British Columbia

http://www2.gov.bc.ca/

British Columbia is Canada’s most westerly province, and is a mountainous area whose population is mainly clustered in its southwestern corner. BC is Canada’s third-largest province after Québec and Ontario, making up 10 per cent of Canada’s land surface.

British Columbia is Canada’s most westerly province, and is a mountainous area whose population is mainly clustered in its southwestern corner. BC is Canada’s third-largest province afterQuébec and Ontario, making up 10 per cent of Canada’s land surface. British Columbia is a land of diversity and contrast within small areas. Coastal landscapes, characterized by high, snow-covered mountains rising above narrow fjords and inlets, contrast with the broad forested upland of the central interior and the plains of the northeast. The intense “Britishness” of earlier times is referred to in the province’s name, which originated with Queen Victoria and was officially proclaimed in 1858.

Land and Resources

Regions

British Columbia has two main regions, often called “the Coast” and “the Interior.” These two regions both have numerous contrasts and variations within them. The so-called “Lower Mainland,” dominated by metropolitan Vancouver, contains over 60 per cent of the province’s population and is its commercial, cultural and industrial centre. A slightly broader region, sometimes called the “Georgia Strait” region, includes Victoria and the southeast coast of Vancouver Island; this area holds approximately 20 per cent of the population.

The vast interior is dominated by parallel mountain ranges and its population spreads north–south along valleys, notably the Okanaganand the Kootenay. Population centres are dispersed, as at Kamloopsand Prince George in the interior, Prince Rupert and Kitimat on the northern coast, and Dawson Creek and Fort St John in the Peace River Lowland. Each of these towns are centres of separate sub-regions and depend more on world markets than local markets.

Much of the development of resource-based economic activity in the province has been concerned with linking these separate regions together into a broader provincial economy. The northern half of the province is virtually uninhabited north of Prince Rupert and is cut off from the Pacific Ocean by the Alaska Panhandle. The Peace River Lowland of the northeast is actually an extension of the Interior Plains and more closely resembles neighbouring Alberta than the rest of the province.

Landforms, Geology and Drainage

The Cordilleran mountain system of western North America covers most of British Columbia, except for the Peace River area in the northeast. The Rocky Mountains rise abruptly about 1,000–1,500 m above the foothills of Alberta, and some of their snow- and ice-covered peaks tower more than 3,000 m above sea level; the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, Mount Robson, west of Jasper, AB, is 3,954 m.

In the southern Rockies the sharp, jagged sedimentary rock peaks from the Palaeozoic era (542 to 251 million years ago) differ from the older more rounded, lower peaks of Proterozoic era (2.5 billion to 542 million years ago) to the north. The Rocky Mountains terminate south of the Liard River in northeastern BC.

The western boundary of the Rocky Mountains is the narrow Rocky Mountain Trench — the longest valley in North America, extending for 1,400 km from Montana to the Yukon and along the length of BC. Out of the trench flow the headwaters of the Kootenay, Columbia, Fraser, Parsnip, Finlay, Kechika and Liard rivers, each separated from the others by low drainage divides.

Two other mountain systems lie west of the Rocky Mountain Trench: the Columbia Mountains to the south; and the Cassiar-Omineca Mountains to the north. The Columbia Mountains consist of three parallel north–south ranges (Purcell, Selkirk and Monashee) with sharp peaks of 2,000–3,000 m separated by long, narrow valleys occupied by Kootenay Lake and the Columbia River. These mountains consist mainly of sedimentary and intrusive rocks of Cretaceous (146 to 65.5 million years ago), Triassic (248 to 206 million years ago) and Jurassic (199.6 to 145.5 million years ago) ages, and contain many mineral deposits. The fourth range of the group, the Cariboo Mountainsnorthwest of the Thompson River, is composed of sedimentary rocks of Proterozoic age which appear to have fewer mineral deposits.

The Interior Plateau, made up of broad and gently rolling uplands, covers central British Columbia. The region is a basin or watershed, because it is surrounded by higher mountains. Many of the rocks are lavas of Cretaceous and Tertiary (65.5 million to 2.6 million years ago) geological ages with apparently little mineralization except around the plateau edges. The Fraser River has cut deeply into the bedrock in the southern part of the plateau to form the spectacular Fraser River Canyon. The Stikine Plateau is to the north. Another upland area of mainly Jurassic lava rocks with some recent volcanoes, the plateau contains the headwaters of the Stikine River. Both the Interior and Stikine plateaus are about 1,000 m above sea level.

The western section of the province’s mountain ranges consists of theCoast Mountains along the coast and the offshore Insular Mountains. The northern end of the Cascade Mountains of Washington State terminates at the Fraser River, and then the high, snow and ice-covered peaks of the Coast Mountains extend northward along the Alaskan Panhandle into the Yukon. These scenic mountains have peaks up to 3,000 m in the southern part, with Mount Waddington, the highest peak entirely in BC, rising to 4,016 m.

Numerous long, twisting, deep fjords penetrate into the coast’s mountain mass. The rocks are mostly granitic intrusions of Cretaceous and Tertiary ages and there are some recent volcanoes. The lower Coast Mountains (1,500–2,000 m) near the Skeena River increase in altitude to the north.

The highest peak in BC, Fairweather Mountain (4,663 m), straddles the Alaska border in the St Elias Mountains just northwest of the Coast Mountains. Only three major rivers have cut through the barrier of the Coast Mountains: the Fraser, Skeena and Stikine. The Fraser and Skeena river valleys have become the sites of the only land-transportation routes reaching the coast from the interior.

The offshore Insular Mountains are the partially submerged northern continuation of the Olympic Mountains and Coast Ranges of Washington state. They provide the land mass for both Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii. The highest peak on Vancouver Island is theGolden Hinde, at 2,200 m.

All of British Columbia was under a thick sheet of ice during the ice age. Some coastal areas and interior valleys became ice-free about 12,000–15,000 years ago, and since then the coastal lowlands have been rising relative to sea level. The remainder of the province became ice free 7,000–13,000 years ago. The results of continental and alpine glaciation can be seen everywhere in the province in fjordsand cirques (i.e., amphitheatre-shaped basins) in the mountains, ground moraines across the Interior Plateau, and terraces (i.e., flat areas above a river) and benches (i.e., flat, narrow platforms) along interior rivers.

Soils and Vegetation

Approximately three per cent of British Columbia has soils suitable for agricultural production. As in most mountainous areas only the narrow floodplains, terraces and deltas of the river valleys have alluvial soils where crops can grow. Glacial deposition on the middle slopes of the mountains provides enough soil to support tree growth.

The coniferous trees of coastal British Columbia are the tallest and broadest trees in Canada. Douglas fir, western cedar, balsam fir,hemlock and Sitka spruce grow very well in the mild, wet climate and are the basis for the province’s most valuable primary industry,forestry. Similar trees, plus lodgepole pine, ponderosa pine andaspen occupy the middle slopes of the interior mountains and plateaus. Depending on local conditions, such as slope and exposure, the upper treeline in southern BC is about 2,000 m and declines to about 1,000 m in the north. In contrast, the Coast Mountains and the lower valleys of the rivers across the southern third of the province have a drier climate, indicated by these regions’ grassland cover.

Climate

There are wide variations in climate within small areas of British Columbia. The major climate contrast is between the coast and the interior, but there are also significant variations between valleys and uplands, and between the northern and southern parts of the province. Relatively warm air masses from the Pacific Ocean bring mild temperatures to the coast during the winters, while cold water keeps coastal temperatures cool in the summer. The barrier of the Coast Mountains keeps these moderating conditions from moving inland. Average January mean temperatures are above 0°C at most coastal stations — the mildest in Canada — and July averages are about 15°C in the north and 18°C in the sheltered Georgia Strait region.

In contrast, in winter the interior may be covered by cold air masses pushing south from the Yukon or Alaska, particularly in the northern part of the province. Average daily mean January temperatures are -10°C to -15°C across the central interior and are a cold -20°C or more on the northeastern plains. The southern interior valleys may heat up during the summer, recording July average monthly temperatures of more than 20°C, but farther north, at higher altitudes on the central Interior Plateau, temperatures average about 15°C in midsummer.

The air masses from the Pacific bring ample rainfall to the coast, particularly in the autumn and winter. The interior valleys on the eastern side of the mountains receive much less precipitation. The west-facing mountains of Vancouver Island receive more than 2,500 mm of annual precipitation, whereas the east-coast lowland records only about 700 to 1,000 mm. The western slopes of the Coast Mountains accumulate 1,000 to 3,000 mm annually, of which a high percentage is snowfall. However, the Okanagan Valley receives a mere 250 mm of annual precipitation.

The coast’s frost-free season is the longest in Canada, averaging more than 200 days; in contrast, the central Interior Plateau is handicapped by a short, frost-free season of only 75 to 100 days. The well-publicized mild, wet winters and cool, dry summers associated with British Columbia are characteristic only of the southwest; the rest of the province experiences temperature conditions similar to those on the plains of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Natural Resources

About 60 per cent of British Columbia is forested, accounting for approximately 19.5 per cent of the forested land in Canada.

The geology of most mountainous areas is favourable to mineralization, and BC is no exception. A wide range of metals has been discovered throughout the mountainous part of the province, including lead, zinc, gold, silver, molybdenum, copper and iron. ThePeace River Lowland, northeast of the Rocky Mountains, has a different geological base consisting of younger, sedimentary rocks which have been the sources of petroleum, natural gas and coal.

BC has the largest provincial potential for electric power generation, as the heavy precipitation, steep mountain slopes and large, interior drainage basins are ideal physical conditions for the production ofhydroelectric power. However, some of the large interior rivers have not been harnessed because it would damage the habitat of the Pacific salmon which spawn in the headwaters of coastal and interior rivers flowing into the Pacific Ocean.

Conservation

The balance between economic development and environmental protection is particularly troublesome in British Columbia, which relies heavily on renewable resources. Early on many of the province’s resources seemed inexhaustible, but by the 1930s the coast forest was being rapidly depleted. The salmon fishery has been threatened by overfishing and the destruction of marine and river habitats in some places, and some of British Columbia’s scarce agricultural land has been lost to roads, housing and industry. Early provincial governments were primarily concerned with rapid development to promote local employment. However, especially since the Second World War, much legislation has been enacted to preserve the environment and natural resources. The success of reforestationprograms has been questioned, but forestry is being managed by the principle of “sustained yield.”

Fishing is confined to certain places and times, and a freeze was placed on changing the use of agricultural land in 1973. The British Columbia Ecological Reserves Act (1971) set aside numerous reserves of representative ecosystems. Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline, which would transport petroleum and condensate between Edmonton, AB and Kitimat, BC, faces ongoing opposition from Aboriginal groups, environmental activists and politicians. However, in November 2013, Alberta and British Columbia reached an agreement regarding how to go about approving future pipeline projects.

People

Urban Centres

The province’s population has always lived primarily in cities, and in 2011, 86 per cent of the population was classified as urban, most in the southwest region.

Metropolitan Vancouver is the largest city in the province; and with a population of 2.3 million in 2012, it ranks third in population among the metropolitan cities in Canada. There are three additional metropolitan areas: Abbotsford-Mission, Kelowna and Victoria, the capital. Mid-sized cities include Prince George, Kamloops, Chilliwack and Nanaimo, while smaller communities include Cranbrook,Penticton, Vernon, Dawson Creek, Prince Rupert, Courtenay, Port Alberni, Fort St John, Terrace and Williams Lake.

Labour Force

Of those participating in the workforce, 80 per cent worked in service sector in 2012. Within this sector the three largest employers were the trades, health care and social assistance, and education. Within the goods-producing sector (which employs the remaining 20 per cent), the biggest employers were construction and manufacturing. In 2012, unemployment was 6.7 per cent, making it one of the lowest rates in the country (i.e., BC ranked fourth behind the other most westerly provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba).

Language and Ethnicity

British Columbia is one of the most ethnically diverse provinces in the country. Similar to other provinces, the top five ethnic origins reported in the 2006 census reflected European roots (they were English, Scottish, Canadian, Irish and German). Where BC’s ethnic make-up differs, however, is in the large proportion of visible minorities — 25 per cent in 2006. By comparison, in the same year 23 per cent of Ontario’s overall population was a visible minority. Of the visible minority population in BC, the largest communities were Chinese,South Asian, Filipino, Korean and Southeast Asian. Japanese people represent about one per cent of the population, which is significant compared to other parts of the country (for example, less than one per cent of Ontario’s population is Japanese). There is also a relatively significant Aboriginal population (five per cent in 2006).

The province’s present-day ethnic make-up is a reflection of its history. In the early part of the 20th century more than 75 per cent of the province’s residents were of British origin and most of the population spoke English as their first language. In the mid-19th century Chinese people began working in the mines of the Cariboo, and in the early 1880s many more Chinese were brought to BC as labourers for the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Afterwards many of them settled in Vancouver, and a smaller “Chinatown” also arose in Victoria. Japanese Canadians also settled in southwestern BC between 1900 and 1940.

As in other parts of Canada, the percentage of people of British origin has declined rapidly since 1950. Large numbers of East, Southeast and South Asians began immigrating to BC in the 1970s.

The earlier part of the province’s history was marred by racism, particularly the anti-Asiatic riots of 1907 and the Komagata Maruincident of 1914. Stirred up by politicians of all parties, fears were rampant that British Columbia’s future as a “white province” was threatened. The population of Japanese and Chinese was less than 40,000 in 1921, but their concentration in the Lower Mainland and southern Vancouver Island, combined with the restricted forms of employment available to them, made them conspicuous.

Because they were hard-working and forced to take lower wages the Japanese and Chinese population was considered unfair competition by the unions and the agricultural community. The campaign of the Asiatic Exclusion League (established 1921) and others resulted in theChinese Immigration Act of 1923, which effectively ended Chinese immigration.

Many Japanese were evicted from their coastal fishing villages during the Second World War and placed in internment camps. Political discrimination against non-whites in BC finally ended after the Second World War when the Chinese and Hindu populations were enfranchised in 1947, and the Japanese in 1949.

Religion

Since the near majority of people in BC have some British background and are English-speaking, as in other parts of Canada, they are predominantly Christian (55 per cent in 2001). Those identifying asSikh accounted for three per cent of the population in 2001, Buddhisttwo per cent and Muslim one per cent. Those claiming no religious affiliation numbered 36 per cent.

History

Aboriginal Settlement

The coasts and interior valleys of British Columbia were first occupied sometime after the last Ice Age. Occupation of some sites in BC has been confirmed by carbon dating at about 6,000–8,000 years ago. The people of the Northwest Coast lived in autonomous villages of 200 to 1,000 people and had access to a particularly bountiful environment that provided abundant shellfish, salmon and even whales. Groups living along the coast used a variety of fishing tools and techniques, and used forest resources to build large and sophisticated plank houses. The coastal people concentrated along the lower reaches of the major salmon rivers. These groups developed an elaborate culture typified by totem poles and the potlatch (seeTagish; Tsimshian; Haida; Tlingit; Kwakiutl; Nootka; and Native People: Northwest Coast). The interior inhabitants, such as the Carrier,Interior Salish and Kootenay were generally nomadic and depended on hunting. Those groups living in the Subarctic region of the interior generally fished and hunted moose and caribou, while those living in the southern interior had a milder climate. The availability of salmon made it possible for the groups living in the southern interior to winter in small villages.

European Settlement

Due to its distance from the eastern coast of Canada and the barrier to east-west movement created by the mountains, the Pacific Northwest was very difficult for early Europeans to reach and was the last part of North America they explored. The first permanent European settlement came with the development of the fur trade in the early 19th century. A flurry of activity followed the discovery of gold on the lower and middle Fraser River (see Fraser River Gold Rush), resulting in an inland system of supply and transportation along the Fraser River to the Cariboo Mountains. By the 1880s more permanent mining towns began to dot the valleys of the southeast – each supported by local forestry, small farms and complex rail, road and water transport. In contrast, on the southwest coast settlement was more urban and commercial.

From 1860 to 1890 Victoria, the capital, was the main administrative and commercial settlement, and the supply centre for interior and coastal resource development. Vancouver, on Burrard Inlet north of the mouth of the Fraser River, was selected as the site for the western terminal of the CPR in 1886. Vancouver soon replaced Victoria as the commercial centre and became the main port for both coastal and interior products to move to world markets.

Overall, British Columbia developed contrasting coastal and interior settlement patterns which remained the same throughout the 20th century, although densities increased. The population has always been primarily urban, living in the southwest region. The remaining population is dispersed across the southern half of the province, mainly occupying the north-south valleys or resource-based settlements along the main transportation lines. The only major farming populations live in the Okanagan Valley and dispersed along the highway between Kamloops and Prince George. These linear population clusters are separated from each other by unoccupied mountain ranges. With the exception of an urban and agricultural cluster in the Peace River area of the northeast, few people live north of Prince George and Prince Rupert.

Europeans arrived at the northwest coast much later than they did other areas of the continent. Spaniards under Juan Pérez Hernándezwere probably the first Europeans to see the coast of BC in 1774. They did not land, but Pérez claimed the region for Spain. Four years laterJames Cook took his two British ships into Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Within a few years British traders came by sea and developed a flourishing fur trade with coastal Aboriginal peoples.

The Spanish had established a trading post at Nootka Sound and seized British ships there, and in 1789 Spain and Britain had a dispute over the ownership of West Coast North America. This Nootka Sound Controversy was settled by the Nootka Conventions of 1790–94, which did not determine ownership, but gave equal trading rights to both countries.

British claims were strengthened after 1792 when ships under George Vancouver carried out a careful three-year mapping of the coast from Oregon to Alaska. Vancouver named many of the bays, inlets and coastal landform features. In this period of worldwide European colonialism, there was no concern among European governments and businessmen that this area was already occupied by Aboriginal peoples.

In 1793 the first European report about the interior of BC was made by the North West Company fur trader Alexander Mackenzie. He entered the region from the east via the Peace and Upper Fraser rivers, and explored westward across the Chilcotin Plateau and through the Coast Mountains to the long inlet at Bella Coola.

Two other members of the North West Company, Simon Fraser andDavid Thompson, explored other parts of the interior early in the 19th century. They established the first permanent European settlements in the province, which were fur trade posts supplied from Montréal. In 1808 Fraser reached the mouth of the river which now bears his name, and in 1811Thompson found the mouth of the Columbia River after exploring the river routes of southeastern BC.

For about 50 years, while eastern North America was being occupied and settled by European agricultural people and dotted with commercial cities, the mountainous western part of the continent remained little-known territory on the fringes of fur-trade empires controlled from eastern cities.

During the first half of the 19th century the British-owned Hudson’s Bay Company controlled the western fur trade, including the area of present-day Washington and Oregon. In the 1830s American settlers began to move into the southern part of this region, and refused to recognize the authority of the British company.

Conflicting territorial claims were settled in the 1846 Oregon Treaty, which established the southern boundary of BC along the 49th parallel, with the exception of Vancouver Island. In anticipation of this result the HBC had moved its headquarters to newly-established Fort Victoria in 1843.

In 1849 the British government granted Vancouver Island to the HBC for colonization, and in 1851 James Douglas, an official of the company, became governor of the new colony. In 1856 Douglas established a legislative assembly for Vancouver Island. At mid-century the only non-Aboriginal settlements within the boundaries of present-day British Columbia were fur trade posts on the coast, such as Victoria, Nanaimo and Fort Langley, and in the interior, such as Kamloops, Fort (later Prince) George and Fort St James.

Development

This relatively quiet period of history ended in 1858 when gold was discovered in the sand bars along the Lower Fraser River. The ensuinggold rushes brought thousands of fortune hunters from many parts of the world, but mainly from the California goldfields. Many fortune hunters came by boat from San Francisco, crowding into inadequate facilities in Victoria to buy supplies and receive permits.

Prospecting took place upstream along the banks and bars of the Fraser River during 1858. The town of Yale was established as a trans-shipping centre at the south end of Fraser Canyon, and as the eastern end of water transport from the Fraser River mouth. Gold seekers walked the tributaries of the Fraser River and major gold finds were made east of Quesnel.

The boomtown of Barkerville arose at the western edge of the Cariboo Mountains as the chief service town for the Cariboo goldfields. At its peak in the early 1860s Barkerville likely held a fluctuating population of about 10,000, making it the largest settlement in western Canada at that time.

In order to establish government and maintain law and order around the goldfields, the British established a separate mainland colony of British Columbia in 1858 under the authority of James Douglas, who also remained the governor of Vancouver Island. The new settlement of New Westminster, located slightly inland on the north bank of the Fraser River delta, was proclaimed capital of the new colony in 1859 and controlled river traffic entering the Fraser River en route to the interior. In the early 1860s the amazing feat of building the Cariboo Road along the walls of the Fraser Canyon was accomplished in order to move supplies to interior settlements.

In 1866, with gold production declining and people leaving, the British government united the two colonies to reduce administrative costs. New Westminster was the capital of the combined colony for two years before protests from the older capital, Victoria, resulted in the seat of government being moved there in 1868. The resulting physical separation of the capital from the majority of the people and economic activity on the mainland later led to communication problems for the region, and many government services and offices had to be duplicated on the mainland.

After 1867 the British colony on the West Coast debated whether it should join the new Confederation of eastern provinces known as Canada. In 1871 the 12,000 non-Aboriginal residents of BC agreed to enter the Dominion of Canada on the condition that the federal government build a transcontinental railway to link it with the eastern provinces. The federal government agreed, but the new province waited, rather impatiently at times, for 15 years before the Canadian Pacific Railway reached the southwest coast.

The union with Canada was an unhappy one at first. The new province ran heavily into debt; the cost of governing a large mountainous area with few people was very high, and revenues from resource users were low. More than one-third of the province’s white residents lived in or near Victoria. Even by 1881 the white population of 24,000 was less than the estimated 25,000 Aboriginal peoples.

The hoped-for expansion of trade with East Asia did not develop immediately with the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885. However, the railway did bring people to the port of Vancouver and by 1901 that city had surpassed Victoria in population. Vancouver’s population of almost 27,010 in 1901 had been reached within 15 years, whereas after 58 years of occupation Victoria had only 23,688 people.

Around the turn of the 20th century entrepreneurs came to British Columbia to exploit the province’s vast resources. A salmon-cannery industry was established along the coast. There were sawmills all around the shores of Georgia Strait and particularly along eastern Vancouver Island, and the first pulp and paper mill was completed atPowell River in 1912.

The major expansion of the forest industry came, however, after theFirst World War when the Panama Canal opened and gave access to markets around the north Atlantic region. Since access to capital and natural resources for export was more important than ownership of farmland, BC attracted a different type of settler from those who settled on the land on the Prairies and across eastern Canada.

In interior BC in the 1890s the major resource development and settlement centred on the mining activity in the Kootenay region of the southeast. Prospectors, mainly from mining camps in western Montana and Idaho, moved northward along the valleys and discovered gold and base metals in the area west of Kootenay Lake. Mining camps sprung up in the Slocan Valley, at Rossland, near Grand Forks and elsewhere. Nelson became the main service, supply and administrative centre, with a population of about 4,500 in 1911.

Railways extended northward into the interior from the US, and the CPR built a line westward through the Crowsnest Pass in 1899 to bring coal from Fernie to smelters in the mining centres. By about 1914, however, many of the mines had closed and some towns were abandoned, although other mines opened in later years. The extension of the Kettle Valley branch of the CPR to the coast during the First World War came after the peak of mining activity in the Kootenay region.

Agriculture brought settlers to the south-central interior. At the time of the early 1860s Cariboo Gold Rush ranching was established in the grassland valleys and rolling basins across the southern interior plateau. Irrigation was developed west of Kamloops and in the northern Okanagan Valley early in the 20th century. Irrigation for orchards that spread south from Vernon aided settlement projects for returning soldiers after the First World War (see Veterans’ Land Act).

The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway west from Edmonton through the Upper Fraser, Bulkley and Skeena valleys was built in 1907–14 and was intended to give Canada a second gateway through the mountains to the Pacific coast. After the railway was built Prince George became a minor sawmill centre, with rail access eastward to the growing housing market in the Prairie provinces. However, the port and rail terminal at Prince Rupert never developed the anticipated volume of traffic, partly because there was little need for incoming freight. Despite its hopes, the small town remained mainly a fisheries centre.

International political upheaval during 1930–45 and the resulting loss of world markets led to a serious economic decline in BC’s resource-based activities. After about 1950, however, the improved transportation system did much to integrate the interior resource economies and settlements with coastal collection, processing and management centres.

Appropriately, the theme of Expo 86, held in Vancouver, was transportation and communications. Thousands of Canadians migrated to BC, attracted by the mild climate and perceived economic opportunities, joining thousands of other immigrants from Asia. These people not only provided labour and management for the growing commercial and service occupations, they were also consumers of goods, services and entertainment. In the 21st century, BC is one of Canada’s most prosperous and fastest-growing provinces.

Economy

Resource-based activities have been the basis of BC’s economy throughout its modern history. Aboriginal people depended on the resources of land and sea for their food, clothing and exchange. The first items of trade desired by Europeans were sea otter pelts from the coast and animal furs from the interior.

Settlers of European origin were primarily attracted by mineral resources, notably gold in the central interior and southeast, and also by coal on Vancouver Island, near Nanaimo and Cumberland. By the 1880s the tall, straight coniferous trees of the coast forest were being cut for lumber to supply other Pacific Rim settlements, and salmon were being canned at numerous river-mouth canneries to be shipped throughout the world.

In the 19th century BC’s natural resources supplied markets elsewhere in Anglo-America or in East Asia, or Europe. Local manufacturing consisted primarily of some first-stage processing of these resources.

As population increased in the 20th century and concentrated in or near the ports of the southwest, consumer-goods manufacturing began in the southwestern cities. This was aided by the high cost of transporting manufactured goods from eastern Canada and the US, and by an ample supply of hydroelectric power. Agricultural settlement expanded across the lowland and delta of the Lower Fraser River. The management and financial activities related to resource development remained in the coastal cities, mainly Vancouver.

Agriculture

While only three per cent of BC’s land area is used for agriculture, the province is well-known for its fruit crop, leading the country in the production of berries, wine-grapes, fruits and nuts. Farm cash receipts totalled $2.8 billion in 2012, and leading crops included grapes, blueberries, cherries, raspberries, pears and apricots. Farming in BC had its origins in supplying the mid-19th century trading posts. The growing cities of Vancouver and Victoria stimulated agricultural expansion in the Fraser Valley and on Vancouver Island. In the 1890s fruit and vegetable growing were established in the Okanagan and beef ranching in the Cariboo region.

The largest area of cultivated land in BC is in the Peace River area, which accounts for about 90 per cent of the province’s grain harvest. The small farms of the Lower Fraser River have the longest frost-free season in Canada and produce dairy and livestock products, vegetables, small fruits, and specialty crops such as blueberries, cranberries and flower bulbs. In the dry southern interior, agriculture flourishes only where irrigation systems have been established.

The narrow benches and terraces above Lake Okanagan are one of Canada’s three main fruit-growing regions and an important grape-growing area. The small, intensive farms produce apples, pears, peaches, cherries, plums, grapes and apricots. There are cattle ranches across small areas of grassland on the southern Interior Plateau, but not enough meat is produced to supply even the Vancouver market.

Despite the scarcity of high-quality agricultural land in BC, in the period from 1966–71 urban sprawl was consuming over 6,000 hectare of prime agricultural land per year. About 20 per cent of the prime agricultural land of the Lower Fraser and 30 per cent of the Okanagan had already been converted when in 1973 the Land Commission Actfroze the disposition of agricultural land for non-agricultural use, despite the great demand of it for housing, industry, hobby farms and country estates.

Forestry

Forestry was the main component of BC’s economy throughout the 20th century and continues to play an important role in the 21st century. Employment in this sector has declined over the past several years due to a variety factors, including the collapse of the US housing market after the 2008 financial crisis and the negative impact of the mountain pine beetle on interior forests. Exports of newsprint have been particularly affected by the growing popularity of online news sources and have declined by 80 per cent in the last two decades. However, forest products are still the province’s largest export commodity.

Commercial logging began in the 1840s on Vancouver Island and spread with the Fraser River Gold Rush of 1858. After the middle of the 19th century lumber mills were established in the southwest to supply the building needs of growing settlements and to export to nearby Pacific settlements. Temporary sawmills also operated near all of the scattered mining communities in the interior; some of these mills, located on the two main railway lines, were able to export lumber eastward to the growing Prairie towns in the early 20th century.

Lumber production expanded rapidly along the coast after the First World War, as the newly opened Panama Canal made eastern US and European markets more accessible to West Coast mills. Most lumber companies extended their logging camps northward along the coast and transported the logs by water to large sawmills around the Georgia Strait region. With minor exceptions, such as near Prince Rupert, this pattern of north coast primary cutting and south coast processing and export has been maintained.

Pulp and paper mills were established at a few places around the Strait of Georgia early in the 20th century, but these mills did not have large markets for newsprint and paper similar to the markets in the eastern US available to eastern Canadian mills. Unlike eastern mills, the pulp and paper mills of BC became integrated into existing sawmill operations and received much of their wood fibre raw material from product residue, such as sawdust and chips from adjoining lumber mills.

The pulp and paper industry remained coastal until the mid-1960s, when mills were opened in several places across the interior. This interior expansion was part of the general spread of the forest industry into the interior of the province stimulated by increased foreign markets, improved interior road and rail transport, new government concessions and cutting rights to forested areas, and a concern for possible depletion of the coast’s forest reserves.

Throughout the 1970s the interior produced about half of the value of provincial forest products. Early in the 20th century small sawmills disappeared along the coast, and after 1950 interior small sawmills also disappeared. These were replaced by large centrally located sawmills, sometimes with adjoining pulp and paper or paper mills.

Although water transport, often in self-dumping log barges, is still the chief means of transporting logs to the mills along the coast, water transport is rarely used in the interior — unlike the river-based log transport system which evolved in eastern Canada. Interior logs and finished forest products are all moved by road or rail and therefore all forestry-based settlements are located on the main railways or highways.

In 1986–87 the BC legislature passed three new acts dealing with the responsibilities of the Ministry of Forests in managing, protecting and conserving forest resources. Pressures on the industry increase as demands grow for preservation of the forests for recreation, wildlife, aesthetics, and as a resource for future generations. In the mid-1980s the industry, after dramatically increasing its penetration of the US market, was under pressure from US producers for alleged unfair competition (see Softwood Lumber Dispute). This dispute led to years of bitter negotiations and significant reductions in lumber exports to the US (see also Forest and; Forest Economics).

In the late 1980s the forestry sector came under increasing criticism for its forestry practices and the harvesting of old growth forests. Preservationists won some victories (Carmanah Valley and Clayoquot Sound) after initiating national and international campaigns. Through the Forest Reserve Act (1994) the provincial government is trying to prevent similar future confrontations by securing a commercial forest land base. In 2007 the government announced the Coastal Forest Action Plan, aimed at improving the sector’s competitiveness and encouraging a shift to harvesting second-growth trees.

Mining

In 2012, the mining sector made up almost 30 per cent of the province’s exports. Coal, copper and molybdenum make up the bulk of the materials mined. Gold, silver, lead and zinc are also of significance.

Mining became important in BC in 1858 with the Fraser Gold Rush and later discoveries in the Cariboo region. Between 1890 and 1910 the Kootenay region of southeastern BC became one of the most important mining areas of Canada. The huge smelter-refinery at Trail receives ore from BC, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

Coal was first mined near Port McNeill and soon after at Nanaimo on Vancouver Island in the mid-19th century. Immense coal deposits in the Fernie-Crowsnest Pass area were used by the Trail smelter and by the railways until both converted to diesel fuel. Both metallurgical and thermal coal is exported from southeastern BC to Japan and elsewhere. The younger sedimentary rocks of northeastern BC, like those of the interior plains of Alberta, are sources of coal, petroleum and natural gas. The latter two products are transported by pipelines to urban markets in southwestern BC and the adjoining northwestern states of the US.

Throughout the 20th century metal mines have opened and closed across the southern interior from Grand Forks to Princeton. In the early 1980s mining in the area was highlighted by large, open-pit copper mines southwest of Kamloops. Other metal mines across the Interior Plateau from near Williams Lake to Babine Lake in the northwest have produced intermittently.

Mines have also operated intermittently along the coast of BC for more than a century. Base-metal mines opened and closed near Stewart, northeast of Prince Rupert, and at several places on Vancouver Island. Iron ore and copper, to name just two examples, have been exported to Japan from coastal mines. Because nearly all of BC’s mineral production is consumed outside of the province, the fortunes of the mining industry are largely determined outside of the province’s boundaries.

Energy

British Columbia produces a surplus of energy in the form of electrical power, coal, petroleum and natural gas. Of these, two are of particular importance: BC is one of the largest natural gas producers in the country; and hydroelectricity is the province’s largest source of electrical power generation. BC Hydro, a Crown corporation, is the third largest electric utility in Canada. The British Columbia Transmission Corporation is also a Crown corporation, with the mandate to plan, build and operate BC Hydro’s electrical transmission system. In addition to these Crown corporations the province also has several private utilities companies, such as FortisBC, which owns transmission and distribution lines that connect with BC Hydro. There are also a small number of independent power producers that are connected to the electricity grid.

British Columbia’s reliance on hydroelectricity stems from its steep and rugged landforms and ample precipitation, which together produce enormous seasonal runoffs in numerous rivers and vast amounts of potential hydroelectric power. Hydroelectric power was first produced at the close of the 19th century from small rivers in the southwest for urban consumers in Victoria and Vancouver. The largest single power site in the southwest of the province prior to 1940 was developed on Bridge River, just east of the Coast Mountains. The southwestern power sources were sufficient for industrial and residential markets in the Georgia Strait region until the 1960s.

Around the turn of the century the Kootenay and other rivers in the southeast were dammed to produce electric power for the many local mines and towns. This power was ample until the 1960s. Following an international agreement, the Columbia River was dammed at Mica Creek in the “Big Bend” north of Revelstoke to help even out the flow of the river and make American downstream power plants more efficient (see Columbia River Treaty). In the 1970s, turbines were installed in the dam to produce electric power for metropolitan Vancouver.

The northeastern section of the province was the last developed for hydropower. As a result of technological improvements in long-distance transmission facilities it became possible to dam the Peace River where it spilled out of the Rocky Mountains and to send the power about 1,000 km south to the growing markets in metropolitan Vancouver. The Fraser River, occupying the central part of the province, is the greatest potential source of hydroelectric power, but technology has not yet solved the problem of using the river for both fish and power.

Fisheries

The most valuable fishery in British Columbia is Pacific salmon, which have two- to five-year cycles of river spawning, sea migration and return to the same spawning rivers. As the returning fish approach and concentrate off river mouths they are caught by large fishing vessels. Although most coastal rivers produce some salmon, the largest catches are obtained off the mouths of the Fraser and Skeena rivers. This method of harvest has resulted in seriously depleted fish stocks and a threat to the fishery as a whole. Salmon remains the most important catch, however, with landed value in 2010 reaching $570.3 million, or 66 per cent of the total landed value for all types of seafood caught in the province that year.

Other fish caught along the coast and offshore include herring, halibut and other groundfish such as cod and sole, as well as a large variety of shellfish, particularly oysters which are farmed at various locations along the coast.

Early in the 20th century salmon canneries were dispersed all along the BC coast close to the catching areas. However, the gradual introduction of improved boats, with longer ranges and refrigeration, resulted in the closing of most canneries on the central coast. Despite this, fish processing remains an important part of BC’s economy. Today, many of the plants are concentrated in the southwest.

Transportation

Land transportation has been funnelled into the narrow river valleys across the southern half of the province. The two transcontinental railways use the Fraser and Skeena valleys to cross through the western mountain barrier to reach the coast. Four passes through the Rocky Mountains have been used by the railways and, later, roads to enter BC from the east. From south to north these strategic passes are Crowsnest, Kicking Horse, Yellowhead and Pine.

The only south-north railway, BC Rail (originally called the Pacific Great Eastern), was owned by the provincial government before becoming privatized in 2004. In the 1950s it was extended from Vancouver through Prince George to the Peace River area in the northeast; another extension of the railway into the unoccupied area northwest of Prince George was halted in the 1970s. The Southern Railway of British Columbia is older than BC Rail, and the latter was a part of BC Hydro until 1988. It provides a freight service between Chilliwack and New Westminster, and onto Annacis Island on the Fraser River.

British Columbia lacked an interconnected highway system in the interior until the 1950s. The first paved road entirely across the width of the province, the Trans-Canada Highway, was not completed until 1962. Completed in 1990, the Coquihalla Highway was built to lighten traffic on trucking routes and to enhance regional tourism. Most roads still follow the valley floors — where people and settlements are — and therefore have a general south-north pattern, with fewer east-west links.

The provincial government is responsible for the construction and maintenance of all public roads in unorganized territory and for classified arterial highways through incorporated areas. Several parts of BC have little or no land transportation lines.

There are no roads along the long section of mainland coast between Powell River and Prince Rupert because of extremely high construction costs around the innumerable fjords, plus the lack of permanent settlements. Only one road crosses northwestern BC from Prince Rupert (and Stewart) to Cassiar and the Alaska Highway; the latter is the only road across northeastern BC. As part of its bid for the 2010Winter Olympics major improvements to a section of Highway 99 known as the Sea-to-Sky Highway linking West Vancouver to Whistler were completed in 2009.

Coastal British Columbia is served by an extensive ferry service which moves freight, cars and passengers across the Strait of Georgia. BC ferries service almost 50 ports of call along the coast, and small regional operators provide service to remote local communities. Small coastal boats, tugs and barges move natural resources, supplies and people along the sheltered “Inside Passage” between Vancouver Island and the mainland and northward to Prince Rupert, Haida Gwaii and the Alaska Panhandle. Early in the 20th century shallow-draft lake vessels operated during summer on the long, narrow lakes of the central and southeast interior, but they gradually disappeared after all-season highways were built.

All major cities in British Columbia are served by airlines, which, like rail, road and water transportation, further reinforce the dominance of metropolitan Vancouver and the densely occupied southwestern corner of the province.

Tourism and Recreation

British Columbia is known internationally for its outdoor recreation, particularly sportfishing, camping, hiking, boat cruising, driving for pleasure, skiing and hunting. The many provincial and federal parks showcase spectacular mountain scenery and varied local physical environments. The national parks are mainly in the mountains of eastern BC and include Yoho, Kootenay, Glacier and Mount Revelstoke. Pacific Rim National Park on western Vancouver Island has the longest continuous stretch of sand beach in the province.

In 1987 an agreement was reached to establish Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve in the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii). This unique rain forest is one of North America’s most diverse plant and animal wildlife habitats and is the ancestral home of the Haida, whose ancient sites and totem poles are of significant cultural value (see Anthony Island).

With 1,030 provincial parks and protected areas, BC has the largest parks system in Canada after the National Parks. These are classified into four types: recreation areas; class A parks, which are usually campsites and picnic grounds; larger class B parks, which include very large areas such as Garibaldi, Strathcona (BC’s first provincial park in 1911) and Tweedsmuir; and class C parks, which are small local recreation areas. Approximately 20 million people visit BC’s provincial parks and protected areas each year.

Government and Politics

Provincial Government

British Columbia is governed by a legislative assembly of 85 members elected from single-constituency ridings. Prior to the implementation of the Fisher Commission’s recommendations in 1991 two person ridings were common because of the disproportionate concentration of population living in the urban areas around Vancouver. After the commission’s recommendations were imposed new electoral districts were created that returned only one member each to the Legislative Assembly. A lieutenant-governor, appointed by Canada’s governor general on the advice of the prime minister, is the head of the provincial government in title only. Power resides with the premier of the province, who is the leader of the political party that won the most seats in the legislature in the previous election, which is held every four years on the second Tuesday in May. A cabinet is chosen by the premier from the majority party, and government service is provided by a civil service headed by deputy ministers with headquarters in Victoria.

The federal party lines of Liberal and Conservative were not introduced to the province until 1903, when Conservative Richard McBride became premier. The Liberal Party formed its first government in 1916, led by H.C. Brewster, and the Conservatives regained power in 1928 under Simon Tolmie.

Many labour leaders had come from Great Britain in the early 20th century and brought their experience as organizers with them. They gained early success in BC when legislation for improved working conditions and social services was introduced. The Labour Party elected members in 1920, 1924, 1928 and 1933.

Progressive and socialist parties emerged with the serious economic difficulties of the Great Depression. The Conservatives were nearly wiped out in the 1933 election, finishing behind the new Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), which won seven seats and 31 per cent of the vote, and the new Liberal government of Premier T.D. Pattullo which ruled for the next eight years. In the following years Premiers John Hart (1941–47) and Byron I. Johnson(1947–52), both Liberals, were called upon to lead coalition governments.

In 1952 a new party led by W.A.C. Bennett broke away from the Conservative Party and called itself Social Credit, after a similar party in Alberta. This party won a minority government in 1952 and then governed the province for 20 years during a period of enormous resource development and growth. This was particularly true in the interior of the province, which was being better interconnected and linked to the southwest coast by road-building programs and the northern extension of the British Columbia Railway to the Peace River area.

The New Democratic Party (formerly the CCF) became the Official Opposition in the 1960s with the virtual disappearance of the provincial Liberal and Conservative parties. The NDP formed government for the first time in 1972, led by David Barrett. The electorate tended to polarize in roughly equal numbers around the two parties, with Social Credit advocating free enterprise and government restraint, and the NDP advocating moderate socialism, and government economic and social involvement.

Social Credit regained power in 1975, led by William Bennett, son of W.A.C. Bennett, and was re-elected in 1979, 1983, and again in 1986 under a new leader, William Vander Zalm. Rita Johnston, Canada’s first female premier, succeeded Vander Zalm as leader of the scandal-plagued party as premier in 1991, only to be defeated at the polls later that year by the NDP, led by former mayor of Vancouver Michael Harcourt. That election saw Social Credit reduced to little more than a rump party and the return of the Liberals as a major force in BC provincial politics, forming the Official Opposition for the first time in 40 years. In 1996 the NDP won their second consecutive mandate, under Glen Clark. He resigned, under pressure, in August 1999. In 2001, Liberal Gordon Campbell came to power, and was re-elected with majorities in 2005 and 2009. In 2010, suffering from low popularity linked mostly to his imposition of the HST, Campbell stepped down as premier. He was succeeded by former deputy minister Christy Clark, who led the Liberals to a surprise majority in 2013. Although Clark did not win her seat in the May election, she won a by-election in Westside-Kelowna in July 2013.

Judiciary

The highest court in BC is the Court of Appeal, made up of a panel of three judges most of the time, with panels of five judges sitting for some important cases. The Supreme Court is lower than the Court of Appeal and has a Chief Justice, an Associate Chief Justice and 86 other justices. The Supreme Court hears both civil and criminal cases, and has jurisdiction over the trial of serious crimes in the province. BC also has provincial courts which hear criminal, family, child protection, small claims, traffic and criminal cases involving youth offenders. The Lieutenant Governor in Council (the Crown, in effect) appoints all provincial judges on the recommendation of the Judicial Council, which is made up of nine members. The attorney general is the chief law officer of the province, empowered to act in all litigation in which the province is a party. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for the administration of justice, policing and the provision of legal services.

Public Finance

Most of the provincial government’s revenue comes from taxes levied on a wide range of property and on the sales and incomes of citizens, companies and corporations. For example, there are taxes on non-municipal lands, gasoline, liquor and tobacco, and a general provincial sales tax. Provincial licences and permit fees include charges for the right to cut timber on crown land and for the use of other natural resources. A harmonized sales tax that combined the Provincial Sales Tax and the federal Goods and Services Tax was introduced in 2009, but was rejected in a 2011 referendum and the province returned to the old system in April 2013. The province receives a share of income tax which is collected by the federal government and returned to the province as part of various federal-provincial tax-sharing arrangements.

Most of the government’s expenditures go to education, health and social services. The latter includes hospitals, medical care, welfare and social-assistance payments. Part of public expenditure pays the salaries of civil servants who administer the government bureaucracy and provide services to citizens. The government also maintains ferries, which are more important in British Columbia than in other provinces, as well as roads and bridges.

Federal Representation

BC has six appointed senators in the federal Senate and 36 elected members in the federal House of Commons in Ottawa.

Local Government

Local governance in British Columbia includes municipal governments with elected mayors and councillors, and regional districts governed by a board of directors. There are 27 regional districts in the province, and each is further subdivided into electoral districts. Directors are elected from each electoral district, and every municipality in a regional district appoints one or more council members to the regional board. Established in the mid-1960s, regional districts are responsible for providing services to rural communities that do not have incorporated municipalities. Elections for both the regional boards and the municipal governments are held every three years. BC does not have township and county administrative units like other parts of Canada do.

Health

The British Columbia government runs the Medical Services Plan, which pays for most health costs, such as doctors, medical tests and treatments. The government’s Fair Pharmacare program provides assistance, tied to a family’s net income, with the cost of eligible prescription drugs and medical supplies, as well as dispensing fees. BC has six health authorities, five of which service various regions within the province. The sixth is the Provincial Health Services Authority, which operates provincial agencies such as the BC Children’s Hospital, BC Cancer Agency and BC Transplant, and ensures that residents of the province have access to specialized health care services. These health authorities operate under the guidance of the Ministry of Health, which sets province-wide goals, standards and performance agreements.

Education

Elementary schools were established in Victoria in 1852, a few years after a fort was built there by the Hudson’s Bay Co., and after 1858 they were maintained by the colonial government. The Public School Act of 1872 established a free provincial school system. The first secondary schools were available in Victoria in 1876 and in Vancouver in 1890.

The elementary and secondary education system in BC consists of kindergarten to grade 12. Public school education is provided for children from five to 19. The system is administered by local school boards, made up of elected local citizens, with financial support mainly from the provincial government. School is compulsory for children between the ages of 6 and 16. In 2012 there were over 1,600 public schools serving almost 550,000 elementary and secondary students.

Children who live in isolated areas or who are unable to attend school can study via distance learning (known as distributed learning in BC) where students are instructed by a BC certified teacher. Many of these courses are also available to adults wishing to finish their high school education. The curricula for school courses and programs are established by the Ministry of Education and are usually similar throughout all the schools in the province, which allows for student transfers from one district to another. Within this structure, however, individual schools and classes may adapt the curriculum for local needs. The BC College of Teachers is responsible for the certification of teachers in the province and examining qualifications of teachers from other areas.

Almost 367 fee-charging independent schools operate in BC with over 74,000students, or 12 per cent of all kindergarten to grade 12 students, enrolled. Private schools include Catholic, various Protestant, Waldorf, Montessori, Jewish, Sikh, Muslim and non-denominational schools. Schools that meet provincial curriculum and teacher certification criteria have access to partial funding. Post-secondary

Education

The public post-secondary education system in BC is structured to meet the increasing demand for advanced education and training, and has 11universities. The original university in the province was theUniversity of British Columbia, located on a scenic peninsula adjoining the western edge of Vancouver. Victoria College, affiliated with UBC, provided students with the first two years of university education; it was expanded to university status in 1963 (see University of Victoria). A new university, Simon Fraser, was built in Burnaby in 1965 to accommodate the greatly increased population of metropolitan Vancouver. In the mid-1990s three new universities opened their doors: University of Northern British Columbia (1994), Royal Roads University (1995) and the Technical University of British Columbia (1997). In 2008, five postsecondary institutions, including some university colleges, were changed to universities. These new universities were the University of the Fraser Valley, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Vancouver Island University, Emily Carr University of Art + Design and Capilano University. Most of these new universities serve a specific geographic area, and are designated as “special purpose teaching universities.”

In 1978 the provincial government created the Open Learning Institute, which in 1988 was combined with the Knowledge Network, BC’s educational television network, to form the Open Learning Agency, of which the British Columbia Open University was a part. In 2005 the distance education section of the Open Learning Agency, and British Columbia Open University’s courses and programs, were transferred to the Thompson Rivers University Open Learning program. Over 20,000 students enrol in Thompson Rivers Open Learning each year, and over 55 degree, diploma, and certificate programs are offered.

There are 11 public colleges in BC which attempt to meet the specific needs of the geographic region they serve. These are comprehensive institutions that provide programs ranging from literacy and academic upgrading to vocational and trades training. They also offer technical or career training and first- and second-year university transfer programs.

Cultural Life

Arts and Sports

Settlers and entrepreneurs from England came directly to the colonies and the new province, which meant that British influences were strong among the European population in the 19th century. In the 20th century British cultural characteristics were diversified by people from Eastern Canada who had second- or third-generation British origins. After 1950, internal migration from Eastern Canada rapidly increased BC’s population and brought the institutions, societies and cultural events, and activities found across the rest of Canada to BC. Many of Canada’s finest writers, such as Phyllis Webb and George Bowering, reside in BC.

The mixture of people from India, Pakistan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan and China add to West Coast culture, and Chinatown remains an enduring part of the urban landscape of central Vancouver.

West Coast native peoples have a highly developed culture (seeNorthwest Coast Aboriginal Art). Native arts and crafts have been revived in recent decades and have left their imprint on the broader society. The province’s most famous artist, Emily Carr, was profoundly influenced by native art, and Bill Reid was a famous Haida artist whose work gained international acclaim.

The BC government gives financial assistance to arts and cultural activity through the British Columbia Arts Council, an arms-length organization created in 1995. After the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver the provincial government also established the Sports and Arts Legacy to support British Columbians’ involvement in these fields.

Major museums, archives and art galleries are located in Vancouver and Victoria, and local museums are also maintained in several smaller cities in the interior. The Centennial Museum, H.R. MacMillan Planetarium and Gordon Southam Observatory, located on the waterfront in the western part of Vancouver, adjoin the Vancouver City Archives and the distinctive Vancouver Maritime Museum. The latter, in which the famous RCMP schooner St Roch is preserved, emphasizes the importance of the sea in Vancouver’s past and present.

The Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria is noted for its lifelike panoramas and displays and for the several floors of material illustrating the natural environment as well as Aboriginal and early European settlements. The UBC Museum of Anthropology, designed by Arthur Erickson, houses an impressive collection of Northwest Coast Aboriginal artifacts.

Numerous theatrical companies perform in Victoria and Vancouver. The Arts Club, the largest theatre company in Western Canada, operates three stages in Vancouver, and the Electric Company Theatre presents original works on its Vancouver stage. In Victoria, The Other Guys Theatre Company and the Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre offer works reflecting the culture of the area and productions of famous plays from the past.

The Vancouver Canucks have been in the NHL since the 1970–71 season and the British Columbia Lions in the CFL since 1954. The latter now play in BC Place — Canada’s first covered stadium. Vancouver acquired a professional basketball team in 1994, though they were sold and moved to Memphis in 2001.

Vancouver was host city for the 1954 British Empire Games (seeCommonwealth Games) and Expo 86. Forty years later, Victoria was the host for the Commonwealth Games. In 2010, Vancouver hosted the XXI Olympic Winter Games, where Canadian athletes won the most medals the country has ever won at a winter games, and set a record for the most gold medals won by a country at a single winter games.

Communications

All of the major cities have daily newspapers and the smaller coastal and interior cities publish weekly newspapers. Similarly, the major television and radio stations are in Vancouver and Victoria, but many smaller communities have their own radio and television stations. Most of the province’s book and magazine publishers are in Vancouver, which is both an attractive market for eastern publishers and media, and has a large enough share of the British Columbia population and income to be a sustainable market for local firms.

Heritage Sites

British Columbia’s historic sites include Fort Langley, the first fur-trading post in the Lower Fraser Valley, Barkerville, and Fort Steele. The provincial government also has numerous historical signs at scenic pull-off sites along all major highways.

source: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/british-columbia/