British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost
province of Canada, situated between the
Pacific Ocean and the
Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, forests, lakes, mountains, inland deserts and grassy plains, and borders the province of
Alberta to the east and the
Yukon and
Northwest Territories to the north. With an estimated population of 5.3million as of 2022, it is Canada's
third-most populous province. The capital of British Columbia is
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
and its largest city is
Vancouver. Vancouver is
the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada; the
2021 census recorded 2.6million people in
Metro Vancouver
The Metro Vancouver Regional District (MVRD), or simply Metro Vancouver, is a Canadian political subdivision and corporate entity representing the metropolitan area of Greater Vancouver, designated by provincial legislation as one of the 28 ...
.
The
first known human inhabitants of the area settled in British Columbia at least 10,000 years ago. Such groups include the
Coast Salish
The Coast Salish is a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak one of the Coa ...
,
Tsilhqotʼin, and
Haida peoples, among many others. One of the earliest British settlements in the area was
Fort Victoria, established in 1843, which gave rise to the city of Victoria, the capital of the
Colony of Vancouver Island
The Colony of Vancouver Island, officially known as the Island of Vancouver and its Dependencies, was a Crown colony of British North America from 1849 to 1866, after which it was united with the mainland to form the Colony of British Columbia ...
. The
Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866)
The Colony of British Columbia was a crown colony in British North America from 1858 until 1866 that was founded by Richard Clement Moody,Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Volume 90, Issue 1887, 1887, pp. 453-455 ...
was subsequently founded by
Richard Clement Moody
Richard Clement Moody Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Military Merit of France (13 February 1813 – 31 March 1887) was a British governor, engineer, architect and soldier. He is best known for being the founder and the first Lieutenant ...
,
and by the
Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment The Columbia Detachment of the Royal Engineers was a contingent of the Royal Engineers of the British Army that was responsible for the foundation of British Columbia as the Colony of British Columbia (1858–66). It was commanded by Colonel Richar ...
, in response to the
Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Moody selected the site for and founded the mainland colony's capital
New Westminster
New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the capi ...
.
The colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia were incorporated in 1866, subsequent to which Victoria became the
united colony's capital. In 1871, British Columbia entered
Confederation as the sixth province of Canada, in enactment of the ''
British Columbia Terms of Union''.
British Columbia is a diverse and cosmopolitan province, drawing on a plethora of cultural influences from its
British Canadian,
European, and
Asian diasporas, as well as the
Indigenous population
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
. Though the province's ethnic majority originates from the
British Isles, many British Columbians also trace their ancestors to
continental Europe,
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...
, and
South Asia
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...
.
Indigenous Canadians constitute about 6 percent of the province's total population.
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
is the largest religion in the region.
English is the common language of the province, although
Punjabi,
Mandarin Chinese, and
Cantonese also have a large presence in the Metro Vancouver region. The
Franco-Columbian
Franco-Columbians (french: Franco-Colombiens) are French Canadians or Canadian francophones living in the province of British Columbia. According to the 2016 Canadian Census, 71,705 residents of the province stated that French is their mother ton ...
community is an officially recognized linguistic minority, and around one percent of British Columbians claim
French as their mother tongue.
British Columbia is home to at least 34 distinct
Indigenous languages.
Major sectors of
British Columbia's economy include
forestry,
mining,
filmmaking and
video production,
tourism,
real estate,
construction
Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form Physical object, objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Pr ...
,
wholesale, and
retail. Its main exports include
lumber and
timber,
pulp and paper products,
copper,
coal, and
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
. British Columbia exhibits
high property values and is a significant centre for
maritime trade: the
Port of Vancouver is the largest port in Canada and the most diversified port in
North America. Although less than 5 percent of the province's territory is
arable land, significant agriculture exists in the
Fraser Valley
The Fraser Valley is a geographical region in southwestern British Columbia, Canada and northwestern Washington State. It starts just west of Hope in a narrow valley encompassing the Fraser River and ends at the Pacific Ocean stretching from the ...
and
Okanagan
The Okanagan ( ), also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is par ...
due to the warmer climate. British Columbia is home to 45% of all publicly listed companies in Canada.
Etymology
The province's name was chosen by
Queen Victoria, when the
Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866)
The Colony of British Columbia was a crown colony in British North America from 1858 until 1866 that was founded by Richard Clement Moody,Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Volume 90, Issue 1887, 1887, pp. 453-455 ...
, i.e., "the Mainland", became a British colony in 1858. It refers to the
Columbia District, the British name for the territory drained by the
Columbia River, in southeastern British Columbia, which was the namesake of the pre-
Oregon Treaty Columbia Department of the
Hudson's Bay Company. Queen Victoria chose ''British'' Columbia to distinguish what was the British sector of the Columbia District from the United States ("American Columbia" or "Southern Columbia"), which became the
Oregon Territory
The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon. O ...
on August 8, 1848, as a result of the treaty.
Ultimately, the ''Columbia'' in the name ''British Columbia'' is derived from the name of the ''
Columbia Rediviva
''Columbia Rediviva'' (commonly known as ''Columbia'') was a privately owned American ship under the command, first, of John Kendrick, and later Captain Robert Gray, best known for going to the Pacific Northwest for the maritime fur trade. ...
'', an American ship which lent its name to the
Columbia River and later the wider region; the ''Columbia'' in the name ''Columbia Rediviva'' came from
the name ''Columbia'' for the New World or parts thereof, a reference to
Christopher Columbus.
The governments of Canada and British Columbia recognize french: Colombie-Britannique, label=none as the French name for the province. However, as of 2016, French language is spoken by a small minority of BC residents (1.4 percent) and is not recognized as an official language at the provincial level.
Geography
![BC-relief](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/BC-relief.png)
British Columbia is bordered to the west by the
Pacific Ocean and the American state of
Alaska, to the north by
Yukon and the
Northwest Territories, to the east by the province of
Alberta, and to the south by the American states of
Washington,
Idaho, and
Montana. The
southern border of British Columbia was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, although its history is tied with lands as far south as
California. British Columbia's land area is .
British Columbia's rugged coastline stretches for more than , and includes deep, mountainous fjords and about 6,000 islands, most of which are uninhabited. It is the only province in Canada that borders the
Pacific Ocean.
British Columbia's capital is
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
, located at the southeastern tip of
Vancouver Island. Only a narrow strip of Vancouver Island, from
Campbell River to Victoria, is significantly populated. Much of the western part of Vancouver Island and the rest of the coast is covered by
temperate rainforest.
The province's most populous city is Vancouver, which is at the confluence of the
Fraser River and
Georgia Strait, in the mainland's southwest corner (an area often called the
Lower Mainland). By land area,
Abbotsford is the largest city.
Vanderhoof is near the geographic centre of the province.
![Bcmap](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Bcmap.png)
The
Coast Mountains and the
Inside Passage
The Inside Passage (french: Passage Intérieur) is a coastal route for ships and boats along a network of passages which weave through the islands on the Pacific Northwest coast of the North American Fjordland. The route extends from southeaste ...
'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 percent of the province is mountainous (more than
above sea level); 60 percent is forested; and only about 5 percent is arable.
The province's mainland away from the coastal regions is somewhat moderated by the Pacific Ocean. Terrain ranges from dry inland forests and
semi-arid
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi- ...
valleys, to the range and canyon districts of the
Central and Southern Interior, to boreal forest and subarctic prairie in the
Northern Interior. High mountain regions both north and south have
subalpine flora and
subalpine climate.
The
Okanagan wine area, extending from
Vernon to
Osoyoos at the United States border, is one of several wine and
cider-producing regions in Canada. Other wine regions in British Columbia include the
Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island and the
Fraser Valley
The Fraser Valley is a geographical region in southwestern British Columbia, Canada and northwestern Washington State. It starts just west of Hope in a narrow valley encompassing the Fraser River and ends at the Pacific Ocean stretching from the ...
.
The Southern Interior cities of
Kamloops and
Penticton
Penticton ( ) is a city in the Okanagan Valley of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, situated between Okanagan and Skaha lakes. In the 2016 Canadian Census, its population was 33,761, while its census agglomeration
The ce ...
have some of the warmest and longest summer climates in Canada (while higher elevations are cold and snowy), although their temperatures are often exceeded north of the
Fraser Canyon
The Fraser Canyon is a major landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser ...
, close to the confluence of the Fraser and
Thompson rivers, where the terrain is rugged and covered with desert-type flora. Semi-desert grassland is found in large areas of the
Interior Plateau
The Interior Plateau comprises a large region of the Interior of British Columbia, and lies between the Cariboo and Monashee Mountains on the east, and the Hazelton Mountains, Coast Mountains and Cascade Range on the west.''Landforms of British C ...
, with land uses ranging from ranching at lower altitudes to forestry at higher ones.
The northern, mostly mountainous, two-thirds of the province is largely unpopulated and undeveloped, except for the area east of the
Rockies
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...
, where the
Peace River Country contains BC's portion of the
Canadian Prairies
The Canadian Prairies (usually referred to as simply the Prairies in Canada) is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie Provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provin ...
, centred at the city of
Dawson Creek
Dawson Creek is a city in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. The municipality of had a population of 12,978 in 2016. Dawson Creek derives its name from the creek of the same name that runs through the community. The creek was named after ...
.
British Columbia is considered part of the
Pacific Northwest and the
Cascadia bioregion, along with the
American states of
Alaska,
Idaho, (western)
Montana,
Oregon,
Washington, and (northern)
California.
Climate
![Strait of Georgia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Strait_of_Georgia.jpg)
Because of the many mountain ranges and rugged coastline, British Columbia's climate varies dramatically across the province.
Coastal southern British Columbia has a mild, rainy oceanic climate, influenced by the
North Pacific Current
The North Pacific Current (sometimes referred to as the North Pacific Drift) is a slow warm water current that flows west-to-east between 30 and 50 degrees north in the Pacific Ocean. The current forms the southern part of the North Pacific Su ...
, which has its origins in the
Kuroshio Current
The , also known as the Black or or the is a north-flowing, warm ocean current on the west side of the North Pacific Ocean basin. It was named for the deep blue appearance of its waters. Similar to the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, the Ku ...
.
Hucuktlis Lake on
Vancouver Island receives an average of of rain annually, and some parts of the area are even classified as warm-summer
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...
, the northernmost occurrence in the world. In
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
, the annual average temperature is , the warmest in Canada.
Due to the blocking presence of successive mountain ranges, the climate of some of the interior valleys of the province (such as the Thompson, parts of the Fraser Canyon, the southern Cariboo and parts of the Okanagan) is
semi-arid
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi- ...
with certain locations receiving less than in annual precipitation. The annual mean temperature in the most populated areas of the province is up to , the mildest anywhere in Canada.
The valleys of the Southern Interior have short winters with only brief bouts of cold or infrequent heavy snow, while those in the
Cariboo, in the
Central Interior, are colder because of increased altitude and latitude, but without the intensity or duration experienced at similar latitudes elsewhere in Canada. Outside of the driest valleys, the Southern and Central Interior generally have a
humid continental climate
A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...
with widely variable precipitation. For example, the average daily low in
Prince George (roughly in the middle of the province) in January is . Small towns in the southern interior with high elevation such as
Princeton are typically colder and snowier than cities in the valleys.
Heavy snowfall occurs in all elevated mountainous terrain providing bases for skiers in both south and central British Columbia. Annual snowfall on highway mountain passes in the southern interior rivals some of the snowiest cities in Canada, and freezing rain and fog are sometimes present on such roads as well. This can result in hazardous driving conditions, as people are usually travelling between warmer areas such as Vancouver or
Kamloops, and may be unaware that the conditions may be slippery and cold.
![Shuswap Lake from Sorrento, B](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Shuswap_Lake_from_Sorrento%2C_B.C..jpg)
Winters are generally severe in the Northern Interior which is generally in the
subarctic climate zone, but even there, milder air can penetrate far inland. The coldest temperature in British Columbia was recorded in
Smith River, where it dropped to on January 31, 1947,
one of the coldest readings recorded anywhere in North America.
Atlin in the province's far northwest, along with the adjoining Southern Lakes region of
Yukon, get midwinter thaws caused by the
Chinook effect, which is also common (and much warmer) in more southerly parts of the Interior.
During winter on the coast,
rainfall, sometimes relentless heavy rain, dominates because of consistent barrages of cyclonic low-pressure systems from the North Pacific. Average snowfall on the coast during a normal winter is between , but on occasion (and not every winter) heavy snowfalls with more than and well below freezing temperatures arrive when modified arctic air reaches coastal areas, typically for short periods, and can take temperatures below , even at sea level. Arctic outflow winds can occasionally result in wind chill temperatures at or even below .. While winters are very wet, coastal areas are generally milder and dry during summer under the influence of stable anti-cyclonic high pressure.
Southern Interior valleys are hot in summer; for example, in
Osoyoos, the July maximum temperature averages , making it the hottest month of any location in Canada; this hot weather sometimes spreads towards the coast or to the far north of the province. Temperatures often exceed in the lower elevations of valleys in the Interior during mid-summer, with the record high of being held in
Lytton on June 29, 2021, during
a record-breaking heat wave that year.
![Vineyards Lake Okanagan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Vineyards_Lake_Okanagan.jpg)
The extended summer dryness often creates conditions that spark forest fires, from dry-lightning or man-made causes. Many areas of the province are often covered by a blanket of heavy cloud and low fog during the winter months, in contrast to abundant summer sunshine. Annual sunshine hours vary from 2200 near Cranbrook and Victoria to less than 1300 in
Prince Rupert, on the
North Coast just south of
Southeast Alaska.
The exception to British Columbia's wet and cloudy winters is during the
El Niño
El Niño (; ; ) is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (approximately between the International Date ...
phase. During El Niño events, the jet stream is much farther south across North America, making the province's winters milder and drier than normal. Winters are much wetter and cooler during the opposite phase,
La Niña.
Parks and protected areas
![Lake O'Hara Yoho National Park](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Lake_O%27Hara_Yoho_National_Park.jpg)
There are 14 designations of parks and protected areas in the province that reflect the different administration and creation of these areas in a modern context. There are 141 ecological reserves, 35 provincial marine parks, 7 provincial heritage sites, 6
National Historic Sites of Canada, 4
national parks and 3 national park reserves. 12.5 percent of the province's area () is considered protected under one of the 14 different designations that includes over 800 distinct areas.
British Columbia contains seven of
Canada's national parks and National Park Reserves:
*
Glacier National Park
*
Gulf Islands National Park Reserve
Gulf Islands National Park Reserve is a national park located on and around the Gulf Islands in British Columbia, Canada. In the National Parks System Plan, this park provides representation of the Strait of Georgia Lowlands natural region, the ...
*
Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site
*
Kootenay National Park
Kootenay National Park is a national park of Canada located in southeastern British Columbia. The park consists of of the Canadian Rockies, including parts of the Kootenay and Park mountain ranges, the Kootenay River and the entirety of the V ...
*
Mount Revelstoke National Park
*
Pacific Rim National Park Reserve
Pacific Rim National Park Reserve is a national park located in British Columbia, Canada, which comprises three separate regions: Long Beach, the Broken Group Islands, and the West Coast Trail. Its the Pacific Coast Mountains, are characterized ...
*
Yoho National Park
Yoho National Park ( ) is a national park of Canada. It is located within the Rocky Mountains along the western slope of the Continental Divide of the Americas in southeastern British Columbia, bordered by Kootenay National Park to the south and ...
British Columbia contains a large number of
provincial parks, run by BC Parks under the aegis of the Ministry of Environment. British Columbia's provincial parks system is the second largest parks system in Canada, the largest being Canada's National Parks system.
Another tier of parks in British Columbia are
regional park A regional park is an area of land preserved on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, recreational use or other reason, and under the administration of a form of local government.
Definition
A regional park can be a special park distri ...
s, which are maintained and run by
the province's regional districts. The Ministry of Forests operates forest recreation sites.
In addition to these areas, over of
arable land are protected by the
Agricultural Land Reserve.
Fauna
![Awesome Takakkaw Falls IMG 4771](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Awesome_Takakkaw_Falls_IMG_4771.JPG)
Much of the province is undeveloped, so populations of many mammalian species that have become rare in much of the United States still flourish in British Columbia. Watching animals of various sorts, including a very wide range of birds, has long been popular. Bears (
grizzly
The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America.
In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horri ...
,
black—including the
Kermode bear
The Kermode bear, sometimes called the spirit bear (''Ursus americanus kermodei''), is a subspecies of the American black bear and lives in the Central and North Coast regions of British Columbia, Canada. It is the official provincial mammal ...
or spirit bear) live here, as do
deer,
elk,
moose,
caribou,
big-horn sheep,
mountain goat
The mountain goat (''Oreamnos americanus''), also known as the Rocky Mountain goat, is a hoofed mammal endemic to mountainous areas of western North America. A subalpine to alpine species, it is a sure-footed climber commonly seen on cliffs an ...
s,
marmot
Marmots are large ground squirrels in the genus ''Marmota'', with 15 species living in Asia, Europe, and North America. These herbivores are active during the summer, when they can often be found in groups, but are not seen during the winter, ...
s,
beavers,
muskrats,
coyotes,
wolves,
mustelids
The Mustelidae (; from Latin ''mustela'', weasel) are a family of carnivorous mammals, including weasels, badgers, otters, ferrets, martens, minks and wolverines, among others. Mustelids () are a diverse group and form the largest famil ...
(such as
wolverines,
badger
Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the family Mustelidae (which also includes the otters, wolverines, martens, minks, polecats, weasels, and ferrets). Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by ...
s and
fishers
Fisher is an archaic term for a fisherman, revived as gender-neutral.
Fisher, Fishers or The Fisher may also refer to:
Places
Australia
*Division of Fisher, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in Queensland
*Elect ...
),
cougars,
eagles,
ospreys,
herons,
Canada geese
The Canada goose (''Branta canadensis''), or Canadian goose, is a large wild goose with a black head and neck, white cheeks, white under its chin, and a brown body. It is native to the arctic and temperate regions of North America, and it is o ...
,
swans,
loons,
hawks,
owl
Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...
s,
ravens,
harlequin duck
The harlequin duck (''Histrionicus histrionicus'') is a small sea duck. It takes its name from Harlequin (French ''Arlequin'', Italian ''Arlecchino''), a colourfully dressed character in Commedia dell'arte. The species name comes from the Latin ...
s, and many other sorts of ducks. Smaller birds (
robins,
jays,
grosbeak
Grosbeak is a form taxon containing various species of seed-eating passerine birds with large beaks. Although they all belong to the superfamily Passeroidea, these birds are not part of a natural group but rather a polyphyletic assemblage of di ...
s,
chickadees
The chickadees are a group of North American birds in the tit family included in the genus '' Poecile''. Species found in North America are referred to as chickadees, while other species in the genus are called tits.
They are small-sized bird ...
, and so on) also abound. Murrelets are known from Frederick Island, a small island off the coast of
Haida Gwaii
Haida Gwaii (; hai, X̱aaydag̱a Gwaay.yaay / , literally "Islands of the Haida people") is an archipelago located between off the northern Pacific coast of Canada. The islands are separated from the mainland to the east by the shallow Heca ...
.
Many healthy populations of fish are present, including
salmonids
Salmonidae is a family of ray-finned fish that constitutes the only currently extant family in the order Salmoniformes . It includes salmon (both Atlantic and Pacific species), trout (both ocean-going and landlocked), chars, freshwater whit ...
such as several species of
salmon,
trout,
char. Besides salmon and trout, sport-fishers in BC also catch
halibut,
steelhead
Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and ...
,
bass, and
sturgeon. On the coast,
harbour seal
The harbor (or harbour) seal (''Phoca vitulina''), also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. The most widely distributed species of pinniped (walruses, eared se ...
s and
river otters are common.
Cetacean species native to the coast include the
orca,
humpback whale,
grey whale,
harbour porpoise
The harbour porpoise (''Phocoena phocoena'') is one of eight extant species of porpoise. It is one of the smallest species of cetacean. As its name implies, it stays close to coastal areas or river estuaries, and as such, is the most familiar ...
,
Dall's porpoise
Dall's porpoise (''Phocoenoides dalli'') is a species of porpoise endemic to the North Pacific. It is the largest of porpoises and the only member of the genus ''Phocoenoides''. The species is named after American naturalist W. H. Dall.
Taxono ...
,
Pacific white-sided dolphin
The Pacific white-sided dolphin (''Lagenorhynchus obliquidens''), also known as the hookfin porpoise, is an active dolphin found in the cool or temperate waters of the North Pacific Ocean.
Taxonomy
The Pacific white-sided dolphin was named by Sm ...
and
minke whale
The minke whale (), or lesser rorqual, is a species complex of baleen whale. The two species of minke whale are the common (or northern) minke whale and the Antarctic (or southern) minke whale. The minke whale was first described by the Danish na ...
.
![Dorsal fin of a Humpback whale 03](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Dorsal_fin_of_a_Humpback_whale_03.jpg)
Some endangered species in British Columbia are:
Vancouver Island marmot,
spotted owl
The spotted owl (''Strix occidentalis'') is a species of true owl. It is a resident species of old-growth forests in western North America, where it nests in tree hollows, old bird of prey nests, or rock crevices. Nests can be between high a ...
,
American white pelican, and badgers.
Forests
White spruce or
Engelmann spruce
''Picea engelmannii'', with the common names Engelmann spruce, white spruce, mountain spruce, and silver spruce, is a species of spruce native to western North America. It is mostly a high-altitude mountain tree but also appears in watered canyon ...
and their hybrids occur in 12 of the 14
biogeoclimatic zones of British Columbia.
Common types of trees present in BC's forests include
western redcedar
''Thuja plicata'' is an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae, native to western North America. Its common name is western redcedar (western red cedar in the UK), and it is also called Pacific redcedar, giant arborvitae, w ...
,
yellow-cedar,
Rocky Mountain juniper,
lodgepole pine
''Pinus contorta'', with the common names lodgepole pine and shore pine, and also known as twisted pine, and contorta pine, is a common tree in western North America. It is common near the ocean shore and in dry montane forests to the subalpin ...
,
ponderosa or yellow pine,
whitebark pine,
limber pine
''Pinus flexilis'', the limber pine, is a species of pine tree-the family Pinaceae that occurs in the mountains of the Western United States, Mexico, and Canada. It is also called Rocky Mountain white pine.
A limber pine in Eagle Cap Wildernes ...
,
western white pine,
western larch
The western larch (''Larix occidentalis'') is a species of larch native to the mountains of western North America (Pacific Northwest, Inland Northwest); in Canada in southeastern British Columbia and southwestern Alberta, and in the United State ...
,
tamarack,
alpine larch,
white spruce,
Engelmann spruce
''Picea engelmannii'', with the common names Engelmann spruce, white spruce, mountain spruce, and silver spruce, is a species of spruce native to western North America. It is mostly a high-altitude mountain tree but also appears in watered canyon ...
,
Sitka spruce,
black spruce,
grand fir
''Abies grandis'' (grand fir, giant fir, lowland white fir, great silver fir, western white fir, Vancouver fir, or Oregon fir) is a fir native to the Pacific Northwest and Northern California of North America, occurring at altitudes of sea leve ...
,
Amabilis fir,
subalpine fir
''Abies lasiocarpa'', the subalpine fir or Rocky Mountain fir, is a western North American fir tree.
Description
''Abies lasiocarpa'' is a medium-sized evergreen conifer with a very narrow conic crown, growing to tall, exceptionally , with a t ...
,
western hemlock
''Tsuga heterophylla'', the western hemlock or western hemlock-spruce, is a species of hemlock native to the west coast of North America, with its northwestern limit on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and its southeastern limit in northern Sonoma ...
,
mountain hemlock
''Tsuga mertensiana'', known as mountain hemlock, is a species of hemlock native to the west coast of North America, found between Southcentral Alaska and south-central California.
Description
''Tsuga mertensiana'' is a large evergreen conifer ...
,
Douglas-fir
The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Oregon pine, and Columbian pine. There are three va ...
,
western yew
''Taxus brevifolia'', the Pacific yew or western yew, is a species of tree in the yew family Taxaceae native to the Pacific Northwest of North America. It is a small evergreen conifer, thriving in moisture and otherwise tending to take the form ...
,
Pacific dogwood
''Cornus nuttallii'', the Pacific dogwood, western dogwood, or mountain dogwood, is a species of dogwood tree native to western North America.
Description
It is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree, reaching tall, often with a canopy spre ...
,
bigleaf maple
''Acer macrophyllum'', the bigleaf maple or Oregon maple, is a large deciduous tree in the genus '' Acer''.
It is native to western North America, mostly near the Pacific coast, from southernmost Alaska to southern California. Some stands are al ...
,
Douglas maple
''Acer glabrum'' is a species of maple native to western North America, from southeastern Alaska, British Columbia and western Alberta, east to western Nebraska, and south through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Colorado to California, Ari ...
,
vine maple,
arbutus
''Arbutus'' is a genus of 12 accepted speciesAct. Bot. Mex no.99 Pátzcuaro abr. 2012.''Arbutus bicolor''/ref> of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae, native to warm temperate regions of the Mediterranean, western Europe, the Canary Islan ...
,
black hawthorn,
cascara,
Garry oak
''Quercus garryana'' is an oak tree species of the Pacific Northwest, with a range stretching from southern California to southwestern British Columbia. It is commonly known as the Oregon white oak or Oregon oak or, in Canada, the Garry oak. ...
,
Pacific crab apple,
choke cherry,
pin cherry,
bitter cherry,
red alder,
mountain alder,
paper birch
''Betula papyrifera'' (paper birch, also known as (American) white birch and canoe birch) is a short-lived species of birch native to northern North America. Paper birch is named for the tree's thin white bark, which often peels in paper like ...
,
water birch,
black cottonwood
''Populus trichocarpa'', the black cottonwood, western balsam-poplar or California poplar, is a deciduous broadleaf tree species native to western North America. It is used for timber, and is notable as a model organism in plant biology.
...
,
balsam poplar
''Populus balsamifera'', commonly called balsam poplar, bam, bamtree, eastern balsam-poplar, hackmatack, tacamahac poplar, tacamahaca, is a tree species in the balsam poplar species group in the poplar genus, ''Populus.'' The genus name ''Populu ...
,
trembling aspen.
Traditional plant foods
First Nations peoples of British Columbia used plants for food, and to produce material goods like fuel and building products. Plant foods included berries, and roots like
camas.
Ecozones
Environment Canada subdivides British Columbia into six
ecozones An Ecozone may refer to:
* Ecozone (Canada), one of 15 first-level ecological land classifications in Canada
* Biogeographic realm, the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface (referred to as ''ecozone'' by BBC)
* Biome, a large c ...
:
*
Pacific Marine
*
Pacific Maritime
*
Boreal Cordillera
The Boreal Cordillera Ecozone, as defined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone occupying most of the northern third of British Columbia and southern half of Yukon. Within it is found Kluane Nati ...
*
Montane Cordillera
*
Taiga Plains
*
Boreal Plains Ecozones.
History
Indigenous societies
The area now known as British Columbia is home to First Nations groups that have a deep history with a significant number of indigenous languages. There are more than 200 First Nations in BC. Prior to contact (with non-Aboriginal people), human history is known from oral histories of First Nations groups, archaeological investigations, and from early records from explorers encountering societies early in the period.
The arrival of
Paleoindians from
Beringia took place between 20,000 and 12,000 years ago.
Hunter-gatherer families were the main social structure from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago.
The nomadic population lived in non-permanent structures foraging for nuts, berries and edible roots while hunting and trapping larger and small game for food and furs.
Around 5,000 years ago individual groups started to focus on resources available to them locally. Coast Salish peoples' had complex land management practices linked to ecosystem health and resilience. Forest gardens on Canada's northwest coast included crabapple, hazelnut, cranberry, wild plum, and wild cherry species. Thus with the passage of time there is a pattern of increasing regional generalization with a more
sedentary lifestyle
Sedentary lifestyle is a Lifestyle (social sciences), lifestyle type, in which one is physically inactive and does little or no physical movement and or exercise. A person living a sedentary lifestyle is often sitting or lying down while enga ...
.
These indigenous populations evolved over the next 5,000 years across a large area into many groups with shared traditions and customs.
To the northwest of the province are the peoples of the
Na-Dene languages, which include the
Athapaskan-speaking peoples and the
Tlingit
The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ), , who lived on the islands of southern Alaska and northern British Columbia. The Na-Dene language group is believed to be linked to the
Yeniseian languages of Siberia.
The
Dene
The Dene people () are an indigenous group of First Nations who inhabit the northern boreal and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dene speak Northern Athabaskan languages. ''Dene'' is the common Athabaskan word for "people". The term "Dene" ha ...
of the western Arctic may represent a distinct wave of migration from Asia to North America.
The
Interior of British Columbia
, settlement_type = Region of British Columbia
, image_skyline =
, nickname = "The Interior"
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name =
, subdivision_type1 = Province
, subd ...
was home to the
Salishan language
The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a family of languages of the Pacific Northwest in North America (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). They are characterised by ag ...
groups such as the
Shuswap (Secwepemc),
Okanagan
The Okanagan ( ), also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is par ...
and Athabaskan language groups, primarily the
Dakelh (Carrier) and the
Tsilhqot'in.
The inlets and valleys of the British Columbia coast sheltered large, distinctive populations, such as the
Haida,
Kwakwaka'wakw and
Nuu-chah-nulth, sustained by the region's abundant salmon and shellfish.
These peoples developed
complex cultures dependent on the
western red cedar
''Thuja plicata'' is an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae, native to western North America. Its common name is western redcedar (western red cedar in the UK), and it is also called Pacific redcedar, giant arborvitae ...
that included wooden houses, seagoing whaling and war canoes and elaborately carved
potlatch items and
totem poles
Totem poles ( hai, gyáaʼaang) are monumental carvings found in western Canada and the northwestern United States. They are a type of Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually m ...
.
Contact with Europeans brought a series of devastating epidemics of diseases from Europe the people had no immunity to. The result was a dramatic population collapse, culminating in the 1862 Smallpox outbreak in Victoria that spread throughout the coast. European settlement did not bode well for the remaining native population of British Columbia. Colonial officials deemed colonists could make better use of the land than the First Nations people, and thus the land territory be owned by the colonists.
To ensure colonists would be able to settle properly and make use of the land, First Nations were forcibly relocated onto
reserves, which were often too small to support their way of life.
By the 1930s, British Columbia had over 1500 reserves.
Fur trade and colonial era
Lands now known as British Columbia were added to the
British Empire during the 19th century. Colonies originally begun with the support of the
Hudson's Bay Company (Vancouver Island, the mainland) were amalgamated, then entered Confederation as British Columbia in 1871 as part of the Dominion of Canada.
During the 1770s,
smallpox killed at least 30 percent of the Pacific Northwest
First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
. This devastating epidemic was the first in a series; the
1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic killed about half to two-thirds of the native population of what became British Columbia.
![Kwakiutl house pole InvMH975-123-1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Kwakiutl_house_pole_InvMH975-123-1.jpg)
The arrival of Europeans began around the mid-18th century, as
fur traders entered the area to harvest
sea otters. While it is thought
Sir Francis Drake may have explored the British Columbian coast in 1579, it was
Juan Pérez who completed the first documented voyage, which took place in 1774.
Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra explored the coast in 1775. In doing so, Pérez and Quadra reasserted the
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
claim for the
Pacific coast, first made by
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Vasco Núñez de Balboa (; c. 1475around January 12–21, 1519) was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an ...
in 1513.
The explorations of
James Cook in 1778 and
George Vancouver in 1792 and 1793 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
Dean Channel 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 Canadian Prairies and the Pacific. Mackenzie and other explorers—notably
John Finlay,
Simon Fraser,
Samuel Black
Samuel Black (May 3, 1780 – February 8, 1841) was a Scottish fur trader and explorer, a clerk in the New North Nest Company (XYC) and Wintering Partner in the North West Company (NWC), and later clerk, chief trader, and chief factor in the Huds ...
, and
David Thompson—were primarily concerned with extending the
fur trade, rather than political considerations. In 1794, by the third of a series of agreements known as the
Nootka Convention
The Nootka Sound Conventions were a series of three agreements between the Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain, signed in the 1790s, which averted a war between the two countries over overlapping claims to portions of the Pacific No ...
s,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
conceded its claims of exclusivity in the Pacific. This opened the way for formal claims and colonization by other powers, including Britain, but because of the
Napoleonic Wars, there was little British action on its claims in the region until later.
The establishment of
trading posts by the
North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), effectively established a permanent British presence in the region. The Columbia District was broadly defined as being south of 54°40 north latitude, (the southern limit of
Russian America
Russian America (russian: Русская Америка, Russkaya Amerika) was the name for the Russian Empire's colonial possessions in North America from 1799 to 1867. It consisted mostly of present-day Alaska in the United States, but a ...
), north of Mexican-controlled California, and west of the
Rocky Mountains. It was, by 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.
The major supply route was the
York Factory Express
The York Factory Express, usually called "the Express" and also the Columbia Express and the Communication, was a 19th-century fur brigade operated by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Roughly in length, it was the main overland connection between ...
between
Hudson Bay and
Fort Vancouver. Some of the early outposts grew 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
Hudson's Hope is a district municipality in northeastern British Columbia, Canada, in the Peace River Regional District. Having been first settled along the Peace River in 1805, it is the third-oldest European-Canadian community in the province, a ...
(1805);
Fort Nelson (1805);
Fort St. James (1806);
Prince George (1807); Kamloops (1812);
Fort Langley
Fort Langley is a village community in Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada. It has a population of approximately 3,400 people. It is the home of Fort Langley National Historic Site, a former fur trade post of the Hudson's Bay Company ...
(1827);
Fort Victoria (1843);
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
(1848); and Nanaimo (1853). Fur company posts that became cities in what is now the United States include
Vancouver, Washington
Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, located in Clark County. Incorporated in 1857, Vancouver has a population of 190,915 as of the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Was ...
(
Fort Vancouver), formerly the "capital" of Hudson's Bay operations in the Columbia District,
Colville, Washington and
Walla Walla, Washington
Walla Walla is a city in Walla Walla County, Washington, where it is the largest city and county seat. It had a population of 34,060 at the 2020 census, estimated to have decreased to 33,927 as of 2021. The population of the city and its two su ...
(old
Fort Nez Percés).
With the amalgamation of the two fur trading companies in 1821, modern-day British Columbia existed in three fur trading departments. The bulk of the central and northern interior was organized into the
New Caledonia district, administered from Fort St. James. The interior south of the
Thompson River
The Thompson River is the largest tributary of the Fraser River, flowing through the south-central portion of British Columbia, Canada. The Thompson River has two main branches, the South Thompson River and the North Thompson River. The ri ...
watershed and north of the Columbia was organized into the Columbia District, administered from Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia River. 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
Fort Chipewyan , commonly referred to as Fort Chip, is a hamlet in northern Alberta, Canada, within the Regional Municipality (RM) of Wood Buffalo. It is located on the western tip of Lake Athabasca, adjacent to Wood Buffalo National Park, app ...
, in present-day Alberta.
Until 1849, these districts were a wholly unorganized area of
British North America
British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestow ...
under the
de facto jurisdiction of HBC administrators; however, unlike
Rupert's Land to the north and east, 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 and
Oregon). In 1846, the
Oregon Treaty divided the territory along the
49th parallel to the
Strait of Georgia, with the area south of this boundary (excluding Vancouver Island and the
Gulf Islands
The Gulf Islands are a group of islands in the Salish Sea between Vancouver Island and the mainland coast of British Columbia.
Etymology
The name "Gulf Islands" comes from "Gulf of Georgia," the original term used by George Vancouver in his ...
) transferred to sole American sovereignty. The
Colony of Vancouver Island
The Colony of Vancouver Island, officially known as the Island of Vancouver and its Dependencies, was a Crown colony of British North America from 1849 to 1866, after which it was united with the mainland to form the Colony of British Columbia ...
was created in 1849, with Victoria designated as the capital. New Caledonia, as the whole of the mainland rather than just its north-central Interior came to be called, continued to be an unorganized territory of British North America, "administered" by individual HBC trading post managers.
Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866)
With the
Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858, an influx of Americans into New Caledonia prompted the
colonial office
The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but required also to oversee the increasing number of c ...
to designate the mainland as the Colony of British Columbia. When news of the
Fraser Canyon Gold Rush reached London, Richard Clement Moody was hand-picked by the
Colonial Office
The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but required also to oversee the increasing number of c ...
, under
Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, to establish British order and to transform the newly established Colony of British Columbia into the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west"
and "found a second England on the shores of the Pacific". Lytton desired to send to the colony "representatives of the best of British culture, not just a police force": he sought men who possessed "courtesy, high breeding and urbane knowledge of the world"
and he decided to send Moody, whom the Government considered to be the "English gentleman and British Officer"
at the head of the
Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment The Columbia Detachment of the Royal Engineers was a contingent of the Royal Engineers of the British Army that was responsible for the foundation of British Columbia as the Colony of British Columbia (1858–66). It was commanded by Colonel Richar ...
.
Moody and his family arrived in British Columbia in December 1858, commanding the
Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment The Columbia Detachment of the Royal Engineers was a contingent of the Royal Engineers of the British Army that was responsible for the foundation of British Columbia as the Colony of British Columbia (1858–66). It was commanded by Colonel Richar ...
.
He was sworn in as the first
lieutenant governor of British Columbia
The lieutenant governor of British Columbia () is the viceregal representative of the , in the province of British Columbia, Canada. The office of lieutenant governor is an office of the Crown and serves as a representative of the monarchy in ...
and appointed Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works for British Columbia. On the advice of Lytton, Moody hired
Robert Burnaby
Robert Burnaby (November 30, 1828 – January 10, 1878) was an English merchant, politician and civil servant in British Columbia, where he served as private secretary to Richard Clement Moody, the founder and first Lieutenant-Governor of Briti ...
as his personal secretary.
In British Columbia, Moody "wanted to build a city of beauty in the wilderness" and planned his city as an iconic visual metaphor for British dominance, "styled and located with the objective of reinforcing the authority of the crown and of the robe".
Subsequent to the enactment of the ''Pre-emption Act'' of 1860, Moody settled the
Lower Mainland. He selected the site and founded the new capital,
New Westminster
New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the capi ...
. He selected the site due to the strategic excellence of its position and the quality of its port.
He was also struck by the majestic beauty of the site, writing in his letter to Blackwood,
![Victoria, British Columbia, 1864](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Victoria%2C_British_Columbia%2C_1864.jpg)
Lord Lytton "forgot the practicalities of paying for clearing and developing the site and the town" and the efforts of Moody's engineers were continuously hampered by insufficient funds, which, together with the continuous opposition of
Governor James Douglas, "made it impossible for Moody's design to be fulfilled".
Moody and the Royal Engineers also built an extensive road network, including what would become
Kingsway, connecting New Westminster to
False Creek, the North Road between
Port Moody
Port Moody is a city in British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It envelops the east end of Burrard Inlet and is the smallest of the Tri-Cities, bordered by Coquitlam on the east and south an ...
and New Westminster, and the
Cariboo Road and
Stanley Park
Stanley Park is a public park in British Columbia, Canada that makes up the northwestern half of Vancouver's Downtown Peninsula, surrounded by waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The park borders the neighbourhoods of West End and ...
.
He named
Burnaby Lake
Burnaby Lake is a lake located in Burnaby, British Columbia and is the focal geographic feature and namesake of Burnaby Lake Regional Park. The lake occupies of land, and is home to a large variety of wildlife. At least 70 species of birds make ...
after his private secretary
Robert Burnaby
Robert Burnaby (November 30, 1828 – January 10, 1878) was an English merchant, politician and civil servant in British Columbia, where he served as private secretary to Richard Clement Moody, the founder and first Lieutenant-Governor of Briti ...
and named Port Coquitlam's 400-foot "Mary Hill" after his wife. As part of the surveying effort, several tracts were designated "government reserves", which included
Stanley Park
Stanley Park is a public park in British Columbia, Canada that makes up the northwestern half of Vancouver's Downtown Peninsula, surrounded by waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The park borders the neighbourhoods of West End and ...
as a military reserve (a strategic location in case of an American invasion). The ''Pre-emption Act'' did not specify conditions for distributing the land, so large parcels were snapped up by speculators, including by Moody himself. For this he was criticized by local newspapermen for
land grabbing. Moody designed the first
coat of arms of British Columbia.
Port Moody
Port Moody is a city in British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It envelops the east end of Burrard Inlet and is the smallest of the Tri-Cities, bordered by Coquitlam on the east and south an ...
is named after him. It was established at the end of a trail that connected New Westminster with Burrard Inlet to defend New Westminster from potential attack from the US.
By 1862, the
Cariboo Gold Rush
The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Colony of British Columbia, which later joined the Canadian province of British Columbia. The first gold discovery was made at Hills Bar in 1858, followed by more strikes in 1859 on the Horsefly Rive ...
, attracting an additional 5000 miners, was underway, and Douglas hastened construction of the Great North Road (commonly known now as the
Cariboo Wagon Road
The Cariboo Road (also called the Cariboo Wagon Road, the Great North Road or the Queen's Highway) was a project initiated in 1860 by the Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, James Douglas. It involved a feat of engineering stretching fr ...
) up the
Fraser Canyon
The Fraser Canyon is a major landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser ...
to the prospecting region around
Barkerville
Barkerville was the main town of the Cariboo Gold Rush in British Columbia, Canada, and is preserved as a historic town. It is located on the north slope of the Cariboo Plateau near the Cariboo Mountains east of Quesnel. BC Highway 26, which ...
. By the time of this gold rush, the character of the colony was changing, as a more stable population of British colonists settled in the region, establishing businesses, opening
sawmills, and engaging in
fishing and agriculture. With this increased stability, objections to the colony's absentee governor and the lack of
responsible government began to be vocalized, led by the influential editor of the
New Westminster
New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the capi ...
''British Columbian'' and future
premier,
John Robson. A series of petitions requesting an assembly were ignored by Douglas and the colonial office until Douglas was eased out of office in 1864. Finally, the colony would have both an assembly and a resident governor.
Later gold rushes
A series of gold rushes in various parts of the province followed, the largest being the
Cariboo Gold Rush
The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Colony of British Columbia, which later joined the Canadian province of British Columbia. The first gold discovery was made at Hills Bar in 1858, followed by more strikes in 1859 on the Horsefly Rive ...
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
Barkerville was the main town of the Cariboo Gold Rush in British Columbia, Canada, and is preserved as a historic town. It is located on the north slope of the Cariboo Plateau near the Cariboo Mountains east of Quesnel. BC Highway 26, which ...
and
Lillooet
Lillooet () is a district municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. The town is on the west shore of the Fraser River immediately north of the Seton River mouth. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road abo ...
, which sprang up overnight. The Vancouver Island colony was facing financial crises of its own, and pressure to merge the two eventually
succeeded in 1866, when the colony of British Columbia was amalgamated with the
Colony of Vancouver Island
The Colony of Vancouver Island, officially known as the Island of Vancouver and its Dependencies, was a Crown colony of British North America from 1849 to 1866, after which it was united with the mainland to form the Colony of British Columbia ...
to form the
Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871)
The Colony of British Columbia was a British Crown Colony that resulted from the amalgamation of the two former colonies, the Colony of Vancouver Island and the mainland Colony of British Columbia. The two former colonies were united in 1866, ...
, which was, in turn, succeeded by the present day province of British Columbia following the
Canadian Confederation of 1871.
Rapid growth and development
![LastSpike Craigellachie BC Canada](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/LastSpike_Craigellachie_BC_Canada.jpg)
The Confederation League, including such figures as
Amor De Cosmos
Amor De Cosmos (born William Alexander Smith; August 20, 1825 – July 4, 1897) was a Canadian journalist, publisher and politician. He served as the second premier of British Columbia.
Early life
Amor De Cosmos was born William Alexander Smit ...
,
John Robson, and
Robert Beaven, led the chorus pressing for the colony to join Canada, which had been created out of three British North American colonies in 1867 (the
Province of Canada,
Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick). Several factors motivated this agitation, including the fear of annexation to the United States, the overwhelming debt created by rapid population growth, the need for government-funded services to support this population, and the economic depression caused by the end of the gold rush.
![Craigellachie (Gedenkstein)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Craigellachie_%28Gedenkstein%29.jpg)
With the agreement by the Canadian government to extend the
Canadian Pacific Railway to British Columbia and to assume the colony's debt, British Columbia became the sixth province to join
Confederation on July 20, 1871. The borders of the province were not completely settled. The Treaty of Washington sent the
Pig War San Juan Islands Border dispute to arbitration in 1871 and in 1903, the province's territory shrank again after the
Alaska boundary dispute
The Alaska boundary dispute was a territorial dispute between the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which then controlled Canada's foreign relations. It was resolved by arbitration in 1903. The dispute had existed ...
settled the vague boundary of the
Alaska Panhandle.
Population in British Columbia continued to expand as the province's
mining,
forestry,
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
, and
fishing sectors were developed. Mining activity was particularly notable throughout the Mainland, particularly in the
Boundary Country, in the
Slocan, in the
West Kootenay around
Trail, the East Kootenay (the southeast corner of the province), the Fraser Canyon, the
Cariboo, the
Omineca and the
Cassiar, so much so a common epithet for the Mainland, even after provincehood, was "the Gold Colony". Agriculture attracted settlers to the fertile Fraser Valley, and cattle ranchers and later fruit growers came to the drier grasslands of the Thompson River area, the Cariboo, the
Chilcotin, and the Okanagan. Forestry drew workers to the lush temperate rainforests of the coast, which was also the locus of a growing fishery.
The completion of the railway in 1885 was a huge boost to the province's economy, facilitating the transportation of the region's considerable resources to the east. The milltown of Granville, known as
Gastown, near the mouth of the
Burrard Inlet
french: Baie Burrard
, image = Burrard Inlet 201807.jpg
, image_size = 250px
, alt =
, caption = Aerial view of Burrard Inlet
, image_bathymetry = Burrard-Inlet-map-en.svg
, alt_bathymetry ...
was selected as the terminus of the railway, prompting the incorporation of the city as Vancouver in 1886. The completion of the
Port of Vancouver spurred rapid growth, and in less than fifty years the city surpassed
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...
,
Manitoba, as the largest in
Western Canada. The early decades of the province were ones in which issues of land use—specifically, its settlement and development—were paramount. This included expropriation from First Nations people of their land, control over its resources, as well as the ability to trade in some resources (such as fishing).
![Statue of Queen Victoria, Victoria, Canada 02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Statue_of_Queen_Victoria%2C_Victoria%2C_Canada_02.jpg)
Establishing a
labour force
The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic reg ...
to develop the province was problematic from the start, and British Columbia was the locus of immigration from Europe, China, Japan and India. The influx of a non-
European population stimulated resentment from the dominant ethnic groups, resulting in agitation (much of it successful) to restrict the ability of
Asian people to immigrate to British Columbia through the imposition of a
head tax
A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources.
Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments f ...
. This resentment culminated in mob attacks against Chinese and Japanese immigrants in Vancouver in 1887 and 1907. The subsequent
Komagata Maru incident in 1914, where hundreds of Indians were denied entry into Vancouver, was also a direct result of the anti-Asian resentment at the time. By 1923, almost all
Chinese immigration had been blocked except for merchants, professionals, students and investors.
Meanwhile, the province continued to grow. In 1914, the last spike of a second transcontinental rail line, the
Grand Trunk Pacific, linking north-central British Columbia from the
Yellowhead Pass through Prince George to Prince Rupert was driven at
Fort Fraser. This opened up the North Coast and the
Bulkley Valley
The Bulkley Valley is in the northwest Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada.
Geography
The Bulkley, a stream running through Houston, British Columbia, joins the larger Morice River about to the west. At the confluence, they become not ...
region to new economic opportunities. What had previously been an almost exclusively fur trade and subsistence economy soon became a locus for forestry, farming, and mining.
In
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the province responded strongly to the call to assist the British Empire against its German foes in French and Belgian battlefields. About 55,570 of the 400,000 British Columbian residents, the highest per-capita rate in Canada, responded to the military needs. Horseriders from the province's Interior region and First Nations soldiers made contributions to Vimy Ridge and other battles. About 6,225 men from the province died in combat.
1920s to 1940s
When men returned from the
First World War, they discovered the recently enfranchised women of the province voted for the
prohibition of liquor in an effort to end the social problems associated with the hard-core drinking in the province was until the war. However, with pressure from veterans, prohibition was quickly relaxed so the "soldier and the working man" could enjoy a drink, but widespread unemployment among veterans was hardened by many of the available jobs being taken by European immigrants and disgruntled veterans organized a range of "soldier parties" to represent their interests, variously named Soldier-Farmer, Soldier-Labour, and
Farmer-Labour Parties. These formed the basis of the fractured labour-political spectrum that would generate a host of fringe leftist and rightist parties, including those who would eventually form the
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the early
Social Credit
Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made them. To combat what he ...
splinter groups.
![Japanese internment camp in British Columbia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Japanese_internment_camp_in_British_Columbia.jpg)
The advent of
prohibition in the United States created opportunities, and many found employment or at least profit in cross-border liquor smuggling. By the end of the 1920s, the end of prohibition in the U.S., combined with the onset of the
Great Depression, plunged the province into economic destitution during the 1930s. Compounding the already dire local economic situation, tens of thousands of men from colder parts of Canada swarmed into Vancouver, creating huge
hobo jungles around
False Creek and the Burrard Inlet
rail yards, including the old Canadian Pacific Railway mainline
right-of-way through the heart of
Downtown Vancouver
Downtown Vancouver is the central business district and the city centre neighbourhood of Vancouver, Canada, on the northwestern shore of the Burrard Peninsula in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. It occupies most of the north shor ...
. Increasingly desperate times led to intense political efforts, an occupation of the main Post Office at
Granville and
Hastings which was violently put down by the police and an effective imposition of
martial law on the docks for almost three years due to the
Battle of Ballantyne Pier. A Vancouver contingent for the
On-to-Ottawa Trek
The On-to-Ottawa Trek was a mass protest movement in Canada in 1935 sparked by unrest among unemployed single men in federal relief camps principally in Western Canada. Federal relief camps were brought in under Prime Minister R. B. Bennett’s ...
was organized and seized a train, which was loaded with thousands of men bound for the capital but was met by a
Gatling gun straddling train tracks at
Mission
Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to:
Organised activities Religion
*Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity
*Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...
. All the men were arrested and sent to work camps for the duration of the Depression. There were signs of an economic return towards the end of the 1930s, however, the onset of World War II transformed the national economy and ended the Depression.
British Columbia has long taken advantage of its location on the Pacific Ocean to have close relations with
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...
and
South Asia
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...
. These relations have often caused friction between cultures which has sometimes escalated into racist animosity towards those of Asian descent. This was manifest during the Second World War when many people of
Japanese descent were relocated or interned in the
Interior region of the province.
Coalition and the post-war boom
![British Columbia Regiment 1940](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/British_Columbia_Regiment_1940.jpg)
During the
Second World War the mainstream
BC Liberal
The British Columbia Liberal Party, often shortened to the BC Liberals, is a centre-right provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada. The party currently forms the Official Opposition. Subsequent to the 2020 British Columbia general ...
and
BC Conservative parties united in a formal
coalition government under new Liberal leader
John Hart, who replaced
Duff Pattullo when the latter failed to win a majority in the
1941 election. While the Liberals won the most seats, they actually received fewer votes than the socialist
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Pattullo was unwilling to form a coalition with the rival Conservatives led by
Royal Maitland
Royal Lethington (Pat) Maitland (January 9, 1889 – March 28, 1946) was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served as Deputy Premier and the Attorney General of British Columbia in the coalition government of Premier John Hart. He als ...
and was replaced by Hart, who formed a coalition cabinet made up of five Liberal and three Conservative ministers.
The CCF was invited to join the coalition but refused.
The pretext for continuing the coalition after the end of the Second World War was to prevent the CCF, which had won a surprise victory in
Saskatchewan in 1944, from ever coming to power in British Columbia. The CCF's popular vote was high enough in the
1945 election that they were likely to have won three-way contests and could have formed government; however, the coalition prevented that by uniting the anti-
socialist vote.
In the post-war environment the government initiated a series of infrastructure projects, notably the completion of
Highway 97 north of Prince George to the Peace River Block, a section called the John Hart Highway and also public hospital insurance.
In 1947 the reins of the Coalition were taken by
Byron Ingemar Johnson
Byron Ingemar "Boss" Johnson (born Björn Ingimar Jónsson; December 10, 1890 – January 12, 1964), served as the 24th premier of British Columbia, from 1947 to 1952. To his contemporaries he was often referred to by his nickname, ''Boss Johns ...
. The Conservatives had wanted their new leader
Herbert Anscomb
Herbert Bertie Anscomb (February 23, 1892 – November 12, 1972) was a Conservative politician and British Columbia cabinet minister.
He was born in England and moved to Canada in 1911. He settled in Victoria, British Columbia where he found w ...
to be premier, but the Liberals in the Coalition refused. Johnson led the coalition to the highest percentage of the popular vote in British Columbia history (61 percent) in the
1949 election. This victory was attributable to the popularity of his government's spending programmes, despite rising criticism of corruption and abuse of power. During his tenure, major infrastructures continued to expand, such as the agreement with
Alcan Aluminum to build the town of
Kitimat
Kitimat is a district municipality in the North Coast region of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine regional government. The Kitimat Valley is part of the most populous urban distr ...
with an aluminum smelter and the large
Kemano Hydro Project. Johnson achieved popularity for flood relief efforts during the 1948 flooding of the Fraser Valley, which was a major blow to that region and to the province's economy.
On February 13, 1950, a
Convair B-36B crashed in northern British Columbia after jettisoning a
Mark IV atomic bomb. This was the first such
nuclear weapon loss in history.
Increasing tension between the Liberal and Conservative coalition partners led the Liberal Party executive to vote to instruct Johnson to terminate the arrangement. Johnson ended the coalition and dropped his Conservative cabinet ministers, including
Deputy Premier and
Finance minister
A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation.
A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...
Herbert Anscomb, precipitating the
general election of 1952.
A referendum on electoral reform prior to this election had instigated an elimination ballot (similar to a
preferential ballot
The term ranked voting (also known as preferential voting or ranked choice voting) refers to any voting system in which voters rank their candidates (or options) in a sequence of first or second (or third, etc.) on their respective ballots. Ran ...
), where voters could select second and third choices. The intent of the ballot, as campaigned for by Liberals and Conservatives, was that their supporters would list the rival party in lieu of the CCF, but this plan backfired when a large group of voters from all major parties, including the CCF, voted for the fringe Social Credit Party, who wound up with the largest number of seats in the House (19), only one seat ahead of the CCF, despite the CCF having 34.3 percent of the vote to Social Credit's 30.18 percent.
The Social Credit Party, led by rebel former Conservative MLA
W. A. C. Bennett, formed a
minority government backed by the Liberals and Conservatives (with 6 and 4 seats respectively). Bennett began a series of fiscal reforms, preaching a new variety of
populism as well as waxing eloquent on progress and development, laying the ground for a
second election in 1953 in which the new Bennett regime secured a majority of seats, with 38 percent of the vote. Secure with that majority, Bennett returned the province to the first-past-the-post system thereafter, which is still in use.
1952–1960s
With the election of the Social Credit Party, British Columbia embarked on a phase of rapid
economic development. Bennett and his party governed the province for the next twenty years, during which time the government initiated an ambitious programme of infrastructure development, fuelled by a sustained economic boom in the forestry, mining, and energy sectors.
During these two decades, the government
nationalized
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...
British Columbia Electric and the British Columbia Power Company, as well as smaller electric companies, renaming the entity
BC Hydro
The British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, operating as BC Hydro, is a Canadian electric utility in the province of British Columbia. It is the main electricity distributor, serving more than 4 million customers in most areas, with the exce ...
.
West Kootenay Power and Light
FortisBC is a Canadian owned, British Columbia based regulated utility focused on providing safe and reliable energy, including natural gas, Renewable Natural Gas, electricity and propane. FortisBC has approximately 2,600 employees serving more th ...
remained independent of BC Hydro, being owned and operated by
Cominco
Teck Resources Limited, known as Teck Cominco until late 2008, is a diversified natural resources company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is engaged in mining and mineral development, including coal for the steelmaking indust ...
, though tied into the regional power grid. By the end of the 1960s, several major dams had been begun or completed in—among others—the
Peace, Columbia, and
Nechako River
The Nechako River arises on the Nechako Plateau east of the Kitimat Ranges of the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, and flows north toward Fort Fraser, then east to Prince George where it enters the Fraser River. "Nechako" is an angl ...
watersheds (the Nechako Diversion to
Kemano
Kemano was a settlement situated 75 km (47 mi) southeast of Kitimat in the province of British Columbia in Canada. It was built to service a hydroelectric power station, built to provide energy for Alcan to smelt aluminum from its ore. ...
, was to supply power to the
Alcan Inc.
Rio Tinto Alcan is a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, based in Montreal. It was created on 15 November 2007 as the result of the merger between Rio Tinto's Canadian subsidiary and Canadian company Alcan.
It is the global leader of aluminium mining and ...
aluminum smelter at
Kitimat
Kitimat is a district municipality in the North Coast region of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine regional government. The Kitimat Valley is part of the most populous urban distr ...
, and was not part of the provincial power grid but
privately owned
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...
). Major transmission deals were concluded, most notably the
Columbia River Treaty
The Columbia River Treaty is a 1961 agreement between Canada and the United States on the development and operation of dams in the upper Columbia River basin for power and flood control benefits in both countries. Four dams were constructed under ...
between Canada and the United States. The province's economy was also boosted by unprecedented growth in the forest sector, as well as oil and gas development in the province's northeast.
The 1950s and 1960s were also marked by development in the province's transportation infrastructure. In 1960, the government established
BC Ferries
British Columbia Ferry Services Inc., operating as BC Ferries (BCF), is a former provincial Crown corporation, now operating as an independently managed, publicly owned Canadian company. BC Ferries provides all major passenger and vehicle ferr ...
as a
crown corporation, to provide a marine extension of the provincial highway system, also supported by federal grants as being part of the
Trans-Canada Highway system. That system was improved and expanded through the construction of new highways and bridges, and paving of existing highways and provincial roads.
Vancouver and Victoria became cultural centres as poets, authors, artists, musicians, as well as dancers, actors, and ''haute cuisine'' chefs flocked to its scenery and warmer temperatures, with the cultural and entrepreneurial community bolstered by many
Draft dodgers
Draft evasion is any successful attempt to elude a government-imposed obligation to serve in the military forces of one's nation. Sometimes draft evasion involves refusing to comply with the military draft laws of one's nation. Illegal draft ev ...
from the United States. Tourism also played a role in the economy. The rise of Japan and other Pacific economies was a boost to British Columbia's economy, primarily because of exports of lumber products and unprocessed coal and trees.
Politically and socially, the 1960s brought a period of significant social ferment. The divide between the
political left
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
and right, which had prevailed in the province since the Depression and the rise of the
labour movement, sharpened as so-called
free enterprise parties coalesced into the de facto coalition represented by Social Credit—in opposition to the
social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), the successor to the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. As the province's economy blossomed, so did labour-management tensions. Tensions emerged, also, from the counterculture movement of the late 1960s, of which Vancouver and Nanaimo were centres. The conflict between
hippies and
Vancouver mayor Tom Campbell was particularly legendary, culminating in the
Gastown riots
The Gastown riot, known also in the plural as Gastown riots, also known as "The Battle of Maple Tree Square", occurred in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on August 7, 1971. Following weeks of arrests by undercover drug squad members in Vanc ...
of 1971. By the end of the decade, with social tensions and dissatisfaction with the
status quo rising, the Bennett government's achievements could not stave off its growing unpopularity.
1970s and 1980s
On August 27, 1969, the Social Credit Party was re-elected in a general election for what would be Bennett's final term in power. At the start of the 1970s, the economy was quite strong because of rising coal prices and an increase in annual allowable cuts in the forestry sector, but BC Hydro reported its first loss, which was the beginning of the end for Bennett and the Social Credit Party.
The Socreds were forced from power in the August 1972 election, paving the way for a provincial NDP government under
Dave Barrett
David Barrett (October 2, 1930 – February 2, 2018) was a politician and social worker in British Columbia, Canada. He was the 26th premier of British Columbia from 1972 to 1975.
Early life and career
Barrett was born in Vancouver, Britis ...
. Under Barrett, the large provincial surplus soon became a deficit, although changes to the accounting system makes it likely some of the deficit was carried over from the previous Social Credit regime and its "
two sets of books", as W. A. C. Bennett had once referred to his system of fiscal management. The brief three-year ("Thousand Days") period of NDP governance brought several lasting changes to the province, most notably the creation of the Agricultural Land Reserve, intended to protect farmland from redevelopment, and the
Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, a crown corporation charged with a monopoly on providing single-payer basic automobile insurance.
Perceptions the government had instituted reforms either too swiftly or that were too far-reaching, coupled with growing labour disruptions led to the ouster of the NDP in the
1975 general election. Social Credit, under W.A.C. Bennett's son,
Bill Bennett, was returned to office. Under the younger Bennett's government, 85 percent of the province's land base was transferred from Government Reserve to management by the Ministry of Forests, reporting of deputy ministers was centralized to the Premier's Office, and NDP-instigated social programs were rolled back, with then-human resources minister infamously demonstrating a golden shovel to highlight his welfare policy, although the new-era Social Credit Party also reinforced and backed certain others instigated by the NDP—notably the creation of the
Resort Municipality of Whistler, whose special status including Sunday drinking, then an anomaly in BC.
![BRITISH COLUMBIA PAVILION AT EXPO 86, VANCOUVER, B](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/BRITISH_COLUMBIA_PAVILION_AT_EXPO_86%2C_VANCOUVER%2C_B.C..jpg)
Also during the "MiniWac" regime (a reference to his father's acronym, W. A. C.) certain money-losing Crown-owned assets were "privatized" in a mass giveaway of shares in the
British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation
The British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation, or BCRIC (pronounced "brick"), was a holding company formed under the government of William R. Bennett. The company took over ownership of various sawmills and mines that had been bought and ...
, "BCRIC", with the "Brick shares" soon becoming near-worthless. Towards the end of his tenure in power, Bennett oversaw the completion of several
megaproject
A megaproject is an extremely large-scale investment project.
According to the ''Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management'', "Megaprojects are large-scale, complex ventures that typically cost $1 billion or more, take many years to develop and ...
s meant to stimulate the economy and win votes – unlike most right-wing parties, British Columbia's Social Credit actively practiced government stimulation of the economy. Most notable of these was the winning of a world's fair for Vancouver, which came in the form of
Expo 86, to which was tied the construction of the
Coquihalla Highway and Vancouver's
SkyTrain system. The Coquihalla Highway project became the subject of a scandal after revelations the premier's brother bought large tracts of land needed for the project before it was announced to the public, and also because of graft investigations of the huge cost overruns on the project. Both investigations were derailed in the media by a still further scandal, the
Doman Scandal, in which the premier and millionaire backer Herb Doman were investigated for insider-trading and
securities fraud. Nonetheless, the Socreds were re-elected in 1979 under Bennett, who led the party until 1986.
![Coquilhalla Highway](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Coquilhalla_Highway.jpg)
As the province entered a sustained
recession, Bennett's popularity and media image were in decline. On April 1, 1983, Premier Bennett overstayed his constitutional limits of power by exceeding the legal tenure of a government, and the lieutenant governor,
Henry Pybus Bell-Irving, was forced to call Bennett to
Government House to resolve the impasse, and an election was called for April 30, while in the meantime government cheques were covered by special emergency warrants as the
Executive Council no longer had signing authority because of the constitutional crisis. Campaigning on a platform of moderation, Bennett won an unexpected majority.
After several weeks of silence in the aftermath, a sitting of the
House was finally called and in the
speech from the throne, Social Credit instituted a programme of fiscal cutbacks dubbed "restraint", which had been a buzzword for moderation during the campaign. The programme included cuts to "motherhood" issues of the left, including the human rights branch, the offices of the Ombudsman and Rentalsman, women's programs, environmental and cultural programs, while still supplying mass capital infusions to corporate British Columbia. This sparked a backlash, with tens of thousands of people in the streets the next day after the budget speech, and through the course of a summer repeated large demonstrations of up to 100,000 people.
This became known as the 1983
Solidarity Crisis
The Operation Solidarity (also known as the Solidarity Crisis) refers to a protest movement in British Columbia, Canada in 1983 that emerged in response to the Social Credit (Socred) government's economic policy of austerity and anti-union legislat ...
, from the name of the
Solidarity Coalition
''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...
, a huge grassroots opposition movement mobilized, consisting of organized labour and community groups, with the
British Columbia Federation of Labour
The British Columbia Federation of Labour (BCFED), often shortened to the BC Federation of Labour, is a central organization for organized labour in British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in 1910 and claims to have a membership of 500,000, wi ...
forming a separate organization of unions,
Operation Solidarity
The Operation Solidarity (also known as the Solidarity Crisis) refers to a protest movement in British Columbia, Canada in 1983 that emerged in response to the Social Credit (Socred) government's economic policy of austerity and anti-union legislat ...
, under the direction of
Jack Munro
William James Munro (1873 – 12 January 1948) was a British trade unionist.
Born to British parents in India, Munro's father served in the British Indian Army, and Munro lived there until he was twelve. The family then moved to Manchester, ...
, then-president of the
International Woodworkers of America (IWA), the most powerful of the province's resource unions. Tens of thousands participated in protests and many felt a
general strike would be the inevitable result unless the government backed down from its policies they had claimed were only about restraint and not about recrimination against the NDP and the left. Just as a strike at
Pacific Press ended, which had limited the political management of the public agenda by the publishers of the province's major papers, the movement collapsed after an apparent deal was struck by union leader and IWA president, Jack Munro and Premier Bennett.
A tense winter of blockades at various job sites around the province ensued, as among the new laws were those enabling non-union labour to work on large projects and other sensitive labour issues, with companies from Alberta and other provinces brought in to compete with union-scale British Columbia companies. Despite the tension, Bennett's last few years in power were relatively peaceful as economic and political momentum grew on the megaprojects associated with Expo, and Bennett was to end his career by hosting
Prince Charles and
Lady Diana on their visit to open Expo 86. His retirement being announced, a Social Credit convention was scheduled for the Whistler Resort, which came down to a three-way shooting match between Bud Smith, the Premier's right-hand man but an unelected official, Social Credit party
grande dame Grace McCarthy
Grace Mary McCarthy, OC, OBC, LLD, DTech, FRAIC (Hon.) (née Winterbottom; October 14, 1927 – May 24, 2017) was a Canadian politician and florist in British Columbia. A high-ranking member of the Social Credit Party of British Columbia, she ...
, and the charismatic but eccentric
Bill Vander Zalm.
Bill Vander Zalm became the new Social Credit leader when Smith threw his support to him rather than see McCarthy win, and led the party to victory in the election later that year. Vander Zalm was later involved in a
conflict of interest scandal following the sale of
Fantasy Gardens
Fantasy Gardens, also known as Fantasy Garden World, was a former amusement park in Richmond, British Columbia that was located at the corner of Steveston Highway and No. 5 Road. The park was called Fantasy Gardens because it was surrounded by a ...
, a Christian and
Dutch culture
Dutch culture may refer to:
* used more narrowly, the Culture of the Netherlands
* used more widely, the culture of Dutch-speaking Europe, including:
**Dutch architecture
**Dutch literature
**Dutch music
**Dutch festivities
**Dutch folklore
See ...
theme park built by the Premier, to
Tan Yu, a
Filipino Chinese
Chinese Filipinos; tl, Tsinoy, / Tsinong Pilipino, ; Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin (also known as Filipino Chinese in the Philippines) are Filipinos of Chinese descent, mostly of southern Fujianese ancestry, where the majority are born ...
gambling kingpin. There were also concerns over Yu's application to the government for a bank licence, and lurid stories from flamboyant realtor
Faye Leung of a party in the "Howard Hughes Suite" on the top two floors of the
Bayshore Inn Bayshore may refer to:
Communities
Canada:
*Bayshore, Ottawa, Ontario
United States:
*Bayshore, neighborhood in the Upper Eastside of the city of Miami, Florida
*Bayshore (Miami Beach), Florida, a neighborhood
* Bayshore Gardens, Florida, cens ...
, where Tan Yu had been staying, with reports of a
bag of money
A money bag (or money sack) is a bag normally used to hold and transport coins and banknotes, often closed with a drawstring.[Rita Johnston
Rita Margaret Johnston (born April 22, 1935; née Leichert) is a Canadian politician in British Columbia. Johnston became the first female premier in Canadian history when she succeeded Bill Vander Zalm in 1991 to become the 29th premier of Brit ...]
became premier of the province. Johnston presided over the end of Social Credit power, calling an election which reduced the party's caucus to only two seats, and the revival of the long-defunct British Columbia Liberal Party as Opposition to the victorious NDP under former Vancouver mayor
Mike Harcourt
Michael Franklin Harcourt, OC (born January 6, 1943) served as the 30th premier of British Columbia from 1991 to 1996, and before that as the 34th mayor of Vancouver, BC's largest city, from 1980 to 1986.
Early life and education
Harcourt was ...
.
In 1988,
David Lam was appointed as British Columbia's twenty-fifth lieutenant governor, and was the province's first lieutenant governor of Chinese origin.
1990s to present
![Vancouver 2010 Public Caldron](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Vancouver_2010_Public_Caldron.jpg)
Johnston lost the
1991 general election to the NDP, under the leadership of Mike Harcourt, a former mayor of Vancouver. The NDP's unprecedented creation of new parkland and protected areas was popular and helped boost the province's growing
tourism sector, although the economy continued to struggle against the backdrop of a weak resource economy. Housing starts and an expanded service sector saw growth overall through the decade, despite political turmoil. Harcourt ended up resigning over "
Bingogate
Michael Franklin Harcourt, OC (born January 6, 1943) served as the 30th premier of British Columbia from 1991 to 1996, and before that as the 34th mayor of Vancouver, BC's largest city, from 1980 to 1986.
Early life and education
Harcourt was ...
"—a political scandal involving the funnelling of charity bingo receipts into party coffers in certain ridings. Harcourt was not implicated, but he resigned nonetheless in respect of constitutional conventions calling for leaders under suspicion to step aside.
Glen Clark
Glen David Clark (born November 22, 1957) is a Canadian business executive and former politician who served as the 31st premier of British Columbia from 1996 to 1999.
Early life and education
Clark attended independent Roman Catholic schools, n ...
, a former president of the
BC Federation of Labour, was chosen the new leader of the NDP, which won
a second term in 1996. More scandals dogged the party, most notably the
fast ferry scandal involving the province trying to develop the shipbuilding industry in British Columbia. An allegation (never substantiated) that the premier had received a favour in return for granting a gaming licence led to Clark's resignation as premier. He was succeeded on an interim basis by
Dan Miller who was in turn followed by
Ujjal Dosanjh
Ujjal Dev Dosanjh ( pa, ਉੱਜਲ ਦੇਵ ਦੁਸਾਂਝ) (), (born September 9, 1947) is a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served as the 33rd premier of British Columbia from 2000 to 2001 and as a Liberal Party of Canada member of ...
following a leadership convention.
In the
2001 provincial election,
Gordon Campbell
Gordon Muir Campbell, (born January 12, 1948) is a retired Canadian diplomat and politician who was the 35th mayor of Vancouver from 1986 to 1993 and the 34th premier of British Columbia from 2001 to 2011.
He was the leader of the British Co ...
's Liberals defeated the NDP, gaining 77 out of 79 total seats in the provincial legislature. Campbell instituted various reforms and removed some of the NDP's policies including scrapping the "fast ferries" project, lowering income taxes, and the controversial sale of
BC Rail
BC Rail is a railway in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Chartered as a private company in 1912 as the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE), it was acquired by the provincial government in 1918. In 1972 it was renamed to the British ...
to
Canadian National Railway. Campbell was also the subject of criticism after he was arrested for
driving under the influence during a vacation in Hawaii, but he still managed to lead his party to victory in the
2005 provincial election against a substantially strengthened NDP opposition. Campbell won a third term in the
2009 provincial election, marking the first time in 23 years a premier has been elected to a third term.
The province won a bid to host the
2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler. As promised in his 2002 re-election campaign, Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell staged a non-binding civic referendum regarding the hosting of the Olympics. In February 2003, Vancouver's residents voted in a referendum accepting the responsibilities of the host city should it win its bid. Sixty-four percent of residents voted in favour of hosting the games.
After the Olympic joy had faded, Campbell's popularity started to fall. His management style, the implementation of the
Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) against election promises and the cancelling of the
BC Rail corruption trial led to low approval ratings and loss of caucus support. He resigned in November 2010 and called on the party to elect a new leader.
In early 2011, former deputy premier
Christy Clark became leader of the Liberal Party. Though she was not a sitting MLA, she went on to win the seat left vacant by Campbell. For the next two years, she attempted to distance herself from the unpopularity of Campbell and forge an image for
the upcoming 2013 election. Among her early accomplishments were raising the minimum wage, creating a new statutory holiday in February called "Family Day", and pushing the development of BC's
liquefied natural gas
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the vol ...
industry. In the lead-up to the 2013 election, the Liberals lagged behind the NDP by a double-digit gap in the polls, but were able to achieve a surprise victory on election night, winning a majority and making Clark the first woman to lead a party to victory in a general election in BC. While Clark lost her seat to NDP candidate
David Eby, she later won a by-election in the riding of
Westside-Kelowna
Kelowna West, formerly Westside-Kelowna, is a provincial electoral district in British Columbia, Canada, established by the ''Electoral Districts Act, 2008''. It was first contested in the 2009 general election. The riding was created out of p ...
. Her government went on to balance the budget, implement changes to liquor laws and continue with the question of the proposed
Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines.
In
the 2017 election, the NDP formed a minority government with the support of the Green Party through a
confidence and supply agreement. The NDP and Green caucuses together controlled 44 seats, compared to the Liberals' 43. On July 18, 2017, NDP leader John Horgan was sworn in as the premier of British Columbia. He was the province's first NDP premier in 16 years. Clark resigned shortly thereafter, and
Andrew Wilkinson was voted to become leader of the BC Liberals. In late 2020, Horgan called an early election. In the
2020 British Columbia general election
The 2020 British Columbia general election was held on October 24, 2020, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly to serve in the 42nd parliament of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The incumbent New Democratic Party of British ...
, the NDP won 57 seats and formed a majority government, making Horgan the first NDP premier to be re-elected in the province. Wilkinson resigned as the leader of the BC Liberals two days later.
British Columbia was significantly affected by demographic changes within Canada and around the world. Vancouver (and to a lesser extent some other parts of British Columbia) was a major destination for many of the immigrants from
Hong Kong who left the former UK colony (either temporarily or permanently) in the years immediately prior to its
handover to
China. British Columbia has also been a significant destination for internal Canadian migrants. This has been the case throughout recent decades, because of its natural environment, mild climate and relaxed lifestyle, but has been particularly true during periods of economic growth. British Columbia has moved from approximately 10 percent of Canada's population in 1971 to approximately 13 percent in 2006. Trends of urbanization mean the
Greater Vancouver area now includes 51 percent of the province's population, followed by
Greater Victoria with 8 percent. These two metropolitan regions have traditionally dominated the demographics of BC.
By 2018, housing prices in Vancouver were the second-least affordable in the world, behind only Hong Kong. Many experts point to evidence of money-laundering from mainland China as a contributing factor. The high price of residential real estate has led to the implementation of an empty homes tax, a housing speculation and vacancy tax, and a foreign buyers' tax on housing.
The net number of people coming to BC from other provinces in 2016 was almost four times larger than in 2012. BC was the largest net recipient of
interprovincial migrants in Canada in the first quarter of 2016 with half of the 5,000 people coming from
Alberta.
By 2021, the
COVID-19 pandemic had had
a major effect on the province, with over 2,000 deaths and 250,000 confirmed cases. However, the
COVID-19 vaccine reduced the spread of the virus, with 78 percent of people in BC over the age of five having been fully vaccinated.
In 2021, the
unmarked gravesites of hundreds of Indigenous children were discovered at three former
Indian residential schools
In Canada, the Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches. The school sys ...
(
Kamloops,
St. Eugene's Mission,
Kuper Island).
Demographics
Population
![Canada British Columbia Density 2016](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Canada_British_Columbia_Density_2016.png)
Statistics Canada's
2021 Canadian census recorded a population of 5,000,879 — making British Columbia Canada's third-most populous province after
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
and
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
.
Cities
![Concord Pacific Master Plan Area](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Concord_Pacific_Master_Plan_Area.jpg)
Half of all British Columbians live in the
Metro Vancouver Regional District
The Metro Vancouver Regional District (MVRD), or simply Metro Vancouver, is a Canadian political subdivision and corporate entity representing the metropolitan area of Greater Vancouver, designated by provincial legislation as one of the 28 ...
, which includes Vancouver,
Surrey,
Burnaby
Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard I ...
,
Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
,
Coquitlam
Coquitlam ( ) is a city in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Mainly suburban, Coquitlam is the sixth-largest city in the province, with a population of 148,625 in 2021, and one of the 21 municipalities comprising Metro Vancouver. ...
,
Langley (district municipality),
Delta
Delta commonly refers to:
* Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet
* River delta, at a river mouth
* D ( NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta")
* Delta Air Lines, US
* Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19
Delta may also ...
,
North Vancouver (district municipality)
The District of North Vancouver is a district municipality in British Columbia, Canada, and is part of Metro Vancouver. It surrounds the City of North Vancouver on three sides. As of 2016, the District stands as the second wealthiest city in ...
,
Maple Ridge,
New Westminster
New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the capi ...
,
Port Coquitlam
Port Coquitlam ( ) is a city in British Columbia, Canada. Located east of Vancouver, it is on the north bank of the confluence of the Fraser River and the Pitt River. Coquitlam borders it on the north, the Coquitlam River borders it on the west, ...
,
North Vancouver (city),
West Vancouver
West Vancouver is a district municipality in the province of British Columbia, Canada. A member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District, West Vancouver is to the northwest of the city of Vancouver on the northern side of English Ba ...
,
Port Moody
Port Moody is a city in British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It envelops the east end of Burrard Inlet and is the smallest of the Tri-Cities, bordered by Coquitlam on the east and south an ...
,
Langley (city),
White Rock,
Pitt Meadows
Pitt Meadows is a municipality of Metro Vancouver in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Incorporated in 1914, it has a land area of and a population of 19,146 as of 2021. The municipality received its name from the Pitt River and Pitt Lake ...
,
Bowen Island
Bowen Island (originally Nex̱wlélex̱m in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), British Columbia, is an island municipality that is part of Metro Vancouver. Bowen Island is within the jurisdiction of the Islands Trust. Located in Howe Sound, it is approximate ...
,
Anmore
Anmore is a village in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is north of the city of Port Moody and along the shores of the Indian Arm. Anmore is one of three politically independent village municipalities (municipalities with populati ...
,
Lions Bay
Lions Bay ( Sḵwx̱wú7mesh: Ch'ích'iyúy Elx̱wíḵn, ) is a small residential community in British Columbia, Canada, located between Vancouver and Squamish on the steep eastern shore of Howe Sound. In the 2021 census the community had a pop ...
, and
Belcarra
Belcarra is a village on the shore of Indian Arm, a side inlet of Burrard Inlet, and is part of Metro Vancouver. It lies northwest of Port Moody and immediately east of the Deep Cove, North Vancouver, Deep Cove area of North Vancouver (district ...
, with adjacent unincorporated areas (including the
University Endowment Lands
The University Endowment Lands (UEL) is an unincorporated area that lies to the west of the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and adjacent to the University of British Columbia and the lands associated with that campus. Pacific Sp ...
) represented in the regional district as the
electoral area
An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...
known as
Greater Vancouver Electoral Area A
Metro Vancouver Electoral Area A is a part of Metro Vancouver in British Columbia. It includes several unincorporated areas: the University Endowment Lands and the University of British Columbia, west of the Vancouver, City of Vancouver; Bowyer Is ...
. The metropolitan area has
seventeen Indian reserves, but they are outside of the regional district's jurisdiction and are not represented in its government.
The second largest concentration of British Columbia population is at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, which is made up of the 13 municipalities of Greater Victoria,
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
,
Saanich,
Esquimalt
The Township of Esquimalt is a municipality at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. It is bordered to the east by the provincial capital, Victoria, to the south by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to the west by Esquim ...
,
Oak Bay
Oak Bay is a municipality incorporated in 1906 that is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is one of thirteen member municipalities of the Capital Regional District, and is bordered ...
,
View Royal
View Royal is a town in Greater Victoria and a member municipality of the Capital Regional District of British Columbia, Canada. View Royal has a population of 10,858 residents. With over of parkland, View Royal includes Thetis, McKenzie, Pike ...
,
Highlands
Highland is a broad term for areas of higher elevation, such as a mountain range or mountainous plateau.
Highland, Highlands, or The Highlands, may also refer to:
Places Albania
* Dukagjin Highlands
Armenia
* Armenian Highlands
Australia
*Sou ...
,
Colwood,
Langford,
Central Saanich
Central Saanich is a district municipality in Greater Victoria, British Columbia, Canada , and a member municipality of the Capital Regional District. It is located on the Saanich Peninsula, in the far south-east of Vancouver Island. The distri ...
/
Saanichton
Saanichton, British Columbia is a village, in the municipality of Central Saanich, located between Victoria and the BC Ferry Terminal, west of the Pat Bay Highway (Hwy 17), at the junction of Mount Newton Cross Road and East Saanich Road.
Saani ...
,
North Saanich,
Sidney,
Metchosin
The District of Metchosin is a municipality and community in Greater Victoria on the southern tip of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It is a coastal community adjacent to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Metchosin is part of the Western ...
,
Sooke
Sooke is a district municipality on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, Canada, by road from Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. Sooke, the westernmost of Greater Victoria's Western Communities, is to the north and west of the Sooke ...
, which are part of the
Capital Regional District. The metropolitan area also includes several
Indian reserve
In Canada, an Indian reserve (french: réserve indienne) is specified by the '' Indian Act'' as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty,
that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band."
In ...
s (the governments of which are not part of the regional district). Almost half of the Vancouver Island population is in Greater Victoria.
Cultural origins
British Columbia is the most diverse province in Canada; as of 2016, the province had the highest proportion of
visible minorities
A visible minority () is defined by the Government of Canada as "persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour". The term is used primarily as a demographic category by Statistics Canada, in connect ...
in the country. The five largest
pan-ethnic
Panethnicity is a political neologism used to group various ethnic groups together based on their related cultural origins; geographic, linguistic, religious, or 'racial' (i.e. phenotypic) similarities are often used alone or in combination to dr ...
groups in the province are
Europeans (64 percent),
East Asians
East Asian people (East Asians) are the people from East Asia, which consists of China, Taiwan, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, and South Korea. The total population of all countries within this region is estimated to be 1.677 billion and 21% of t ...
(15 percent),
South Asians
South Asian ethnic groups are an ethnolinguistic grouping of the diverse populations of South Asia, including the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. While Afghanistan is variously considered to b ...
(8 percent),
Aboriginals (6 percent) and
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
ns (4 percent).
Religion
According to the
2021 census, religious groups in British Columbia included:
*
Irreligion
Irreligion or nonreligion is the absence or rejection of religion, or indifference to it. Irreligion takes many forms, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as atheism and agnosticism, secular humanism and ...
(2,559,250 persons or 52.1%)
*
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
(1,684,870 persons or 34.3%)
*
Sikhism
Sikhism (), also known as Sikhi ( pa, ਸਿੱਖੀ ', , from pa, ਸਿੱਖ, lit=disciple', 'seeker', or 'learner, translit=Sikh, label=none),''Sikhism'' (commonly known as ''Sikhī'') originated from the word ''Sikh'', which comes fro ...
(290,870 persons or 5.9%)
*
Islam (125,915 persons or 2.6%)
*
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
(83,860 persons or 1.7%)
*
Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
(81,320 persons or 1.7%)
*
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
(26,850 persons or 0.5%)
*
Indigenous spirituality (11,570 persons or 0.2%)
*Other (51,440 persons or 1.0%)
Language
![Vancouver Welcome Sign 0139](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Vancouver_Welcome_Sign_0139.jpg)
As of the
2021 Canadian Census, the ten most spoken languages in the province included English (4,753,280 or 96.69%), French (327,350 or 6.66%), Punjabi (315,000 or 6.41%), Mandarin (312,625 or 6.36%), Cantonese (246,045 or 5.01%), Spanish (143,900 or 2.93%), Hindi (134,950 or 2.75%), Tagalog (133,780 or 2.72%), German (84,325 or 1.72%), and Korean (69,935 or 1.42%).
The question on knowledge of languages allows for multiple responses.
Of the 4,648,055 population counted by the 2016 census, 4,598,415 people completed the section about language. Of these, 4,494,995 gave singular responses to the question regarding their
first language
A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
. The languages most commonly reported were the following:
While these languages all reflect the last centuries of colonialism and recent immigration, British Columbia is home to 34
Indigenous languages
An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language is from a linguistically distinct community that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not neces ...
. They are spoken by about 6000 people in total, with 4000 people fluent in their Indigenous languages. They are members of the province's
First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
. One of the main Indigenous languages in BC is
Kwakʼwala
Kwakʼwala (), or Kwak̓wala, previously known as Kwakiutl (), is the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous language spoken by the Kwakwakaʼwakw (which means "those who speak Kwakʼwala") in Western Canada. Kwakʼwala be ...
, the language of the
Kwakwakaʼwakw First Nations.
Economy
BC's economy is diverse, with service-producing industries accounting for the largest portion of the province's GDP. It is the terminus of two transcontinental railways, and the site of 27 major marine cargo and passenger terminals. Though less than 5 percent of its vast land is
arable, the province is agriculturally rich (particularly in the
Fraser Fraser may refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Fraser Point, South Orkney Islands
Australia
* Fraser, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen
* Division of Fraser (Australian Capital Territory), a former federal e ...
and
Okanagan
The Okanagan ( ), also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is par ...
valleys), because of milder weather near the coast and in certain sheltered southern valleys. Its climate encourages
outdoor recreation
Outdoor recreation or outdoor activity refers to recreation done outside, most commonly in natural settings. The activities that encompass outdoor recreation vary depending on the physical environment they are being carried out in. These activitie ...
and
tourism, though its economic mainstay has long been
resource extraction
Extractivism is the process of extracting natural resources from the Earth to sell on the world market. It exists in an economy that depends primarily on the extraction or removal of natural resources that are considered valuable for exportation w ...
, principally logging, farming, and mining. Vancouver, the province's largest city, serves as the headquarters of many western-based natural resource companies. It also benefits from a strong housing market and a per capita income well above the national average. While the coast of British Columbia and some valleys in the south-central part of the province have mild weather, the majority of its land mass experiences a cold-winter-temperate climate similar to the rest of Canada. The
Northern Interior
, settlement_type = Region of British Columbia
, image_skyline =
, nickname = "The Interior"
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name =
, subdivision_type1 = Province
, subdivi ...
region has a
subarctic climate with very cold winters. The climate of Vancouver is by far the mildest winter climate of the major Canadian cities, with nighttime January temperatures averaging above the freezing point.
British Columbia has a history of being a resource dominated economy, centred on the forestry industry but also with fluctuating importance in mining. Employment in the resource sector has fallen steadily as a percentage of employment, and new jobs are mostly in the construction and retail/service sectors. It now has the highest percentage of service industry jobs in the west, constituting 72 percent of industry (compared to 60 percent Western Canadian average). The largest section of this employment is in finance, insurance, real estate and corporate management; however, many areas outside of metropolitan areas are still heavily reliant on resource extraction. With its film industry known as
Hollywood North
Hollywood North is a colloquialism used to describe film production industries and/or film locations north of its namesake, Hollywood, California. The term has been applied principally to the film industry in Canada, specifically to the city of T ...
, the Vancouver region is the third-largest feature film production location in North America, after
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
and
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
The economic history of British Columbia is replete with tales of
dramatic upswings and downswings, and this
boom and bust pattern has influenced the politics, culture and business climate of the province. Economic activity related to mining in particular has widely fluctuated with changes in commodity prices over time, with documented costs to community health.
In 2020, British Columbia had the third-largest GDP in Canada, with a GDP of $309 billion and a GDP per capita of $60,090. British Columbia's
debt-to-GDP ratio is edging up to 15.0 percent in
fiscal year
A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ...
2019–20, and it is expected to reach 16.1 percent by 2021–22. British Columbia's economy experienced strong growth in recent years with a total growth rate of 9.6% from 2017 to 2021, a growth rate that was second in the country.
Government and politics
![Janet Austin Escutcheon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Janet_Austin_Escutcheon.png)
The
lieutenant governor,
Janet Austin
Janet Edna Merivale Austin (born ) is a Canadian former nonprofit sector executive and public servant who is the 30th lieutenant governor of British Columbia, having served since 2018. She is the List of viceregal representatives of Elizabeth ...
, is the Crown's representative in the province. During the absence of the lieutenant governor, the Governor in Council (
federal Cabinet) may appoint an administrator to execute the duties of the office. This is usually the
chief justice of British Columbia
The British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA) is the highest appellate court in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It was established in 1910 following the 1907 Court of Appeal Act.
The BCCA hears appeals from the Supreme Court of Britis ...
. British Columbia is divided into ''
regional district
In the province of British Columbia in Canada, a regional district is an administrative subdivision of the province that consists of a geographic region with specific boundaries and governmental authority. there were 28 regional districts in ...
s'' as a means to better enable municipalities and rural areas to work together at a regional level.
British Columbia has an 87-member elected Legislative Assembly, elected by the
plurality voting system, though from 2003 to 2009 there was significant debate about switching to a
single transferable vote
Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate ...
system called
BC-STV
BC-STV is the proposed voting system recommended by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform in October 2004 for use in British Columbia, and belongs to the single transferable vote family of voting systems. BC-STV was supported by a majority (5 ...
. The government of the day appoints ministers for various portfolios, what are officially part of the
Executive Council, of whom the premier is chair.
![David Eby 2 (33192064560)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/David_Eby_2_%2833192064560%29.jpg)
The province is currently governed by the
British Columbia New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party of British Columbia (BC NDP) is a social-democratic provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada.
As of 2017, it governs the province. It is the British Columbia provincial arm of the federal New Democrati ...
(BC NDP) under Premier
David Eby. The 2017 provincial election saw the Liberal Party take 43 seats, the NDP take 41, and the
British Columbia Green Party
The Green Party of British Columbia, often simply called the BC Greens, is a provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in 1983 and is based in Victoria. The party won its first seat in the Legislative Assembly of B ...
take 3. No party met the minimum of 44 seats for a majority, therefore leading to the first minority government since 1953. Following the election, the Greens entered into negotiations with both the Liberals and NDP, eventually announcing they would support the current NDP minority. Previously, the right-of-centre
British Columbia Liberal Party
The British Columbia Liberal Party, often shortened to the BC Liberals, is a centre-right provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada. The party currently forms the Official Opposition. Subsequent to the 2020 British Columbia genera ...
governed the province for 16 years between 2001 and 2017, and won the largest landslide election in British Columbia history in 2001, with 77 of 79 seats. The legislature became more evenly divided between the Liberals and NDP following the 2005 (46 Liberal seats of 79) and 2009 (49 Liberal seats of 85) provincial elections. The NDP and its predecessor the
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) have been the main opposition force to right-wing parties since the 1930s and have ruled with majority governments in 1972–1975 and 1991–2001. The Green Party plays a larger role in the politics of British Columbia than Green parties do in most other jurisdictions in Canada. After a breakthrough election in 2001 (12.39 percent), the party's vote share declined (2005 – 9.17 percent, 2009 – 8.09 percent, 2013 – 8.13 percent) before increasing again to a record high of 16.84 percent at the 2017 election.
The British Columbia Liberal Party is not related to the federal Liberal Party and does not share the same ideology. Instead, the BC Liberal party is a rather diverse coalition, made up of the remnants of the Social Credit Party, many
federal Liberals,
federal Conservatives, and those who would otherwise support right-of-centre or free enterprise parties. Historically, there have commonly been
third parties present in the legislature (including the Liberals themselves from 1952 to 1975); the
BC Green Party are the current third party in British Columbia, with three seats in the legislature.
Prior to the rise of the Liberal Party, British Columbia's main political party was the British Columbia Social Credit Party which ruled British Columbia for 20 continuous years. While sharing some ideology with the current Liberal government, they were more right-wing although undertook nationalization of various important monopolies, notably BC Hydro and BC Ferries.
![BC-Legislative-Assembly-Chamber](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/BC-Legislative-Assembly-Chamber.jpg)
British Columbia is known for having politically active labour
unions who have traditionally supported the NDP or its predecessor, the CCF.
British Columbia's political history is typified by scandal and a cast of colourful characters, beginning with various colonial-era land scandals and abuses of power by early officials (such as those that led to
McGowan's War in 1858–59). Notable scandals in Social Credit years included the
Robert Bonner Robert Bonner may refer to:
* Robert C. Bonner (born 1942), American lawyer and government official
* Robert E. Bonner (1824–1899), American newspaper editor
* Robert Bonner (baseball) (1894–?), American baseball player
*Robert Bonner (politici ...
Affair and the
Fantasy Gardens
Fantasy Gardens, also known as Fantasy Garden World, was a former amusement park in Richmond, British Columbia that was located at the corner of Steveston Highway and No. 5 Road. The park was called Fantasy Gardens because it was surrounded by a ...
scandal which forced Premier Bill Vander Zalm to resign and ended the Social Credit era. NDP scandals included Bingogate, which brought down NDP Premier Mike Harcourt, and the alleged scandal named Casinogate which drove NDP Premier Glen Clark to resign. A variety of scandals plagued the 2001–2017 Liberal government, including Premier Gordon Campbell's arrest for drunk driving in Maui and the resignation of various cabinet ministers because of conflict-of-interest allegations. A
raid on the Parliament Buildings on December 28, 2003, in Victoria, including the Premier's Office, resulted in charges only for ministerial aides, although key cabinet members from the time have since resigned. The case, currently in preliminary hearings in the courts and relating to the sale of BC Rail to CN Rail, may not reach trial because of the mass of evidence and various procedural problems. Campbell eventually resigned in late 2010 due to opposition to his government's plan to introduce a
Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) and was replaced by
Christy Clark as premier in a 2011 BC Liberal leadership election.
British Columbia is underrepresented in the
Senate of Canada, leading Premier Christy Clark to refuse to cooperate with the federal government's reforms for senate appointments to be made based on the recommendations of a new advisory board that would use non-partisan criteria. Hours after that plan was unveiled in Ottawa on December 3, 2015, Clark issued a statement that it did "not address what's been wrong with the Senate since the beginning".
The imbalance in representation in that House is apparent when considering population size. The six senators from BC constitute only one for every 775,000 people vs. one for every 75,000 in P.E.I. which has four senators. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have much smaller populations than BC, yet each has ten senators according to a Global News summary.
Correcting this imbalance would require a constitutional amendment, but that is unlikely to be supported by the Atlantic provinces.
Official symbols
![Dogwood Blooms (3629970675)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Dogwood_Blooms_%283629970675%29.jpg)
The government of British Columbia has designated several
official symbols:
* Flag:
Flag of British Columbia
The flag of British Columbia is based upon the shield of the provincial arms of British Columbia. At the top of the flag is a rendition of the Royal Union Flag, defaced in the centre by a crown, and with a setting sun, a view from parliamen ...
* Coat of arms:
Coat of arms of British Columbia
The coat of arms of British Columbia is the heraldic symbol representing the Canadian province of British Columbia. The arms contains symbols reflecting British Columbia's British heritage along with local symbols. At the upper part of the shie ...
* Floral emblem:
Pacific dogwood
''Cornus nuttallii'', the Pacific dogwood, western dogwood, or mountain dogwood, is a species of dogwood tree native to western North America.
Description
It is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree, reaching tall, often with a canopy spre ...
* Mineral emblem:
Jade
* Tree emblem:
Western red cedar
''Thuja plicata'' is an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae, native to western North America. Its common name is western redcedar (western red cedar in the UK), and it is also called Pacific redcedar, giant arborvitae ...
* Bird emblem:
Steller's jay
* Mammal emblem:
"Spirit" or Kermode bear
* Fish emblem:
Pacific salmon
''Oncorhynchus'' is a genus of fish in the family Salmonidae; it contains the Pacific salmon and Pacific trout. The name of the genus is derived from the Greek ὄγκος (ónkos, “lump, bend”) + ῥύγχος (rhúnkhos, “snout”), i ...
* Tartan emblem:
British Columbia Tartan
Transportation
Transportation played a huge role in British Columbia's history. The Rocky Mountains and the ranges west of them constituted a significant obstacle to overland travel until the completion of the transcontinental railway in 1885. The Peace River Canyon through the Rocky Mountains was the route the earliest explorers and fur traders used. Fur trade routes were only marginally used for access to British Columbia through the mountains. Travel from the rest of Canada before 1885 meant the difficulty of overland travel via the United States, around
Cape Horn
Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramí ...
or overseas from Asia. Nearly all travel and freight to and from the region occurred via the Pacific Ocean, primarily through the ports of Victoria and New Westminster.
Until the 1930s, rail was the only means of overland travel to and from the rest of Canada; travellers using motor vehicles needed to journey through the United States. With the construction of the Inter-Provincial Highway in 1932 (now known as the
Crowsnest Pass Highway), and later the
Trans-Canada Highway, road transportation evolved into the preferred mode of overland travel to and from the rest of the country.
Roads and highways
![Alex Fraser Bridge from below](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Alex_Fraser_Bridge_from_below.jpg)
Because of its size and rugged, varying topography, British Columbia requires thousands of kilometres of provincial highways to connect its communities. British Columbia's roads systems were notoriously poorly maintained and dangerous until a concentrated programme of improvement was initiated in the 1950s and 1960s. There are now
freeways
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...
in Greater Victoria, the Lower Mainland, and Central Interior of the province. Much of the rest of the province, where traffic volumes are generally low, is accessible by well-maintained generally high-mobility two-lane
arterial highways with additional passing lanes in mountainous areas and usually only a few stop-controlled intersections outside the main urban areas.
![Highway 1, Burnaby](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Highway_1%2C_Burnaby.jpg)
A couple of busy intercity corridors outside Greater Vancouver feature more heavily signalized limited-mobility arterial highways that are mostly four-lane and often divided by portable median
traffic barrier
Traffic barriers (sometimes called Armco barriers,AK Steel (formerly Armco) genericized trademark also known in North America as guardrails or guard rails and in Britain as crash barriers) keep vehicles within their roadway and prevent them from ...
s.
Highway 1 on
Vancouver Island and Highway 97 through the
Okanagan Valley
The Okanagan ( ), also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is p ...
are medium- to high-volume roadways with variable posted speeds that range from to maximums just slightly lower than the principal
grade-separated highways. Numerous
traffic light
Traffic lights, traffic signals, or stoplights – known also as robots in South Africa are signalling devices positioned at road intersections, pedestrian crossings, and other locations in order to control flows of traffic.
Traffic light ...
s operate in place of
interchanges
Interchange may refer to:
Transport
* Interchange (road), a collection of ramps, exits, and entrances between two or more highways
* Interchange (freight rail), the transfer of freight cars between railroad companies
* Interchange station, a rai ...
on both arterials as long-term cost-cutting measures. Signalization along both these highways is heaviest through urban areas and along inter-urban sections where traffic volumes are similar to and sometimes higher than the freeways, but where funding is not available for upgrades to interchanges or construction of high-mobility alternative routes or bypasses. The building and maintenance of provincial highways is the responsibility of the
.
There are only five major routes to the rest of Canada. From south to north they are:
BC Highway 3 through the
Crowsnest Pass
Crowsnest Pass (sometimes referred to as Crow's Nest Pass, french: link=no, col du Nid-de-Corbeau) is a low mountain pass across the Continental Divide of the Canadian Rockies on the Alberta– British Columbia border.
Geography
The pass is ...
, the
Vermilion Pass
Vermilion Pass, elevation , is a high mountain pass in the Canadian Rockies, traversing the continental divide. It connects Kootenay National Park in the province of British Columbia with Banff National Park in Alberta.
See also
* List of Rocky ...
(Highway 93 in both
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
and
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
), the
Kicking Horse Pass
Kicking Horse Pass (el. ) is a high mountain pass across the Continental Divide of the Americas of the Canadian Rockies on the Alberta–British Columbia border, and lying within Yoho and Banff national parks. Divide Creek forks onto both s ...
, the latter being used by the Trans-Canada Highway entering Alberta through
Banff National Park, the
Yellowhead Highway
The Yellowhead Highway (french: Route Yellowhead) is a major interprovincial highway in Western Canada that runs from Winnipeg to Graham Island off the coast of British Columbia via Saskatoon and Edmonton. It stretches across the four western ...
(16) through
Jasper National Park
Jasper National Park is a national park in Alberta, Canada. It is the largest national park within Alberta's Rocky Mountains spanning . It was established as a national park in 1930 and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. Its locatio ...
, and
Highway 2 through
Dawson Creek
Dawson Creek is a city in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. The municipality of had a population of 12,978 in 2016. Dawson Creek derives its name from the creek of the same name that runs through the community. The creek was named after ...
. There are also several highway crossings to the adjoining American states of Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The longest highway is Highway 97, running from the British Columbia-Washington border at
Osoyoos
Osoyoos (, ) is the southernmost town in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia between Penticton and Omak. The town is north of the United States border with Washington state and is adjacent to the Osoyoos Indian reserve. The origin of the n ...
north to
Watson Lake, Yukon
Watson Lake is a town in Yukon, Canada, located at mile 635 on the Alaska Highway close to the British Columbia border. It has a population of 790 in 2016. The town is named for Frank Watson, an American-born trapper and prospector, who settled in ...
and which includes the British Columbia portion of the
Alaska Highway.
Public transit
![Flyer trolleybuses on the Granville Mall in 2019](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Flyer_trolleybuses_on_the_Granville_Mall_in_2019.jpg)
Prior to 1979, surface
public transit
Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typic ...
in the Vancouver and Victoria metropolitan areas was administered by BC Hydro, the provincially owned electricity utility. Subsequently, the province established
BC Transit
BC Transit is a provincial crown corporation responsible for coordinating the delivery of public transportation within British Columbia, Canada, outside Greater Vancouver. BC Transit is headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia. In , the syst ...
to oversee and operate all municipal transportation systems. In 1998, the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority, now
TransLink Translink (or TransLink) may refer to:
* TransLink (British Columbia), the public transport operator in Vancouver, Canada
* Translink (Northern Ireland)
Translink is the brand name of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company (NITHCo), a ...
, a separate authority for routes within the Greater Vancouver Regional District, was established. Some smaller island communities, such as
Gabriola Island
Gabriola Island is one of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia (BC), Canada. It is about east of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, to which it is linked by a 20-minute ferry service. It has a land area of about and a res ...
and, formerly,
Pender Island
Pender Island ( Saanich: ) is one of the Southern Gulf Islands located in the Gulf of Georgia, British Columbia, Canada. Pender Island is approximately in area and is home to about 2,250 permanent residents, as well as a large seasonal popula ...
operate routes independent of BC Transit or TransLink. BC Transit has recently expanded to provide intercity routes, particularly in the Northern region of British Columbia. Other intercity routes were introduced connecting southern communities in preparation of the cancellation of
Greyhound Canada
Greyhound Canada Transportation ULC began as a local British Columbia bus line in the early 1920s, expanded across most of Canada, and became a subsidiary of the US Greyhound in 1940.
In 2018, Greyhound pulled out of Western Canada, preserving ...
's pullout from Western Canada, though options for intercity bus travel are still extremely limited.
Public transit in British Columbia consists mainly of diesel buses, although Vancouver is also serviced by a fleet of
trolley bus
A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...
es. Several experimental buses are being tested such as
hybrid
Hybrid may refer to:
Science
* Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding
** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species
** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two dif ...
buses that have both gasoline and electric engines. Additionally, there are CNG-fuelled buses being tested and used in Nanaimo and Kamloops systems. British Columbia also tested a fleet of Hydrogen-fuelled buses for the Vancouver-Whistler Winter Olympics in 2010. TransLink operates
SkyTrain, an automated
metro
Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to:
Geography
* Metro (city), a city in Indonesia
* A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center
Public transport
* Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urb ...
system serving the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, and Port Moody. In 2009, the Canada Line SkyTrain was completed, linking Vancouver International Airport and the city of Richmond to downtown Vancouver bringing the total to three operating metro lines.
A new extension to Coquitlam and
Port Moody
Port Moody is a city in British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It envelops the east end of Burrard Inlet and is the smallest of the Tri-Cities, bordered by Coquitlam on the east and south an ...
(the
Evergreen Extension
The Evergreen Extension (previously known as the Evergreen Line) is a extension of the Millennium Line of Metro Vancouver's SkyTrain rapid transit system. The extension runs from Lougheed Town Centre in Burnaby to Lafarge Lake–Douglas in Co ...
of the
Millennium Line
The Millennium Line is the second line of the SkyTrain rapid transit system in the Metro Vancouver region of British Columbia, Canada. The line is owned and operated by BC Rapid Transit Company, a subsidiary of TransLink, and links the cities ...
) was completed in December 2016. There is planning for an extension of the Millennium Line through Vancouver City to the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thre ...
. Turnstiles have been added to all existing stations in the system. In the past, SkyTrain used a proof of payment honour system. In the capital city of Victoria BC Transit and the provincial government's infrastructure ministry are working together to create a bus rapid transit from the Westshore communities to downtown Victoria. In
Kamloops, there is a bus rapid transit GPS trial underway to see how bus rapid transit affects smaller cities, rather than larger ones, like Victoria and Vancouver.
Rail
![Eastbound over SCB](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Eastbound_over_SCB.jpg)
Rail development expanded greatly in the decades after the
Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, in 1885, and was the chief mode of long-distance surface transportation until the expansion and improvement of the provincial highways system began in the 1950s. Two major routes through the
Yellowhead Pass competed with the Canadian Pacific Railway – the
Grand Trunk Pacific
The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway running from Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay) to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a Pacific coast port. East of Winnipeg the line continued as the National Tra ...
, terminating at Prince Rupert, and the
Canadian Northern Railway
The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway. At its 1923 merger into the Canadian National Railway , the CNoR owned a main line between Quebec City and Vancouver via Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.
Man ...
, terminating at Vancouver.
The
British Columbia Electric Railway provided rail services in Victoria and Vancouver between the nineteenth century and mid twentieth century.
The
Pacific Great Eastern
BC Rail is a railway in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Chartered as a private company in 1912 as the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE), it was acquired by the provincial government in 1918. In 1972 it was renamed to the British ...
line supplemented this service, providing a north–south route between interior resource communities and the coast. The Pacific Great Eastern (later known as British Columbia Railway and now owned by Canadian National Railway) connects Fort St James, Fort Nelson, and
Tumbler Ridge
Tumbler Ridge is a district municipality in the foothills of the B.C. Rockies in northeastern British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Peace River Regional District. With a population of 2,399 (2021) living in a townsite, the ...
with
North Vancouver. The E&N Railway, rebranded as
Southern Railway of Vancouver Island
The Island Rail Corridor, previously the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway (E&N Railway), is a railway operation on Vancouver Island and is the only remaining railway on Vancouver Island after the closure of the Englewood Railway in November 2017. T ...
, formerly served the commercial and passenger train markets of Vancouver Island. Service along the route is now minimal. Vancouver Island was also host to the
last logging railway in North America until its closure in 2017.
Current passenger services in British Columbia are limited.
Via Rail Canada
Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...
operates 10 long-distance trains per week on two lines. Local services are limited to two regions, with
TransLink Translink (or TransLink) may refer to:
* TransLink (British Columbia), the public transport operator in Vancouver, Canada
* Translink (Northern Ireland)
Translink is the brand name of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company (NITHCo), a ...
providing rapid transit and commuter services in the
Lower Mainland and by the
Seton Lake Indian Band
The Seton Lake First Nation, a.k.a. the Seton Lake Indian Band, is a First Nations government located in the Central Interior-Fraser Canyon region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is a member of the Lillooet Tribal Council, which ...
South of
Lillooet
Lillooet () is a district municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. The town is on the west shore of the Fraser River immediately north of the Seton River mouth. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road abo ...
with the
Kaoham Shuttle
The Kaoham Shuttle is a Lillooet– Seton Portage passenger rail service along the northern shore of Seton Lake in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. By BC Highway 99, the eastern terminus is about northeast of Vanc ...
.
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...
runs international passenger service between Vancouver,
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, and intermediate points.
Several
heritage railways operate within the province, including the
White Pass & Yukon Route
The White Pass and Yukon Route (WP&Y, WP&YR) is a Canadian and U.S. Class III narrow-gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway, Alaska, with Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon. An isolated system, it has no direct connection to any other rail ...
that runs between
Alaska and the
Yukon via British Columbia.
Water
BC Ferries
British Columbia Ferry Services Inc., operating as BC Ferries (BCF), is a former provincial Crown corporation, now operating as an independently managed, publicly owned Canadian company. BC Ferries provides all major passenger and vehicle ferr ...
was established as a provincial crown corporation in 1960 to provide passenger and vehicle ferry service between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland as a cheaper and more reliable alternative to the service operated by the Canadian Pacific Railway and other private operators. It now operates 25 routes among the
islands of British Columbia
An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...
, as well as between the islands and the mainland. Ferry service to Washington is offered by the
Washington State Ferries
Washington State Ferries (WSF) is a government agency that operates automobile and passenger ferry service in the U.S. state of Washington as part of the Washington State Department of Transportation. It runs ten routes serving 20 terminals loc ...
(between
Sidney and
Anacortes) and
Black Ball Transport (between Victoria and
Port Angeles, Washington
Port Angeles ( ) is a city and county seat of Clallam County, Washington, United States. With a population of 19,960 as of the 2020 census, it is the largest city in the county. The population was estimated at 20,134 in 2021.
The city's har ...
). Ferry service over inland lakes and rivers is provided by the
Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. Various other coastal ferries are operated privately.
Commercial ocean transport is of vital importance. Major ports are at Vancouver,
Roberts Bank
Roberts Bank is an undersea bank in the Strait of Georgia on the south side of the estuary of the Fraser River approximately south of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Located between the South Arm of the Fraser River and Tsawwassen, it is s ...
(near
Tsawwassen
Tsawwassen ( ) is a suburban, mostly residential community on a peninsula in the southwestern corner of the City of Delta in British Columbia, Canada. It provides the only road access to the American territory on the southern tip of the peninsul ...
), Prince Rupert, and Victoria.
Vancouver, Victoria, and Prince Rupert are also major ports of call for
cruise ship
Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on tours known as ...
s. In 2007, a large maritime
container port
A container port or container terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land vehicles, for example train ...
was opened in Prince Rupert with an inland sorting port in Prince George.
Air
There are over 200 airports throughout British Columbia, the major ones being the
Vancouver International Airport
Vancouver International Airport is an international airport located on Sea Island in Richmond, British Columbia, serving the city of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland region. It is located from Downtown Vancouver. It is the second busie ...
, the
Victoria International Airport
Victoria International Airport serves Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It is north northwest of Victoria on the Saanich Peninsula, with the bulk of the airport (including the passenger terminal) in North Saanich, and a small portion of the ...
, the
Kelowna International Airport
Kelowna International Airport is a Canadian airport located approximately 10 minutes or northeast of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, on Highway 97.
The single runway airport operates scheduled air service to Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, E ...
, and the
Abbotsford International Airport, the first three of which each served over 1,000,000 passengers in 2005. , Vancouver International Airport is the
2nd busiest airport in the country and the second biggest International Gateway on the west coast (after Los Angeles) with an estimated 26.4 million travellers passing through in 2019.
Outdoor life
![Whistler ice sailor](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Whistler_ice_sailor.jpg)
Given its varied mountainous terrain and its coasts, lakes, rivers, and forests, British Columbia has long been enjoyed for pursuits like hiking and camping,
rock climbing and mountaineering,
hunting
Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products ( fur/ hide, bone/tusks, horn/antler, ...
and
fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...
.
Water sports, both motorized and non-motorized, are enjoyed in many places.
Sea kayak
A sea kayak or touring kayak is a kayak developed for the sport of paddling on open waters of lakes, bays, and the ocean. Sea kayaks are seaworthy small boats with a covered deck and the ability to incorporate a spray deck. They trade off the man ...
ing opportunities abound on the British Columbia coast with its
fjord
In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Förden and East Jutland Fjorde, Germany, ...
s.
Whitewater rafting
Rafting and whitewater rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk is often a ...
and
kayaking are popular on many inland rivers.
Sailing
Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (land yacht) over a chosen cou ...
and
sailboarding
Windsurfing is a wind propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the aerospace and surf culture of California. Windsurfing ga ...
are widely enjoyed.
In winter,
cross-country and
telemark skiing
Telemark skiing is a skiing technique that combines elements of Alpine and Nordic skiing, using the rear foot to keep balance while pushing on the front foot to create a carving turn on downhill skis with toe-only bindings. Telemark skiing is n ...
are much enjoyed, and in recent decades high-quality
downhill
Downhill may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Downhill'' (1927 film), a British film by Alfred Hitchcock
* ''Downhill'' (2014 film), a British comedy directed by James Rouse
* ''Downhill'' (2016 film), a Chilean thriller directed by Patrici ...
skiing
Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee ( ...
has been developed in the Coast Mountain range and the Rockies, as well as in the southern areas of the Shuswap Highlands and the
Columbia Mountains
The Columbia Mountains are a group of mountain ranges along the upper Columbia River in British Columbia, Montana, Idaho and Washington. The mountain range covers 135,952 km² (52,491 sq mi). The range is bounded by the Rocky Mountain Tre ...
.
Snowboarding has mushroomed in popularity since the early 1990s. The
2010 Winter Olympics downhill events were held in Whistler Blackcomb area of the province, while the indoor events were conducted in the Vancouver area.
In Vancouver and Victoria (as well as some other cities), opportunities for jogging, joggers and bicyclists have been developed. Cross-country bike touring has been popular since the Bicycle gearing, ten-speed bike became available many years ago. Since the advent of the more robust mountain bike, trails in more rugged and wild places have been developed for them. A 2016 poll on global biking website Pinkbike rated BC as the top destination mountain bikers would like to ride. Some of the province's retired rail beds have been converted and maintained for hiking, biking, and cross-country skiing. Longboarding is also a popular activity because of the hilly geography of the region.
Equestrianism, Horseback riding is enjoyed by many British Columbians. Opportunities for trail riding, often into especially scenic areas, have been established for tourists in numerous areas of the province.
British Columbia also has strong participation levels in many other sports, including golf, tennis, Association football, soccer, ice hockey, hockey, Canadian football, rugby union, lacrosse, baseball, softball, basketball, curling, disc golf, Ultimate Canada, Ultimate and figure skating. British Columbia has produced many outstanding athletes, especially in aquatic and winter sports.
Consistent with both increased tourism and increased participation in diverse recreations by British Columbians has been the proliferation of Resort hotel, lodges, chalets, bed and breakfasts, motels, hotels, fishing camps, and park-camping facilities in recent decades.
In certain areas, there are businesses, non-profit societies, or municipal governments dedicated to promoting
ecotourism in their region. A number of British Columbia farmers offer visitors to combine tourism with farm work, for example, through the WWOOF Canada program.
Education
![Hatley Castle BC](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Hatley_Castle_BC.jpg)
K-12 education
British Columbia is home to a comprehensive education system consisting of public schools and independent schools that is overseen by the provincial Ministry of Education. The public school system is divided in 59 anglophone school districts and one francophone school district, the ''Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique,'' which operates French-language public schools throughout the province. The anglophone school districts are governed by school board trustees who are directly elected by the school district's residents. Although 86 percent of students are enrolled in the public school system, British Columbia has one of the highest shares of independent school enrolment among Canadian province, at 14 percent of the student population, due to its relatively generous funding model; most independent schools receive 50 percent of the operating funding that their public counterparts receive from the government. A very small percentage (less than 1 percent) of students are home schooled.
Like most other provinces in Canada, education is compulsory from ages 6 to 16 (grades 1–10), although the vast majority of students remain in school until they graduate from high school (Twelfth grade, grade 12) at the age of 18. In order to graduate with a graduation certificate, known as a Dogwood Diploma in BC, students must take a minimum of 80 course credits during grades 10 to 12. These credits include a variety of required courses (e.g. in language arts, social studies, mathematics, and science), as well as elective courses.
Academic achievement in British Columbia is relatively good, although it has been slipping in recent years by some measures. In 2020, 86 percent of students in British Columbia graduated from high school within six years of entering grade 8. According to the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, students in British Columbia scored the second highest in reading ability, fourth highest in mathematic prowess, and fourth highest in science knowledge of the 10 Canadian provinces, although these scores have declined significantly since the 2000 and 2015 assessments.
International students
In September 2014, there were 11,000 international students in BC public K-12 schools and about 3,000 international students in other BC K-12 schools.
Higher education
British Columbia has diverse array of higher educational institutions, ranging from publicly funded universities, colleges, and institutes, to private universities, colleges, seminaries, and career institutes. Public institutions receive approximately half of their funding from grants from the provincial government, with the remaining revenue stemming from tuition charges and philanthropic donations. Each post-secondary institution sets its own admission requirements, although the standard requirement is the completion of high school.
Public universities and colleges include:
*
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thre ...
* Simon Fraser University
* University of Victoria
* University of Northern British Columbia
* Vancouver Island University
* British Columbia Institute of Technology
* Kwantlen Polytechnic University
* Thompson Rivers University
* Emily Carr University of Art and Design
* Royal Roads University
* Capilano University
* University of the Fraser Valley
* Douglas College
* Camosun College
* Langara College
* Selkirk College
* College of New Caledonia
* College of the Rockies
* Okanagan College
* Coast Mountain College
* Justice Institute of BC
British Columbia is also home to 11 List of private universities in Canada, private colleges and universities located throughout the province, including:
* Quest University
* Trinity Western University
* Alexander College
* University Canada West
* Columbia College (British Columbia), Columbia College
* Coquitlam College
* Tamwood International College
* Ashton College
* Blanche Macdonald
* Vanwest College
Two American universities (Fairleigh Dickinson University and Northeastern University
) also have degree-granting campuses located in
Vancouver.
See also
* Index of British Columbia–related articles
* Outline of British Columbia
* Symbols of British Columbia
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
Tourism British Columbia official websiteBC Weathercams: Webcams showing realtime conditions across the provinceBC government news*
*
*
*
BC government online map archive
{{Authority control
British Columbia,
1871 establishments in Canada
Provinces and territories of Canada
States and territories established in 1871
Geography of the Pacific Northwest
Western Canada