BRITISH COLUMBIA

British Columbia is Canada's most westerly province and the most mountainous region. Bordered to the East by the province of Alberta, to the North by the Yukon Territory and Alaska and to the South by several American States. With its western harbours being the gateway to the Pacific and Asia.

The variety of its landscapes is the main reason for British Columbia's distinctiveness: its 947,800 square kilometres offer remarkable contrasts. Where the Pacific reaches the continent, it encounters a chain of islands, large and small, running from north to south. Some of these islands are nestled in fjords carved in the majestic Coastal Mountains, which rise more than 2,000 metres above sea level.

To the east of the Coastal Mountains lies a rolling upland of forests, natural grasslands and lakes. Further east, the Rocky Mountains (with peaks more than 4,000 metres high) separate British Columbia from neighbouring Alberta. The province's climate varies greatly from its mild coastal region to parts of the interior where near desert-like conditions prevail.

The Aboriginal peoples of British Columbia developed one of the richest and most complex cultures north of Mexico. Because of the diversity of the Pacific coast, with a mild to cold climate, from seashore to the mountains, the tribes that settled in this area developed completely different cultures and languages. The coastal inhabitants were experts at wood sculpture, as their totem polls attest even today. They were also famous for their skill and courage in whaling.

In 1774 the first Europeans, under the flag of Spain, visited what is now British Columbia. In contrast with Eastern Canada, where the English and French were the two nationalities fighting over territory, Spain and Russia were the first countries to claim ownership of certain parts of British Columbia. In the 18th century, the Spanish claimed the West Coast from Mexico to Vancouver Island. At the same time, the Russians were making an overlapping claim for control of the pacific coast from Alaska to San Francisco.

In 1778, Captain James Cook of Great Britain became the first person to chart the region. The British established the first permanent colony, in present-day Victoria, in 1843. Because of this the majority of British Columbia's inhabitants are of British origin, but immigrants and descendants of immigrants of all nationalities enrich the population. More than 100,000 British Columbians are descendants of the thousands of Chinese who took part in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the late 19th century. The Japanese began to arrive in the 1890s, becoming merchants and fishermen. Today, Vancouver has North America's second-largest Chinese community.