British Columbia A Brief History

British Columbia's coat of arms bears the motto "Splendor sine Occasu", which means "Splendour without Diminishment".

Size
British Columbia's 948,600 square kilometres of splendour include spectacular mountain ranges, majestic fiords, arid plateaus, fertile river valleys, dense rain forests, 6,500 islands and 7,022 kilometres of rugged coastline.

Industries
Among British Columbia's most important industries are forestry, mining, fishing and agriculture. People from many cultures have participated in the building of this province. Thousands more choose it as their home each year.

People
For more than a century, this province and its resources have attracted hardy adventurers, shrewd entrepreneurs and pioneers in every field of endeavour. For generations before that, the tribal groups of British Columbia's native people lived close to the earth, carving a self-sufficient, richly complex culture from forest, stone and sea.

Today, the people of B.C. are as varied as its terrain. Some of us were born here; others chose to come from homelands around the world.

The first explorers and fur traders to arrive on the west coast of what is now British Columbia came from Spain, England, Russia, America, France and Scotland. Some arrived in sailing ships; some - like explorers Simon Fraser, Alexander Mackenzie and David Thompson - came in great canoes crewed by French-Canadian voyageurs. Some reaped profits from resources and moved on; others stayed.

Forts
As chains of fur forts established by men of the North West and Hudson's Bay companies opened up the west, frontier marriages joined Indian women with Scottish and English traders and French voyageurs. Then, in l827, trader James McMillan and his British, Scottish, French and Iroquois crew brought Canada's first Oriental immigrants - the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islanders - to British Columbia's Fraser Valley. The 'Kanakas", as they were called, worked beside expert French-Canadian axemen, clearing land and hewing timbers for Fort Langley. They, too, married into native families.

As colonies grew around the forts on the mainland and Vancouver Island, industrious and enterprising traders and settlers found ways to be self-sufficient and self-supporting. By the 1850's, B.C.'s fishing, mining, agriculture and lumbering industries had already begun. Fish caught by native fishermen were preserved, packed and shipped to overseas markets from Fort Langley; coal was mined on Vancouver Island; lumber was cut at the first sawmill in Victoria; and crops and dairy produce from Hudson's Bay Company farms at Colwood, Craigflower and Langley supplied both local and overseas markets.

Soon settlers from the east were attracted to the developing western frontier. By l857, French and French-Canadian missionaries, farmers, miners and merchants formed the largest ethnic group settled in the inland areas of the province.

Gold Rush
Then gold was discovered on the Fraser River. Over 20,000 newcomers poured across the border. Almost overnight, British Columbia's multicultural landscape changed dramatically.

This heavy influx of high-spirited gold-seekers from the United States led Britain to assert its claim formally to the Pacific mainland north of the 49th Parallel by declaring the territory a Crown Colony. On December l9, l858, James Douglas was sworn in at Fort Langley as Governor of 'British Columbia'.

The Gold Rush attracted not only miners and prospectors, but also men who could provide supplies and services. German, Austrian, Swiss, Italian and Scandinavian entrepreneurs were among those who headed north. Cattle ranches were established in the Cariboo and the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys to serve the needs of the mining communities. The first fruit trees in the Okanagan were planted by an Austrian rancher and an Oblate priest from Bohemia, Brother Pandosy, who founded the first permanent non-native settlement in the valley in l859.

The Chinese came in great numbers. At the peak of the Gold Rush, there were 5,000 Chinese in Barkerville alone. When the Rush was over, they moved to other B.C. centres, like Victoria, where communities were already established.

Black people from the San Francisco area were drawn to the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island, where rural land sold for 20 shillings an acre and town lots for $50.00. After nine months, black settlers could vote, be jurors and be protected by the law - rights denied to them at that time in the state of California. Some opened businesses in Victoria; others settled on farms on nearby Saltspring Island.

Jewish immigrants arrived from the U.S. and western Europe to establish a small but thriving community in Victoria. In l863, they built a synagogue that is still in use today.

German merchants and business people and families settled in Victoria, too, and later in Vancouver, where a community had begun to grow around Hastings Mills.

Canadian Railway
As the Canadian Pacific Railway moved west in the l880's, American contractor Andrew Onderdonk brought l5,700 Chinese to B.C. to work as labourers. The railway also employed Scandinavian, Frenchmen, Irishmen, Ukrainians, Lebanese, Poles and others from eastern Europe. Many of these men were prairie farmers needing cash for provisions.

Some of the Irish railway workers - skilled tradesmen known around the world as 'navvies' - stayed to settle in B.C. Other Irishmen established British Columbia's famous O'Keefe and Coldstream ranches. The Vernons of Coldstream gave their name to the town.

In the late nineteenth century, Scandinavians settled in several rural areas of B.C.; the Norwegians and Swedes on Fraser Valley farms near Matsqui and the Danes on the Cape Scott peninsula at Holberg. Others became fishermen off the B.C. coast. The Finns who worked on the C.P.R. moved on to the coal mines of Nanaimo and Wellington and to Sointula, on Malcolm Island in Queen Charlotte Sound, where they founded their own settlement.

Hungarians and Japanese came to work the fertile farmlands along the Fraser River. Some Japanese became market gardeners; others became fishermen.

Immigrants from India - mainly Sikhs - found work in the logging, lumber, dairy and fruit farming industries. Doukhobors moved en masse from Saskatchewan to farms in the Slocan and Kettle Valleys. In July l909, the Fraser River Lumber Company recruited French-Canadian lumbermen, who established a settlement at Maillardville. Some later moved to Port Alberni.
Croatians came, often via the U.S., to work in construction, fishing and mining industries. Mennonites arrived from Manitoba and the eastern U.S. in the l920's and from Alberta and Saskatchewan in the '30's and early '40's. They settled on farms around Yarrow, on Sumas Prairie, and at Aldergrove, Clearbrook and Abbotsford. Hungarians and Ukrainians also migrated from the prairies to B.C. farms and cities after the Depression.

Since World War II, people from Holland, Greece, Portugal, Latvia, Estonia, Italy, India, Latin America, and other countries have come in great numbers, contributing their skills to a variety of commercial and professional enterprises.

Recently, in response to political upheavals in their homelands, Hungarians, Czechs, Ugandans, Vietnamese and Poles have sought freedom in Canada. Now they are settled beside other British Columbians in communities large and small, all across our province.

Today, all of us reap the rewards of our multicultural history. B.C.'s First People, our native Indians, established our earliest traditions of conservation and wise use of resources; the first non-native founders of this province brought us British law, administration, education and social structure; and the many thousands of us who came as immigrants from every part of the world put our own cultural, religious, political, educational, social and commerical marks on our communities. We brought our strength as individuals and our skills as tradespeople, professionals, homemakers and parents.

We continue to search for new and better ways to live and work together; we strive for a society in which all British Columbians can lead satisfying and productive lives. Each of us has an important contribution to make.

Ucluelet History | About Ucluelet, BC

About Vancouver Island | British Columbia: A Brief History