History of British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada. Originally politically constituted as a pair of British colonies, British Columbia joined the Canadian Confederation on July 20, 1871. Perhaps the most influential historian of British Columbia has been Margaret Ormsby. In British Columbia: A History (1958) she presented a structural model that has been adopted by numerous historians and teachers. Chad Reimer says," in many aspects, it still has not been surpassed." Ormsby posited a series of propositions that provided the dynamic to the history:

the ongoing pull between maritime and continental forces; the opposition between a "closed," hierarchical model of society represented by the Hudson's Bay Company and colonial officials, and the "open," egalitarian vision of English and Canadian settlers; and regional tensions between Vancouver Island and mainland, metropolitan Vancouver and the hinterland interior.

Human history in what has come to be known as British Columbia dates back thousands of years. Archaeology has identified dates in British Columbia as early as 13,500 years ago, with some exciting potential for underwater sites beginning to be detected.

The geography of the land influenced cultural development of the peoples - and in places, allowed for cultural development of permanent villages, complex social institutions and a huge range of languages. BC is divided by anthropological theory into three cultural areas - the Northwest Coast, The Plateau and the North. First Nations in each area developed customs and approaches to living that fit the resources in the region. Through much of British Columbia salmon are available and formed a substantial part of the diet where available. The term pre-contact is used to describe the time period prior to contact between First Nations and European explorers. The precise time of contact varied according to circumstance but took place on the coast between the 1770s and 1800. In places in the Interior it occurred later.

British Columbia, before the arrival of the Europeans, was home to many Indigenous peoples speaking more than 30 different languages, including Babine-Witsuwit'en, Danezaa (Beaver), Carrier, Chilcotin, Gitxsan, Haida, Halkomelem, Kaska, Kutenai, Lillooet, Nisga'a, Nuu-chah-nulth, Nuxalk, Sekani, Shuswap, Sinixt, Squamish, Tagish, Tahltan, Thompson, Tlingit, Tsetsaut, and Tsimshian. There was frequent contact between bands and voyages across the Strait of Georgia and the Strait of Juan de Fuca were common.

...
Wikipedia