British Columbia

British Columbia, commonly referred to BC, is located on the Pacific coast of Canada. It is bordered to the east by the Canadian province of Alberta and to the north by Yukon and the Northwest Territories. British Columbia borders the US states of Washington, Idaho, and Montana to the south and the state of Alaska to the northwest.

General Information

Name: Part of the region that makes up modern-day British Columbia was originally named Columbia by American-born explorer Simon Fraser. Great Britain's Queen Victoria renamed the region British Columbia in 1858, in part to distinguish it from other countries with similar names. The name refers to the Columbia River as well as British colonial rule over the region.

Provincial Symbols

• Bird: Steller's Jay
• Flower: The Pacific Dogwood
• Tree: Western Red Cedar
• Motto: "Splendor sine occasu" (Latin, "splendor without diminishment")

Capital: The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, which lies on the southern tip of Vancouver Island along the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which separates Vancouver Island from the northwestern corner of Washington State. Victoria was initially named Fort Camosun. It became the provincial capital in 1871.

People & Culture

Population: In 2021, British Columbia had an estimated population of 5.2 million people. This reflects substantial growth; in 1971, the population was only a little more than 2.2 million people. British Columbia has the third largest population of the Canadian provinces, following Ontario and Quebec, which it also follows in geographic size.

The ethnicities that make up the majority of the BC population are Canadian, First Nations, English, Irish, Scottish, German, and French. English and Chinese are the most-spoken languages among British Columbians, followed by Punjabi, German, and Tagalog. Nearly 50 percent of British Columbians identify as nonreligious, while the majority of those who do claim a religious affiliation are members of the Roman Catholic Church or the United Church of Canada.

Many immigrants to British Columbia come from the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, India, China, and the Philippines.

The largest population centers in British Columbia is the metropolitan Vancouver region, which includes the city of Vancouver itself (631,486 inhabitants in 2016), as well as Surrey, Burnaby, and Richmond. The other metropolitan regions in the province are Abbotsford-Mission, Victoria, and Kelowna.

Native People: The First Nations are the various tribes of native peoples who live in the Canadian provinces. In 2021, British Columbia was home to almost 200 distinct First Nations communities. Among the First Nations who inhabit or have inhabited the Pacific coast region of Canada are the Haida, Clayoquot, Kwakiutl, Coast Salish, and Nisga'a. First Nations tribes based in British Columbia include Alexandria, Chehalis, Esquimalt, Iskut, Red Bluff, and many others.

When European explorers, traders, soldiers, and settlers first came to the western regions of Canada, they encountered the First Nations people. Often, they maintained friendly relations with the tribes in order to facilitate trade and settlement. However, just as often, relations were soured by warfare and the large amount of white encroachment on traditional native lands. In the 1850s, much of the land owned by the First Nations was purchased under the Douglas Treaties. By the 1860s, reserves for First Nations were established, and these peoples later lost their right to vote in the province. Other rights were gradually stripped away as well.

During the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the First Nations continued the fight for their traditional rights as indigenous Canadians and citizens of British Columbia. Some of the principal issues of contention between First Nations and the provincial and national governments included water rights, settlement rights, self-determination, and treaty rights.

In 2021, British Columbia had the second largest First Nations and Aboriginal (which includes First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people) population in the country, after Ontario. According to the 2016 census, 17.7 percent of the entire First Nations population lived in British Columbia, but Aboriginal Canadians still accounted for only about 6 percent of the province's total population.

Arts & Entertainment: British Columbia boasts a rich cultural and ethnic heritage. Museums dedicated to the arts of indigenous peoples include the U'Mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay, the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, and the Museum of Vancouver. Victoria is home to the Royal British Columbia Museum and the Maritime Museum of British Columbia, both of which celebrate the European and native cultures and history of the region.

First Nations history may also be explored at several sites that feature original totem poles from the Kwakiutl, Haida, and other tribes. British Columbia's industrial history is on display at the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site in Richmond. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria holds one of the most comprehensive Japanese art collections in Canada.

British Columbia holds several festivals each year which celebrate various aspects of culture and history in the region, including an international wine festival, an international children's festival, and performing arts and film festivals.

Along with New York City and Los Angeles, California, British Columbia—particularly Vancouver—is a large motion picture and television production region. Many major films and shows have been shot in British Columbia.

Famous people born in British Columbia include actress and model Pamela Anderson; actors James Doohan, Raymond Burr, and Jason Priestley; and singer Nelly Furtado.

Environment & Geography

British Columbia is 944,735 square kilometers (364,764 square miles) in size, 2.1 percent of which is fresh water. It stretches approximately 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) from north to south, and is 1,050 kilometers (652 miles) wide at its furthest point from east to west. Its coast line is approximately 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) long.

Important geographic features of British Columbia include a section of the Canadian Rockies; the Rocky Mountain range stretches several thousand miles from Mexico into the Liard Plain of British Columbia, although some people consider it to reach into Alaska as well. Its highest point in Canada is at Mount Robson, in British Columbia, at 3,954 meters (12,972 feet) high. The presence of the city of Vancouver on the Strait of Georgia has made that waterway a much-traveled feature of coastal Canada. British Columbia also has many fjords, streams, and rivers.

Topography: Topographically, British Columbia is quite diverse. It is a coastal region, so it boasts a number of islands, streams, and rivers, as well as fjords from the Coastal Mountain region. It is also a mountainous province, situated at the northernmost point of the Rocky Mountains. Beyond this area, to the north is the Great Plains region of the province. A temperate rainforest lies atop Vancouver Island.

National Parks: There are seven national parks in British Columbia: Glacier National Park, Gulf Islands National Park, Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, Kootenay National Park, Mount Revelstoke National Park, Pacific Rim National Park, and Yoho National Park.

British Columbia is also home to two World Heritage Sites, as designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO): the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, which include the contiguous Kootenay and Yoho National Parks as well as the Jasper and Banff National Parks in Alberta, and SGang Gwaay, a small island featuring the remains of homes and totem poles that illustrate the traditional Haida way of life.

National Historic Sites in British Columbia include the Chilkoot Trail, a trail once used by gold prospectors and First Nation traders on their way to the Klondike; Fort Langley, an important trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company; and Kitwanga Fort, an important site for First Nations history and heritage.

Natural Resources: Provincial natural resources include natural gas, crude petroleum, lumber, coal, gold, and copper. A substantial portion of the BC economy is made up of industries dedicated to the production or mining of these products.

Plants & Animals: Because of its diverse topography, British Columbia has a large variety of native plants and animals. Common types of tree include several varieties of fir tree, including the alpine, Douglas, and grand, and big leaf and vine maples. Engelmann, sitka, and white spruce, and pine, juniper, and cedar varieties are also common.

British Columbia also hosts a wide variety of flowers, including the American vetch, Canada goldenrod, and lupine. Also seen throughout the province is the lady fern, which is common in coastal areas, as well as the oxeye daisy, which was brought to Canada from Europe.

British Columbia is home to about half the population of Canadian grizzly bears. Less common are badgers, which have a relatively small population in British Columbia. More common to the region are black bears, raccoons, beavers, red fox, and caribou. Along the southern coast of British Columbia, humpback whales and killer whales are relatively common.

Birds that are found in British Columbia include the bald eagle, loons, and the peregrine falcon. Varieties of salmon found in the province include the chinook, kokanee, and sockeye, and pink salmon. Many types of trout are also seen in BC waters, including the lake trout and the brown trout.

Climate: The province's weather and climate varies widely from north to south, coastal to interior regions, and mountains to valleys. The coastal regions remain mild throughout the year because of their location on the Pacific coast. Cold, dry air from the Arctic region affects all of British Columbia during winter. In the continental interior regions, winters are mild while summer days can often reach 29 degrees Celsius (85 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher. Further inland, the climate is drier and colder. In the northern region, cool air prevails throughout the year.

Average temperatures on the coast are 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) in winter and 18 degrees Celsius (65 degrees Fahrenheit) in summer. Inland, average temperatures average about –12 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit) in winter and range from 15 to 24 degrees Celsius (60 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit) during summer. Cool ocean waters in summer and relatively warm air from the Pacific Ocean in winter moderate British Columbia's weather, which typically enjoys milder temperatures than the rest of Canada.

Economy

(Unless otherwise noted, all monetary amounts are given in Canadian dollars.)

Major industries in British Columbia include logging and timber, mineral and petroleum extraction, and fishing. The financial, insurance, and real estate businesses are the most important commercial sectors of the economy, followed by manufacturing. The cities of Vancouver and Victoria are the commercial centers of British Columbia. Tourism and recreation are also important to the province's economy.

Manufacturing industries include wood and paper products, food processing, and fabricated metals. Important exports from BC include coal, lumber, paper products, wood pulp, copper, natural gas, and machinery and equipment. Oil and gas extraction generates billions of dollars toward the provincial GDP each year, as does the forestry industry and mining and quarrying activity. Additional major contributors to GDP include electrical utilities and agriculture.

Most jobs are available in the southern region of BC because of denser population numbers. Important employment sectors in BC include service industries (finance, real estate), manufacturing and construction. Most employed women work in the service sector. There are also a number of small businesses in BC.

Tourism: Tourism is an integral part of the province's economy. Thanks to the vast natural wilderness in British Columbia, it is a natural destination for activities such as skiing, hiking, fishing, and boating. Among the most popular travel destinations are the cities of Victoria and Vancouver, the nearly seven hundred parks throughout the province, and the coastal regions.

Agriculture: British Columbia has a very small percentage of land that is used for agriculture. Farmland accounts for approximately 3 percent of the province's total area. But within that small area, grain harvesting, cattle and dairy farming, and fruit and vegetable growing are prominent. British Columbia is well known for its fruit crops, particularly blueberries, raspberries, and wine-grapes.

Transportation: Owing to its coastal and inland diversity, British Columbia has a complex transportation infrastructure run by the Ministry of Transportation. On the seacoast, there are numerous ports running many ferry routes. The Port of Vancouver is one of the most important ports on the Pacific coast of North America.

British Columbia also provides a railroad service that has been important to the development of the province since its entry into the Canadian Confederation. It is also crisscrossed by a series of highways and roads that make every part of the region accessible. There are many airports throughout British Columbia as well, including international airports in Victoria, Vancouver, and Kelowna.

Government & History

Government: British Columbia's Legislative Assembly is housed in Victoria, the provincial capital. Members are elected by the first-past-the-post system, which has been used throughout Canada. There are eighty-seven seats in the Legislative Assembly.

History: British Columbia was originally settled by the indigenous peoples of the Northwest, some as far back as ten thousand years ago. These people predominated the region until after the arrival of European explorers and settlers in the nineteenth century. A large number of First Nations peoples were placed on reservations after the population of white settlers increased.

In 1741, Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer, was the first European to reach British Columbia. In 1858, the regional population boomed during a gold rush; British Columbia became a British colony shortly thereafter. In 1866, Vancouver Island became a part of British Columbia.

The province entered the Canadian Confederation in 1871. Fears of annexation by the United States and a need to complete an inter-Canadian railroad system led to the decision to join the Dominion. In the years following confederation, British Columbia's economy and population continued to grow at a steady rate.

By the late twentieth century, British Columbia had become an important part of the Pacific Rim, an economic area which encompasses all of the nations around and within the Pacific Coast. In order to protect itself from pervasive environmental dangers of the twenty-first century, including climate change and overuse of natural resources for industry, British Columbia has made strides toward greater protection of its environment.

Trivia

• British Columbia automobile drivers drove on the left side of the road before 1922, when the American style of driving on the right side became standard.
• Aside from a provincial bird, flower, tree and motto, British Columbia also has a provincial tartan (with colors representing the maple leaf, the ocean, dogwood and the forest) and provincial gemstone (jade).

Bibliography

Barman, Jean. The West beyond the West: A History of British Columbia. 3rd ed., U of Toronto P, 2007. Print.

Budd, Robert. Echoes of British Columbia: Voices from the Frontier. Harbour, 2014. Print.

"Census Profile, 2016 Census: British Columbia and Canada." Statistics Canada, Canada.ca, 2016, www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/index.cfm?Lang=E. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

Harris, Cole. The Resettlement of British Columbia: Essays on Colonialism and Geographical Change. U of British Columbia P, 1997. Print.

Hayes, Derek. British Columbia: A New Historical Atlas. Douglas, 2012. Print.

"Indigenous Peoples of B.C." British Columbia, 2016, www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/data/statistics/people-population-community/aboriginal-peoples-bc. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

McGillivray, Brett. Geography of British Columbia: People and Landscapes in Transition. U of British Columbia P, 2000. Print.

Muckle, Robert James. The First Nations of British Columbia: An Anthropological Overview. 3rd ed. U of British Columbia P, 2014. Print.