British Columbia

C

Legislative

British Columbia has a unicameral (single-house) legislature, called the Legislative Assembly. It has 79 members elected from single-member geographical legislative districts by popular vote for a maximum of five years. The lieutenant governor, on the recommendation of the premier, may call for an election before the five-year period ends.

D

Judicial

There are three levels of courts in British Columbia: the B.C. Court of Appeal, The Supreme Court of B.C. and the Provincial Court. Justices of the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court are appointed by the governor-general of Canada in Council. Judges of the Provincial Court are appointed by the lieutenant governor of British Columbia in Council on the recommendation of the Judicial Council, which includes the Chief Judges, lawyers, and lay members.

E

Politics

The Conservative and Liberal parties dominated provincial politics from the beginning of the 20th century until the early 1950s. The right-wing Social Credit Party governed British Columbia from 1952 until 1972, combining fiscal conservatism with a pro-development stance. The social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) won a legislative majority in 1972. The Social Credit Party returned to power in 1975 and retained control until 1991, when the New Democrats won office for a second time. The NDP was reelected in 1996. It remained in power until 2001, when the Liberal Party became the ruling party.

IX

History

A

Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous peoples settled the British Columbia coast at least 10,000 years ago. In a resource-rich environment, they developed complex societies that were separated by 19 distinct languages. However, the material culture of these societies exhibited basic similarities. Although styles and decorative details differed from group to group, the indigenous peoples up and down the coast built large wooden winter dwellings. Groups of these dwellings formed villages with houses ranged along the beach, facing the water.

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Well before the arrival of Europeans in British Columbia, the indigenous peoples had vigorous economies that depended on intricate knowledge of local resources. Fishing, hunting, and gathering sustained large populations, and were pursued in a variety of ways. Fishing was done with baited hooks, spears, and nets. Bows and arrows, snares, nets, and traps were used for hunting land mammals and seabirds. Shellfish, berries, and edible roots were gathered on the coast and along the major rivers of the province. Several species of salmon yielded a catch sufficient to allow trade with other indigenous groups. Dugout canoes were common, and many everyday items, including house posts, ceremonial masks, and eating utensils, were decorated in ornate, regionally distinctive styles.

Social organization revolved around close kin units, with spouses from other kin units married into the group. These family groups occupied a house or cluster of houses in the winter village and followed a formal leader who was responsible for the family’s possessions, both material (house sites, fishing sites, berry patches) and nonmaterial (names, ritual performances, special songs). Some populations (in particular the Coast Salish) were decimated by European diseases at the turn of the 19th century, and others declined later in the face of a growing European presence in their traditional territories. The introduction of European clothing, tools, and ideas by traders and missionaries severely affected the culture of the indigenous peoples. This effect was worsened by government policies that both banned the ceremonial potlatch (a traditional gathering at which gifts were given) and forced compulsory education in European schools, where native languages were forbidden.

Despite these problems, parts of the culture have proven resilient. This resilience has formed the basis for a recent revitalization of indigenous culture. However, the question of land rights remains. The indigenous nations were often deprived of their land after white settlers arrived in British Columbia and in 1876 and again in 1912, they were forced onto reservations. To this day indigenous peoples of the West Coast argue forcefully for recognition of their land rights.

B

Early White Settlers

The Danish navigator Vitus Bering first sighted what is now British Columbia in 1741. In 1774 the coast was noted on charts by the Spanish explorer Juan Perez Hernandez. British trading with the indigenous peoples of the northern coast followed the visit of the British explorer Captain James Cook to Nootka in 1778. Into the 1790s, claims to the area were disputed by Britain and Spain, and in 1789 the Spanish seized British ships in Nootka Sound. Britain protested. Hostilities continued until 1794, when under the terms of the Third Nootka Convention, Spain and Britain accepted each other’s right to trade on the north Pacific coast, and in 1795 both countries withdrew from Nootka Sound.

British claims to the region were strengthened by the arrival of Sir Alexander Mackenzie on the coast in 1793. In the service of the fur-trading North West Company, Mackenzie navigated the Peace and Parsnip rivers from Lake Athabasca in search of an overland route to the Pacific. He crossed the low divide to the Fraser River, and found a low pass through the Coast Mountains to the sea near Bella Coola. Other fur traders from the interior followed, and a fur-trading post, Fort George, was built in 1807 on the site of present-day Prince George.

From this interior fur-trading region, the American-born trader and explorer Simon Fraser completed the exploration of the Fraser River, arriving at its mouth in July 1808. At about the same time, the Canadian surveyor and explorer David Thompson mapped the rivers of the Kootenay region, and in 1812 he explored the Columbia River to its mouth. In the early 19th century, the Hudson’s Bay Company (which merged with the North West Company in 1821) claimed trading rights through the Columbia District (present-day northwestern United States) and New Caledonia (current central British Columbia).

Fort Langley, the company’s first coastal trading post, was built in 1827 near the mouth of the Fraser River, and the company’s West Coast headquarters, Fort Victoria, was erected in 1843. When the Oregon Treaty of 1846 established the 49th parallel as the boundary between British and United States territory, Victoria became the center of British interests. In order to protect the territory, Britain proclaimed Vancouver’s Island (the old name of Vancouver Island) a crown colony in 1849, naming Victoria the capital. The first governor, Richard Blanshard, had little authority over the officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The British government acknowledged this fact in 1851 by naming the head of the Hudson’s Bay Company on the island, James Douglas, governor of the colony. In the same year the Queen Charlotte Islands were made a dependency of the Vancouver’s Island colony.

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