver), formerly the
"capital" of Hudson's Bay operations in the
Columbia District (aka the Oregon Territory).
With
the amalgamation of the two fur trading companies in
1821, the region now comprising British Columbia existed
in three fur trading departments. The bulk of the
Central and Northern Interior was organised into the New
Caledonia district, administered from Fort St. James.
The Interior south of the Thompson River watershed and
north of the Columbia was organised into the Columbia
District, administered from Fort Vancouver (present-day
Vancouver, Washington). The northeast corner of the
province east of the Rockies, known as the Peace River
Block, was attached to the much larger Athabasca
District, headquartered in Fort Chipewyan (in present
day Alberta).
Until
1849, these districts were a wholly unorganised area of
British North America under the defacto jurisdiction of
HBC administrators. Unlike Rupert's Land to the north
and east, however, the territory was not a concession to
the Company. Rather, it was simply granted a monopoly to
trade with the First Nations inhabitants. All that was
changed with the westward extension of American
exploration, and the concomitant overlapping claims of
territorial sovereignty, especially in the southern
Columbia basin (within present day Washington state and
Oregon). In 1846, the Oregon Treaty divided the
territory along the 49th parallel to Georgia Strait,
with the area south of this boundary, excluding
Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands) transferred to
sole American sovereignty. The Colony of Vancouver
Island was created in 1849, with Victoria designated as
the capital. New Caledonia continued to be an
unorganized territory of British North America,
"administered" by individual HBC trading post
managers.
With
the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858, an influx of
Americans into New Caledonia prompted the colonial
office to formally designate the mainland as the Colony
of British Columbia, with New Westminster as its
capital. A second gold rush — the Cariboo Gold
Rush — followed in 1862, forcing the colonial
administration into deeper debt as it struggled to meet
the extensive infrastructure needs of far-flung boom
communities like Barkerville and Lillooet, which
literally sprang up overnight. The Vancouver Island
colony was facing financial crises of its own, and
pressure to merge the two eventually succeeded in 1866,
with the name British Columbia being applied to
the newly united colony.
LINKS
and REFERENCES
StatsCan-Ten
Largest Communities in BC by population
