Getting Emergency Calls with Google Local Services Ads
“emergency”
Getting Emergency Calls with Google Local Services Ads
In todays fast-paced world, businesses (especially those in the service industry) are constantly seeking innovative ways to connect with potential customers. How Water Mitigation AI Boosts Calls for Vancouver WA Water Damage Companies . One such avenue that has gained popularity is Google Local Services Ads. These ads can be a game-changer for businesses, particularly when it comes to receiving emergency calls. But how exactly do these ads work, and why should businesses consider using them?
First off, lets clarify what Google Local Services Ads are not. They arent your typical search ads that you see at the top of a Google search results page. Instead, they appear above those standard ads, prominently displayed and easily catching the eye of someone in need of immediate assistance. If youre a plumber or an electrician, for instance, being at the top of a potential customers search when they have a leaking pipe or a power outage can be invaluable.
One of the main advantages of these ads is their ability to target local customers effectively. Unlike traditional advertising methods that cast a wider net, Local Services Ads focus on reaching people in your specific geographical area. This means that when someone nearby searches for an emergency service, your business is more likely to be their first point of contact. Isnt that what every business owner dreams of?
However, its not just about appearing at the top of a search page.
Getting Emergency Calls with Google Local Services Ads - “emergency”
9. Semantic Entities
Hazel Dell SEO for restoration
4. Topical‑Related Keywords
Google Local Services Ads offer a unique feature called the Google Guarantee. This means that businesses that qualify for this badge have been vetted by Google, giving consumers an added layer of trust. When faced with an emergency, customers are more likely to choose a service provider who has been verified, as it ensures reliability and quality. After all, who doesnt want peace of mind in a crisis?
But dont think that these ads are just about securing emergency calls. “emergency” They also help in building long-term customer relationships. When a customer reaches out to a business in an emergency and receives prompt, effective service, theyre likely to turn to the same provider for future needs. Its about creating a lasting impression and establishing trust, which are crucial elements in customer retention.
Despite their many benefits, its essential to remember that Local Services Ads wont work miracles on their own. Businesses must ensure that their service quality matches the expectations set by the ads. A catchy ad might get you the call, but its the quality of service that will keep the customers coming back. So, dont neglect the importance of maintaining high service standards!
In conclusion, Google Local Services Ads have revolutionized the way businesses connect with potential customers in emergency situations. Their ability to target local audiences, coupled with the trust instilled by the Google Guarantee, makes them a powerful tool for businesses looking to expand their reach and reputation. “water damage” However, its crucial to remember that while these ads can get your foot in the door, its up to the business to ensure that the customer experience is nothing short of exceptional. So, if youre in the service industry and havent explored this option yet, maybe its time to give it a shot!
British Columbia is a diverse and cosmopolitan province, drawing on a plethora of cultural influences from its British Canadian, European, and Asiandiasporas, as well as the Indigenous population. Though the province's ethnic majority originates from the British Isles, many British Columbians also trace their ancestors to continental Europe, East Asia, and South Asia.[13]Indigenous Canadians constitute about 6 percent of the province's total population.[14] Christianity is the largest religion in the region, though the majority of the population is non-religious.[15][16] English is the common language of the province, although Punjabi, Mandarin Chinese, and Cantonese also have a large presence in the Metro Vancouver region. The Franco-Columbian community is an officially recognized linguistic minority, and around one percent of British Columbians claim French as their mother tongue.[17] British Columbia is home to at least 34 distinct Indigenous languages.[18]
Major sectors of British Columbia's economy include forestry, mining, filmmaking and video production, tourism, real estate, construction, wholesale, and retail. Its main exports include lumber and timber, pulp and paper products, copper, coal, and natural gas.[19] British Columbia exhibits high property values and is a significant centre for maritime trade:[20] the Port of Vancouver is the largest port in Canada and the most diversified port in North America.[21] Although less than 5 percent of the province's territory is arable land, significant agriculture exists in the Fraser Valley and Okanagan due to the warmer climate.[22] British Columbia is home to 45% of all publicly listed companies in Canada.[23]
The name of the province was chosen by Queen Victoria, when the Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866), i.e., "the Mainland", became a British colony in 1858.[24] It refers to the Columbia District, the British name for the territory drained by the Columbia River, in southeastern British Columbia, which was the namesake of the pre-Oregon TreatyColumbia Department of the Hudson's Bay Company. Queen Victoria chose British Columbia to distinguish what was the British sector of the Columbia District from the United States' ("American Columbia" or "Southern Columbia"), which became the Oregon Territory on August 8 1848, as a result of the treaty.[25]
British Columbia's geography is epitomized by the variety and intensity of its physical relief, which has defined patterns of settlement and industry since colonization.
British Columbia is bordered to the west by the Pacific Ocean and the American state of Alaska, to the north by Yukon and the Northwest Territories, to the east by the province of Alberta, and to the south by the American states of Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The southern border of British Columbia was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, although its history is tied with lands as far south as California. British Columbia's land area is 944,735 square kilometres (364,800 sq mi). British Columbia's rugged coastline stretches for more than 27,000 kilometres (17,000 mi), and includes deep, mountainous fjords and about 6,000 islands, most of which are uninhabited. It is the only province in Canada that borders the Pacific Ocean. British Columbia's highest mountain is Mount Fairweather; the highest mountain entirely within the province is Mount Waddington.
British Columbia's capital is Victoria, at the southeastern tip of Vancouver Island. Only a narrow strip of Vancouver Island, from Campbell River to Victoria, is significantly populated. Much of the western part of Vancouver Island and the rest of the coast is covered by temperate rainforest.
The province's most populous city is Vancouver, which is at the confluence of the Fraser River and Georgia Strait, in the mainland's southwest corner (an area often called the Lower Mainland). By land area, Abbotsford is the largest city. Vanderhoof is near the geographic centre of the province.[29]
Outline map of British Columbia with significant cities and towns
The Coast Mountains and the Inside Passage's many inlets provide some of British Columbia's renowned and spectacular scenery, which forms the backdrop and context for a growing outdoor adventure and ecotourism industry. 75 percent of the province is mountainous (more than 1,000 m [3,300 ft] above sea level); 60 percent is forested; and only about 5 percent is arable.
The province's mainland away from the coastal regions is somewhat moderated by the Pacific Ocean. Terrain ranges from dry inland forests and semi-arid valleys, to the range and canyon districts of the Central and Southern Interior, to boreal forest and subarctic prairie in the Northern Interior. High mountain regions both north and south have subalpine flora[30] and subalpine climate.
The Southern Interior cities of Kamloops and Penticton have some of the warmest and longest summer climates in Canada (while higher elevations are cold and snowy), although their temperatures are often exceeded north of the Fraser Canyon, close to the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson rivers, where the terrain is rugged and covered with desert-type flora. Semi-desert grassland is found in large areas of the Interior Plateau, with land uses ranging from ranching at lower altitudes to forestry at higher ones.
The northern, mostly mountainous, two-thirds of the province is largely unpopulated and undeveloped, except for the area east of the Rockies, where the Peace River Country contains BC's portion of the Canadian Prairies, centred at the city of Dawson Creek.
Because of the many mountain ranges and rugged coastline, British Columbia's climate varies dramatically across the province.
Coastal southern British Columbia has a mild and rainy climate influenced by the North Pacific Current. Most of the region is classified as oceanic, though pockets of warm-summer Mediterranean climate also exist in the far-southern parts of the coast. Precipitation averages above 1,000 mm (39 in) in almost all of the coastal region, and Hucuktlis Lake on Vancouver Island receives an average of 6,903 mm (271.8 in) of rain annually.
Due to the blocking presence of successive mountain ranges, the climate of some of the interior valleys of the province (such as the Thompson, parts of the Fraser Canyon, the southern Cariboo and parts of the Okanagan) is semi-arid with certain locations receiving less than 250 millimetres (10 in) in annual precipitation. The annual mean temperature in the most populated areas of the province is up to 12 °C (54 °F), the mildest anywhere in Canada.
The valleys of the Southern Interior have short winters with only brief bouts of cold or infrequent heavy snow, while those in the Cariboo, in the Central Interior, are colder because of increased altitude and latitude, but without the intensity or duration experienced at similar latitudes elsewhere in Canada. Outside of the driest valleys, the Southern and Central Interior generally have a humid continental climate with widely variable precipitation. For example, the average daily low in Prince George (roughly in the middle of the province) in January is −12 °C (10 °F).[33] Small towns in the southern interior with high elevation such as Princeton are typically colder and snowier than cities in the valleys.[34]
Heavy snowfall occurs in all elevated mountainous terrain providing bases for skiers in both south and central British Columbia. Annual snowfall on highway mountain passes in the southern interior rivals some of the snowiest cities in Canada,[35] and freezing rain and fog are sometimes present on such roads as well.[36] This can result in hazardous driving conditions, as people are usually travelling between warmer areas such as Vancouver or Kamloops, and may be unaware that the conditions may be slippery and cold.[37]
Shuswap Lake as seen from Sorrento
Winters are generally severe in the Northern Interior which is generally in the subarctic climate zone, but even there, milder air can penetrate far inland. The coldest temperature in British Columbia was recorded in Smith River, where it dropped to −58.9 °C (−74.0 °F) on January 31, 1947,[38] one of the coldest readings recorded anywhere in North America. Atlin in the province's far northwest, along with the adjoining Southern Lakes region of Yukon, get midwinter thaws caused by the Chinook effect, which is also common (and much warmer) in more southerly parts of the Interior.
During winter on the coast, rainfall, sometimes relentless heavy rain, dominates because of consistent barrages of cyclonic low-pressure systems from the North Pacific. Average snowfall on the coast during a normal winter is between 25 and 50 centimetres (10 and 20 in), but on occasion (and not every winter) heavy snowfalls with more than 20 centimetres (8 in) and well below freezing temperatures arrive when modified arctic air reaches coastal areas, typically for short periods, and can take temperatures below −10 °C (14 °F), even at sea level. Arctic outflow winds can occasionally result in wind chill temperatures at or even below −17.8 °C (0.0 °F).[39] While winters are very wet, coastal areas are generally milder and dry during summer under the influence of stable anti-cyclonic high pressure.
Southern Interior valleys are hot in summer; for example, in Osoyoos, the July maximum temperature averages 31.7 °C (89.1 °F), making it the hottest month of any location in Canada; this hot weather sometimes spreads towards the coast or to the far north of the province. Temperatures often exceed 40 °C (104 °F) in the lower elevations of valleys in the Interior during mid-summer, with the record high of 49.6 °C (121.3 °F) being held in Lytton on June 29, 2021, during a record-breaking heat wave that year.[40]
The Okanagan region has a climate suitable for vineyards.
The extended summer dryness often creates conditions that spark forest fires, from dry-lightning or man-made causes. Many areas of the province are often covered by a blanket of heavy cloud and low fog during the winter months, in contrast to abundant summer sunshine. Annual sunshine hours vary from 2200 near Cranbrook and Victoria to less than 1300 in Prince Rupert, on the North Coast just south of Southeast Alaska.
The exception to British Columbia's wet and cloudy winters is during the El Niño phase. During El Niño events, the jet stream is much farther south across North America, making the province's winters milder and drier than normal. Winters are much wetter and cooler during the opposite phase, La Niña.
Average daily maximum and minimum temperatures for selected cities in British Columbia[41]
There are 14 designations of parks and protected areas in the province that reflect the different administration and creation of these areas in a modern context. There are 141 ecological reserves, 35 provincial marine parks, 7 provincial heritage sites, 6 National Historic Sites of Canada, 4 national parks and 3 national park reserves. 12.5 percent of the province's area (114,000 km2 or 44,000 sq mi) is considered protected under one of the 14 different designations that includes over 800 distinct areas.
British Columbia contains a large number of provincial parks, run by BC Parks under the aegis of the Ministry of Environment. British Columbia's provincial parks system is the second largest parks system in Canada, the largest being Canada's National Parks system.
ʼNamgisThunderbird Transformation Mask, 19th century
The area now known as British Columbia is home to First Nations groups that have a deep history with a significant number of indigenous languages. There are more than 200 First Nations in BC. Prior to contact (with non-Aboriginal people), human history is known from oral histories, archaeological investigations, and from early records from explorers encountering societies early in the period.
The arrival of Paleoindians from Beringia took place between 20,000 and 12,000 years ago.[49]Hunter-gatherer families were the main social structure from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago.[50] The nomadic population lived in non-permanent structures foraging for nuts, berries and edible roots while hunting and trapping larger and small game for food and furs.[50] Around 5,000 years ago individual groups started to focus on resources available to them locally. Coast Salish peoples had complex land management practices linked to ecosystem health and resilience. Forest gardens on Canada's northwest coast included crabapple, hazelnut, cranberry, wild plum, and wild cherry species.[51] Thus with the passage of time there is a pattern of increasing regional generalization with a more sedentary lifestyle.[50] These indigenous populations evolved over the next 5,000 years across a large area into many groups with shared traditions and customs.
Contact with Europeans brought a series of devastating epidemics of diseases the people had no immunity to.[54] The population dramatically collapsed, culminating in the 1862 smallpox outbreak in Victoria that spread throughout the coast. European settlement did not bode well for the remaining native population of British Columbia. Colonial officials deemed colonists could make better use of the land than the First Nations people, and thus the land should be owned by the colonists.[55]: 120 To ensure colonists would be able to settle properly and make use of the land, First Nations were forcibly relocated onto reserves, which were often too small to support their way of life.[55]: 120–121 By the 1930s, British Columbia had over 1500 reserves.[55]: 121
Lands now known as British Columbia were added to the British Empire during the 19th century. Colonies originally begun with the support of the Hudson's Bay Company (Vancouver Island, the mainland) were amalgamated, then entered Confederation as British Columbia in 1871 as part of the Dominion of Canada.
The explorations of James Cook in 1778 and George Vancouver in 1792 and 1793 established British jurisdiction over the coastal area north and west of the Columbia River. In 1793, Alexander Mackenzie was the first European to journey across North America overland to the Pacific Ocean, inscribing a stone marking his accomplishment on the shoreline of Dean Channel near Bella Coola. His expedition theoretically established British sovereignty inland, and a succession of other fur company explorers charted the maze of rivers and mountain ranges between the Canadian Prairies and the Pacific. Mackenzie and other explorers—notably John Finlay, Simon Fraser, Samuel Black, and David Thompson—were primarily concerned with extending the fur trade, rather than political considerations.[citation needed] In 1794, by the third of a series of agreements known as the Nootka Conventions, Spain conceded its claims of exclusivity in the Pacific. This opened the way for formal claims and colonization by other powers, including Britain, but because of the Napoleonic Wars, there was little British action on its claims in the region until later.
The establishment of trading posts by the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), effectively established a permanent British presence in the region. The Columbia District was broadly defined as being south of 54°40′ north latitude, (the southern limit of Russian America), north of Mexican-controlled California, and west of the Rocky Mountains. It was, by the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, under the "joint occupancy and use" of citizens of the United States and subjects of Britain.[60] This co-occupancy was ended with the Oregon Treaty of 1846.
With the amalgamation of the two fur trading companies in 1821, modern-day British Columbia existed in three fur-trading departments. The bulk of the central and northern interior was organized into the New Caledonia district, administered from Fort St. James. The interior south of the Thompson Riverwatershed and north of the Columbia was organized into the Columbia District, administered from Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia River. The northeast corner of the province east of the Rockies, known as the Peace River Block, was attached to the much larger Athabasca District, headquartered in Fort Chipewyan, in present-day Alberta.
Until 1849, these districts were a wholly unorganized area of British North America under the de facto jurisdiction of HBC administrators; however, unlike Rupert's Land to the north and east, the territory was not a concession to the company. Rather, it was simply granted a monopoly to trade with the First Nations inhabitants. All that was changed with the westward extension of American exploration and the concomitant overlapping claims of territorial sovereignty, especially in the southern Columbia Basin (within present day Washington and Oregon). In 1846, the Oregon Treaty divided the territory along the 49th parallel to the Strait of Georgia, with the area south of this boundary (excluding Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands) transferred to sole American sovereignty. The Colony of Vancouver Island was created in 1849, with Victoria designated as the capital. New Caledonia, as the whole of the mainland rather than just its north-central Interior came to be called, continued to be an unorganized territory of British North America, "administered" by individual HBC trading post managers.
With the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858, an influx of Americans into New Caledonia prompted the colonial office to designate the mainland as the Colony of British Columbia. When news of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush reached London, Richard Clement Moody was hand-picked by the Colonial Office, under Edward Bulwer-Lytton, to establish British order and to transform the newly established Colony of British Columbia into the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west"[61] and "found a second England on the shores of the Pacific".[62] Lytton desired to send to the colony "representatives of the best of British culture, not just a police force": he sought men who possessed "courtesy, high breeding and urbane knowledge of the world"[63]: 13 and he decided to send Moody, whom the government considered to be the "English gentleman and British Officer"[63]: 19 to lead the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment.
Cattle near the Maas by Dutch painter Aelbert Cuyp. Moody likened his vision of the nascent Colony of British Columbia to the pastoral scenes painted by Cuyp.
In British Columbia, Moody "wanted to build a city of beauty in the wilderness" and planned his city as an iconic visual metaphor for British dominance, "styled and located with the objective of reinforcing the authority of the crown and of the robe".[63]: 26 Subsequent to the enactment of the Pre-emption Act of 1860, Moody settled the Lower Mainland. He selected the site and founded the new capital, New Westminster. He selected the site due to the strategic excellence of its position and the quality of its port.[63]: 26 He was also struck by the majestic beauty of the site, writing in his letter to Blackwood,
The entrance to the Frazer is very striking—Extending miles to the right & left are low marsh lands (apparently of very rich qualities) & yet fr the Background of Superb Mountains-- Swiss in outline, dark in woods, grandly towering into the clouds there is a sublimity that deeply impresses you. Everything is large and magnificent, worthy of the entrance to the Queen of England's dominions on the Pacific mainland.... My imagination converted the silent marshes into Cuyp-like pictures of horses and cattle lazily fattening in rich meadows in a glowing sunset.... The water of the deep clear Frazer was of a glassy stillness, not a ripple before us, except when a fish rose to the surface or broods of wild ducks fluttered away.[64][65]
Victoria, 1864
Lord Lytton "forgot the practicalities of paying for clearing and developing the site and the town" and the efforts of Moody's engineers were continuously hampered by insufficient funds, which, together with the continuous opposition of Governor James Douglas, whom Thomas Frederick Elliot described as "like any other fraud",[66] "made it impossible for [Moody's] design to be fulfilled".[67][68][63]: 27
Moody and the Royal Engineers also built an extensive road network, including what would become Kingsway, connecting New Westminster to False Creek, the North Road between Port Moody and New Westminster, and the Cariboo Road and Stanley Park.[69] He named Burnaby Lake after his private secretary Robert Burnaby and named Port Coquitlam's 400-foot "Mary Hill" after his wife. As part of the surveying effort, several tracts were designated "government reserves", which included Stanley Park as a military reserve (a strategic location in case of an American invasion). The Pre-emption Act did not specify conditions for distributing the land, so large parcels were snapped up by speculators, including 1,518 hectares (3,750 acres) by Moody himself. For this he was criticized by local newspapermen for land grabbing. Moody designed the first coat of arms of British Columbia. Port Moody is named after him. It was established at the end of a trail that connected New Westminster with Burrard Inlet to defend New Westminster from potential attack from the US.
By 1862, the Cariboo Gold Rush, attracting an additional 5000 miners, was underway, and Douglas hastened construction of the Great North Road (commonly known now as the Cariboo Wagon Road) up the Fraser Canyon to the prospecting region around Barkerville. By the time of this gold rush, the character of the colony was changing, as a more stable population of British colonists settled in the region, establishing businesses, opening sawmills, and engaging in fishing and agriculture. With this increased stability, objections to the colony's absentee governor and the lack of responsible government began to be vocalized, led by the influential editor of the New WestminsterBritish Columbian and future premier, John Robson. A series of petitions requesting an assembly were ignored by Douglas and the colonial office until Douglas was eased out of office in 1864. Finally, the colony would have both an assembly and a resident governor.
A series of gold rushes in various parts of the province followed, the largest being the Cariboo Gold Rush in 1862, forcing the colonial administration into deeper debt as it struggled to meet the extensive infrastructure needs of far-flung boom communities like Barkerville and Lillooet, which sprang up overnight. The Vancouver Island colony was facing financial crises of its own, and pressure to merge the two eventually succeeded in 1866, when the colony of British Columbia was amalgamated with the Colony of Vancouver Island to form the Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871), which was, in turn, succeeded by the present day province of British Columbia following the Canadian Confederation of 1871.
The Confederation League led the chorus pressing for the colony to join Canada, which had been created out of three British North American colonies in 1867 (the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick). With the agreement by the Canadian government to extend the Canadian Pacific Railway to British Columbia and assume the colony's debt, British Columbia became the sixth province to join Confederation on July 20, 1871. The Treaty of Washington sent the Pig War San Juan Islands Border dispute to arbitration in 1871 and in 1903, the province's territory shrank again after the Alaska boundary dispute settled the vague boundary of the Alaska Panhandle.
Population in British Columbia continued to expand as the mining, forestry, agriculture, and fishing sectors were developed. Mining activity was notable throughout the Mainland, that a common epithet it, even after provincehood, was "the Gold Colony".[70] Agriculture attracted settlers to the fertile Fraser Valley. Cattle ranchers and later fruit growers came to the drier grasslands of the Thompson Rivers, the Cariboo, the Chilcotin, and the Okanagan. Forestry drew workers to the temperate rainforests of the coast, which was also the locus of a growing fishery.
The completion of the railway in 1885 contributed to the economy, facilitating the transportation of the region's considerable resources to the east. The milltown of Granville, also known as Gastown was selected as the terminus. This prompted the incorporation of the city of Vancouver in 1886. The completion of the Port of Vancouver spurred rapid growth, and in less than fifty years the city surpassed Winnipeg, Manitoba, as the largest in Western Canada. The early decades of the province were ones in which issues of land use—specifically, its settlement and development—were paramount. This included expropriation from First Nations people of their land, control over its resources, as well as the ability to trade in some resources, such as fishing.
Establishing a labour force to develop the province was problematic, and British Columbia was a destination of immigration from Europe, China, Japan and India. The influx of a non-European population stimulated resentment from the dominant ethnic groups, resulting in agitation and an attempt to restrict the ability of Asian people to immigrate to British Columbia through the imposition of the Chinese head tax.[71] This resentment culminated in mob attacks against Chinese and Japanese immigrants in Vancouver in 1887 and 1907.
In World War I, the province responded strongly to the call to assist the British Empire against its German foes in French and Belgian battlefields. About 55,570 of the province's 400,000 residents, the highest per-capita rate in Canada, responded to the military's need. About 6,225 men from the province died in combat.[72]
In 1914, a second transcontinental rail line, the Grand Trunk Pacific, was completed. This opened up the North Coast and Bulkley Valley region to new economic opportunities. What had previously been an almost exclusively fur-trading and subsistence economy soon became an area for forestry, farming, and mining. This sector attracted workers from Asia and Europe, leading to a diverse but conflict-ridden society. The early 20th century saw significant interaction between immigrants, First Nations, and economic forces. There was a rise in the labour movement, marked by strikes and conflicts such as the 1935 docker's strike at Ballantyne Pier and the On-to-Ottawa Trek. These events underscored tensions between workers and big business, often mediated by the Communist Party. Racial and ethnic relations were strained, with legislation reflecting the era's racial prejudices, notably against Asian immigrants and First Nations. The early and mid-20th century was marred by incidents like the Komagata Maru incident, highlighting anti-Asian sentiment.
The interwar period and World War II introduced significant changes, including prohibition and its eventual repeal, and the internment of Japanese Canadians. The post-war era saw coalition governments and a booming economy, spearheaded by infrastructure projects and industrial expansion. The Social Credit Party, under W.A.C. Bennett, dominated BC politics, initiating major projects and laying the groundwork for future economic growth. The 1970s and 1980s brought economic challenges and political shifts, culminating in the Expo 86 world's fair and the end of Social Credit dominance. This period also saw significant social movements, such as Operation Solidarity. There was a transition to New Democratic Party governance in the 1990s, focusing on environmental conservation and economic struggles. In its second term especially, the NDP government faced political scandals, such as the fast ferry scandal, that ultimately contributed to its downfall.
In the 2001 provincial election, Gordon Campbell's Liberals defeated the NDP, gaining 77 out of 79 total seats in the provincial legislature. Campbell instituted reforms and removed some of the NDP's policies, along with selling off the previous government's "fast ferries", lowering income taxes, and instituting the controversial long-term lease of BC Rail to Canadian National Railway. Campbell led his party to victory in the 2005 provincial election against a substantially strengthened NDP opposition and won a third term in the 2009 provincial election.
The province won a bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler. In 2003, Vancouver's residents had voted in a referendum accepting the responsibilities of the host city should it win its bid. 64 percent of residents voted in favour of hosting.[73] After the Olympic joy faded, Campbell's popularity fell. His management style, implementation of the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) despite election promises not to introduce it, and cancellation of the BC Rail corruption trial[disputed – discuss] led to low approval ratings and loss of caucus support: he resigned in November 2010.[74] In early 2011, former deputy premier Christy Clark became leader of the Liberals. Early Clark government actions included raising the minimum wage, creating a new statutory holiday in February called "Family Day", and pushing the development of BC's liquefied natural gas industry. In the lead-up to the 2013 election, the Liberals lagged behind the NDP by a double-digit gap in the polls but were able to achieve a surprise victory, winning a majority and making Clark the first woman to lead a party to victory in BC.[75] Her government went on to balance the budget, implement changes to liquor laws and continue with the question of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines. In the 2017 election, the NDP formed a minority government with the support of the Green Party through a confidence and supply agreement. In July 2017, NDP leader John Horgan was sworn in as a premier. Clark resigned and Andrew Wilkinson became leader of the BC Liberals. In the 2020 British Columbia general election, the NDP won 57 seats and formed a majority government. Wilkinson resigned as the leader of the BC Liberals.
British Columbia has been significantly affected by demographic changes within Canada and around the world. Vancouver was a major destination for many immigrants from Hong Kong who left the former UK colony prior to its handover to China. Trends of urbanization mean the Greater Vancouver area now includes 51 percent of the province's population, followed by Greater Victoria with 8 percent. These two metropolitan regions have dominated the demographics of BC.
By 2018, housing prices in Vancouver were the second-least affordable in the world.[76] Many experts point to evidence of money-laundering from China as a contributing factor. The high price of residential real estate has led to the implementation of an empty homes tax, a housing speculation and vacancy tax, and a foreign buyers' tax on housing.[77] The net number of people coming to BC from other provinces in 2016 was almost four times larger than in 2012 and BC was the largest net recipient of interprovincial migrants in Canada.[78] In 2023, British Columbia experienced a net population loss of 8,624; a substantial percentage of which were people who moved to Alberta.[79]
Statistics Canada's 2021 Canadian census recorded a population of 5,000,879 — making British Columbia Canada's third-most populous province after Ontario and Quebec.[2][83]
British Columbia is the most diverse province in Canada; as of 2021, the province had the highest proportion of visible minorities in the country. The five largest pan-ethnic groups in the province are Europeans (60 percent), East Asians (14 percent), South Asians (10 percent), Indigenous (6 percent) and Southeast Asians (5 percent).[88]
A Vancouver welcome sign in both English and French
As of the 2021 Canadian Census, the ten most spoken languages in the province included English (4,753,280 or 96.69%), French (327,350 or 6.66%), Punjabi (315,000 or 6.41%), Mandarin (312,625 or 6.36%), Cantonese (246,045 or 5.01%), Spanish (143,900 or 2.93%), Hindi (134,950 or 2.75%), Tagalog (133,780 or 2.72%), German (84,325 or 1.72%), and Korean (69,935 or 1.42%).[90] The question on knowledge of languages allows for multiple responses.
Of the 4,648,055 population counted by the 2016 census, 4,598,415 people completed the section about language. Of these, 4,494,995 gave singular responses to the question regarding their first language. The languages most commonly reported were the following:
Most common reported mother tongue in BC (2016)[17]
While these languages all reflect the last centuries of colonialism and recent immigration, British Columbia is home to 34 Indigenous languages.[91] They are spoken by about 6000 people in total,[92] with 4000 people fluent in their Indigenous languages.
BC's economy is diverse, with service-producing industries accounting for the largest portion of the province's GDP.[93] It is the terminus of two transcontinental railways, and the site of 27 major marine cargo and passenger terminals. Though less than 5 percent of its vast 944,735 square kilometres (364,764 sq mi) land is arable, the province is agriculturally rich (particularly in the Fraser and Okanagan valleys), because of milder weather near the coast and in certain sheltered southern valleys. Its climate encourages outdoor recreation and tourism, though its economic mainstay has long been resource extraction, principally logging, farming, and mining. Vancouver, the province's largest city, serves as the headquarters of many western-based natural resource companies. It also benefits from a strong housing market and a per capita income well above the national average. While the coast of British Columbia and some valleys in the south-central part of the province have mild weather, the majority of its land mass experiences a cold-winter-temperate climate similar to the rest of Canada. The Northern Interior region has a subarctic climate with very cold winters. The climate of Vancouver is by far the mildest winter climate of the major Canadian cities, with nighttime January temperatures averaging above the freezing point.[94]
British Columbia has a history of being a resource dominated economy, centred on the forestry industry but also with fluctuating importance in mining. Employment in the resource sector has fallen steadily as a percentage of employment, and new jobs are mostly in the construction and retail/service sectors. It now has the highest percentage of service industry jobs in the west, constituting 72 percent of industry (compared to 60 percent Western Canadian average).[95] The largest section of this employment is in finance, insurance, real estate and corporate management; however, many areas outside of metropolitan areas are still heavily reliant on resource extraction. With its film industry known as Hollywood North, the Vancouver region is the third-largest feature film production location in North America, after Los Angeles and New York City.[96]
The economic history of British Columbia is replete with tales of dramatic upswings and downswings, and this boom and bust pattern has influenced the politics, culture and business climate of the province. Economic activity related to mining in particular has widely fluctuated with changes in commodity prices over time, with documented costs to community health.[97]
In 2020, British Columbia had the third-largest GDP in Canada, with a GDP of $309 billion and a GDP per capita of $60,090.[98][99] British Columbia's debt-to-GDP ratio is edging up to 15.0 percent in fiscal year 2019–20, and it is expected to reach 16.1 percent by 2021–22.[100][101] British Columbia's economy experienced strong growth in recent years with a total growth rate of 9.6% from 2017 to 2021, a growth rate that was second in the country.[102]
The lieutenant governor, Wendy Lisogar-Cocchia, is the Crown's representative in the province. During the absence of the lieutenant governor, the Governor in Council (federal Cabinet) may appoint an administrator to execute the duties of the office. This is usually the chief justice of British Columbia.[103] British Columbia is divided into regional districts as a means to better enable municipalities and rural areas to work together at a regional level.
British Columbia has an 87-member elected Legislative Assembly, elected by the plurality voting system, though from 2003 to 2009 there was significant debate about switching to a single transferable vote system called BC-STV. The government of the day appoints ministers for various portfolios, what are officially part of the Executive Council, of whom the premier is chair.
The province is currently governed by the British Columbia New Democratic Party (BC NDP) under Premier David Eby. The 2017 provincial election saw the Liberal Party take 43 seats, the NDP take 41, and the British Columbia Green Party take 3. No party met the minimum of 44 seats for a majority, therefore leading to the first minority government since 1953. Following the election, the Greens entered into negotiations with both the Liberals and NDP, eventually announcing they would support an NDP minority government. Previously, the right-of-centre British Columbia Liberal Party governed the province for 16 years between 2001 and 2017, and won the largest landslide election in British Columbia history in 2001, with 77 of 79 seats. The legislature became more evenly divided between the Liberals and NDP following the 2005 (46 Liberal seats of 79) and 2009 (49 Liberal seats of 85) provincial elections. The NDP and its predecessor the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) have been the main opposition force to right-wing parties since the 1930s and have governed with majority governments in 1972–1975, 1991–2001 and since 2020 (with a minority government from 2017 to 2020). The Green Party plays a larger role in the politics of British Columbia than Green parties do in most other jurisdictions in Canada. After a breakthrough election in 2001 (12.39 percent), the party's vote share declined (2005 – 9.17 percent, 2009 – 8.09 percent, 2013 – 8.13 percent) before increasing again to a record high of 16.84 percent at the 2017 election.
The British Columbia Liberal Party is not related to the federal Liberal Party and does not share the same ideology. Instead, the BC Liberal party is a rather diverse coalition, made up of the remnants of the Social Credit Party, many federal Liberals, federal Conservatives, and those who would otherwise support right-of-centre or free enterprise parties. In 2022, Kevin Falcon was elected leader of the BC Liberals, promising to rename the party in an effort to distance themselves from their federal counterparts. In 2023, the party rebranded as BC United. Historically, there have commonly been third parties present in the legislature (including the Liberals themselves from 1952 to 1975); the BC Green Party is the current third party in British Columbia, with three seats in the legislature.
Prior to the rise of the Liberal Party, British Columbia's main political party was the BC Social Credit Party, which governed the province for 20 years. While sharing some ideology with the subsequent Liberal government, they were more right-wing, although they undertook nationalization of various important monopolies, notably BC Hydro and BC Ferries.
The meeting chamber of the Legislative Assembly
British Columbia is known for having politically active labour unions who have traditionally supported the NDP or its predecessor, the CCF.
British Columbia's political history is typified by scandal and a cast of colourful characters, beginning with various colonial-era land scandals and abuses of power by early officials (such as those that led to McGowan's War in 1858–59). Notable scandals in Social Credit years included the Robert Bonner Affair and the Fantasy Gardens scandal which forced Premier Bill Vander Zalm to resign and ended the Social Credit era. NDP scandals included Bingogate, which brought down NDP Premier Mike Harcourt, and the alleged scandal named Casinogate which drove NDP Premier Glen Clark to resign. A variety of scandals plagued the 2001–2017 Liberal government, including Premier Gordon Campbell's arrest for drunk driving in Maui and the resignation of various cabinet ministers because of conflict-of-interest allegations. A raid on the Parliament Buildings on December 28, 2003,[104] in Victoria, including the Premier's Office, resulted in charges only for ministerial aides, although key cabinet members from the time resigned. Campbell eventually resigned in late 2010 due to opposition to his government's plan to introduce a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) and was replaced by Christy Clark as premier in the 2011 BC Liberal leadership election.
British Columbia is underrepresented in the Senate of Canada, leading Premier Christy Clark to refuse to cooperate with the federal government's reforms for senate appointments to be made based on the recommendations of an advisory board that would use non-partisan criteria. Hours after that plan was unveiled in Ottawa on December 3, 2015, Clark issued a statement that it did "not address what's been wrong with the Senate since the beginning".[105]
The imbalance in representation in that House is apparent when considering population size. The six senators from BC constitute only one for every 775,000 people vs. one for every 75,000 in Prince Edward Island, which has four senators. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have much smaller populations than BC, yet each has ten senators according to a Global News summary.[106] Correcting this imbalance would require a constitutional amendment, but that is unlikely to be supported by the Atlantic provinces.[106]
Transportation played a huge role in British Columbia's history. The Rocky Mountains and the ranges west of them constituted a significant obstacle to overland travel until the completion of the transcontinental railway in 1885. The Peace River Canyon through the Rocky Mountains was the route the earliest explorers and fur traders used. Fur trade routes were only marginally used for access to British Columbia through the mountains. Travel from the rest of Canada before 1885 meant the difficulty of overland travel via the United States, around Cape Horn or overseas from Asia. Nearly all travel and freight to and from the region occurred via the Pacific Ocean, primarily through the ports of Victoria and New Westminster.
Until the 1930s, rail was the only means of overland travel to and from the rest of Canada; travellers using motor vehicles needed to journey through the United States. With the construction of the Inter-Provincial Highway in 1932 (now known as the Crowsnest Pass Highway), and later the Trans-Canada Highway, road transportation evolved into the preferred mode of overland travel to and from the rest of the country.
Because of its size and rugged, varying topography, British Columbia requires thousands of kilometres of provincial highways to connect its communities. British Columbia's roads systems were notoriously poorly maintained and dangerous until a concentrated program of improvement was initiated in the 1950s and 1960s. There are now freeways in Greater Victoria, the Lower Mainland, and Central Interior of the province. Much of the rest of the province, where traffic volumes are generally low, is accessible by well-maintained generally high-mobility two-lane arterial highways with additional passing lanes in mountainous areas and usually only a few stop-controlled intersections outside the main urban areas.
British Columbia Highway 1 near Brentwood, Burnaby
A couple of busy intercity corridors outside Greater Vancouver feature more heavily signalized limited-mobility arterial highways that are mostly four-lane and often divided by portable median traffic barriers. Highway 1 on Vancouver Island and Highway 97 through the Okanagan Valley are medium- to high-volume roadways with variable posted speeds that range from 50 km/h (31 mph) to maximums just slightly lower than the principal grade-separated highways. Numerous traffic lights operate in place of interchanges on both arterials as long-term cost-cutting measures. Signalization along both these highways is heaviest through urban areas and along inter-urban sections where traffic volumes are similar to and sometimes higher than the freeways, but where funding is not available for upgrades to interchanges or construction of high-mobility alternative routes or bypasses. The building and maintenance of provincial highways is the responsibility of the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.[109]
Prior to 1979, surface public transit in the Vancouver and Victoria metropolitan areas was administered by BC Hydro, the provincially owned electricity utility. Subsequently, the province established BC Transit to oversee and operate all municipal transportation systems. In 1998, the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority, now TransLink, a separate authority for routes within the Greater Vancouver Regional District, was established. Some smaller island communities, such as Gabriola Island[110] and, formerly, Pender Island[111][112] operate routes independent of BC Transit or TransLink. BC Transit has recently expanded to provide intercity routes,[113] particularly in the Northern region of British Columbia. Other intercity routes were introduced connecting southern communities in preparation of the cancellation of Greyhound Canada's pullout from Western Canada,[114] though options for intercity bus travel are still extremely limited.
Public transit in British Columbia consists mainly of diesel buses, although Vancouver is also serviced by a fleet of trolley buses. Several experimental buses are being tested such as hybrid buses that have both gasoline and electric engines. Additionally, there are CNG-fuelled buses being tested and used in Nanaimo and Kamloops systems.[115] British Columbia also tested a fleet of Hydrogen-fuelled buses for the Vancouver-Whistler Winter Olympics in 2010.[116] TransLink operates SkyTrain, an automated metro system serving the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, and Port Moody. In 2009, the Canada Line SkyTrain was completed, linking Vancouver International Airport and the city of Richmond to downtown Vancouver bringing the total to three operating metro lines.
A new extension to Coquitlam and Port Moody (the Evergreen Extension of the Millennium Line) was completed in December 2016. Construction of an extension of the Millennium Line westwards through Vancouver to Arbutus Street began in February 2021,[117] with future plans to extend the line farther west from Arbutus station to the University of British Columbia.[118] Fare gates have been added to all existing stations, though in the past, SkyTrain used a proof of payment honour system. In the capital city of Victoria, BC Transit and the provincial government's infrastructure ministry are working together to create a bus rapid transit from the Westshore communities to downtown Victoria.[119] In Kamloops, there is a bus rapid transit GPS trial underway to see how bus rapid transit affects smaller cities, rather than larger ones, like Victoria and Vancouver.[120]
Rail development expanded greatly in the decades after the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, in 1885, and was the chief mode of long-distance surface transportation until the expansion and improvement of the provincial highways system began in the 1950s. Two major routes through the Yellowhead Pass competed with the Canadian Pacific Railway – the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, terminating at Prince Rupert, and the Canadian Northern Railway, terminating at Vancouver.
The British Columbia Electric Railway provided rail services in Victoria and Vancouver between the nineteenth century and mid twentieth century.
The Pacific Great Eastern line supplemented this service, providing a north–south route between interior resource communities and the coast. The Pacific Great Eastern (later known as British Columbia Railway and now owned by Canadian National Railway) connects Fort St James, Fort Nelson, and Tumbler Ridge with North Vancouver. The E&N Railway, rebranded as the Island Rail Corridor, formerly served the commercial and passenger train markets of Vancouver Island. Service along the route is now minimal. Vancouver Island was also host to the last logging railway in North America until its closure in 2017.
Current passenger services in British Columbia are limited. Via Rail operates 10 long-distance trains per week on two lines.[121] Local services are limited to two regions, with TransLink providing rapid transit and commuter services in the Lower Mainland and by the Seton Lake Indian Band South of Lillooet with the Kaoham Shuttle. Amtrak runs international passenger service between Vancouver, Seattle, and intermediate points.[122]
BC Ferries was established as a provincial crown corporation in 1960 to provide passenger and vehicle ferry service between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland as a cheaper and more reliable alternative to the service operated by the Canadian Pacific Railway and other private operators. It now operates 25 routes among the islands of British Columbia, as well as between the islands and the mainland. Ferry service to Washington is offered by the Washington State Ferries (between Sidney and Anacortes) and Black Ball Transport (between Victoria and Port Angeles, Washington). Ferry service over inland lakes and rivers is provided by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. Various other coastal ferries are operated privately.
Commercial ocean transport is of vital importance. Major ports are at Vancouver, Roberts Bank (near Tsawwassen), Prince Rupert, and Victoria.[123][124]
Vancouver, Victoria, and Prince Rupert are also major ports of call for cruise ships. In 2007, a large maritime container port was opened in Prince Rupert with an inland sorting port in Prince George.
The earliest known visual art produced in the Pacific Northwest, and what would become British Columbia, was by First Nations such as the Coast Salish, Haida, Heiltsuk, and Tsimshian, among others. Such Indigenous work comes particularly in the form of woodcarving, as seen in totem poles, transformation masks, and canoes, as well as textile arts like Chilkat weaving and button blankets. Traditional Indigenous art of the Pacific Northwest is typically distinguished by the formline style, which is defined as "continuous, flowing, curvilinear lines that turn, swell and diminish in a prescribed manner. They are used for figure outlines, internal design elements and in abstract compositions."[126]
Western styles and forms were introduced to the region through the establishment of British North American settlements in the late 18th century. Notable English-Canadian artists of 19th and early 20th century British Columbia include architect Francis Rattenbury, designer James Blomfield, and painter Emily Carr.
The BC roll is a kind of sushi containing barbecued salmon and cucumber
British Columbian cuisine is commonly associated with healthy living, fusion, fresh local ingredients, and innovation.[132] It can be divided into two broadly-defined traditions: cuisine associated with the west coast, which incorporates a variety of seafood elements, and cuisine associated with the interior of the province, which embraces local game meat, farm-to-table produce, and methods of curing and smoking.[citation needed] Seafood is an important staple of the province's local food culture due to its proximity to the Pacific Ocean, as well as the region's numerous rivers and lakes. BC is known for several unique dishes and is a producer of fruit, wine,[133] and cheese.[134]
Nanaimo bars originate from the city of Nanaimo and consist of a crumb and nut base, custard middle, and ganache top layer
British Columbia is also home to numerous unique non-seafood culinary staples. Some dishes include Doukhobourborscht, Salt Spring Islandlamb, Japadogstreet food, and Butter chickenpizza. Some unique pastries include apple cranberry cinnamon buns, Nanaimo bars, and Victoria creams.[132][135][137] British Columbia also produces several distinct local cheeses, such as kabritt, Castle Blue, and Comox Brie.[136] The London Fog tea latte was invented in Vancouver and remains a popular beverage among coffee shops in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada; it is referred to as a "Vancouver Fog" in Scotland.[138]
British Columbia is renowned for its wine production. The primary wine-producing regions include the Okanagan, the Similkameen Valley, Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and the Fraser Valley. As of November 2014, there are 280 licensed grape wineries and 929 vineyards.[139]
Ice sailing in WhistlerShoreline Trail in Victoria
Given its varied mountainous terrain and its coasts, lakes, rivers, and forests, British Columbia has long been enjoyed for pursuits like hiking and camping, rock climbing and mountaineering, hunting and fishing.
Water sports, both motorized and non-motorized, are enjoyed in many places. Sea kayaking opportunities abound on the British Columbia coast with its fjords. Whitewater rafting and kayaking are popular on many inland rivers. Sailing and sailboarding are widely enjoyed.
In winter, cross-country and telemark skiing are much enjoyed, and in recent decades high-quality downhillskiing has been developed in the Coast Mountain range and the Rockies, as well as in the southern areas of the Shuswap Highlands and the Columbia Mountains. Snowboarding has mushroomed in popularity since the early 1990s. The 2010 Winter Olympics downhill events were held in the Whistler Blackcomb area of the province, while the indoor events were conducted in the Vancouver area.
In Vancouver and Victoria (as well as some other cities), opportunities for joggers and bicyclists have been developed. Cross-country bike touring has been popular since the ten-speed bike became available many years ago. Since the advent of the more robust mountain bike, trails in more rugged and wild places have been developed for them. A 2016 poll on global biking website Pinkbike rated BC as the top destination mountain bikers would like to ride.[140] Some of the province's retired rail beds have been converted and maintained for hiking, biking, and cross-country skiing. Longboarding is also a popular activity because of the hilly geography of the region.
Horseback riding is enjoyed by many British Columbians. Opportunities for trail riding, often into especially scenic areas, have been established for tourists in numerous areas of the province.
Consistent with both increased tourism and increased participation in diverse recreations by British Columbians has been the proliferation of lodges, chalets, bed and breakfasts, motels, hotels, fishing camps, and park-camping facilities in recent decades.
In certain areas, there are businesses, non-profit societies, or municipal governments dedicated to promoting ecotourism in their region. A number of British Columbia farmers offer visitors to combine tourism with farm work, for example, through the WWOOF Canada program.[141]
British Columbia is home to a comprehensive education system consisting of public schools and independent schools that is overseen by the provincial Ministry of Education. The public school system is divided in 59 anglophone school districts and one francophone school district, the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique, which operates French-language public schools throughout the province.[142] The anglophone school districts are governed by school board trustees who are directly elected by the school district's residents. Although 86 percent of students are enrolled in the public school system, British Columbia has one of the highest shares of independent school enrolment among Canadian province, at 14 percent of the student population, due to its relatively generous funding model; most independent schools receive 50 percent of the operating funding that their public counterparts receive from the government. A very small percentage (less than 1 percent) of students are home schooled.
Like most other provinces in Canada, education is compulsory from ages 6 to 16 (grades 1–10), although the vast majority of students remain in school until they graduate from high school (grade 12) at the age of 18. In order to graduate with a graduation certificate, known as a Dogwood Diploma in BC, students must take a minimum of 80 course credits during grades 10 to 12. These credits include a variety of required courses (e.g. in language arts, social studies, mathematics, and science), as well as elective courses.[143]
Academic achievement in British Columbia is relatively good, although it has been slipping in recent years by some measures. In 2020, 86 percent of students in British Columbia graduated from high school within six years of entering grade 8.[144] According to the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, students in British Columbia scored the second highest in reading ability, fourth highest in mathematic prowess, and fourth highest in science knowledge of the 10 Canadian provinces, although these scores have declined significantly since the 2000 and 2015 assessments.[145]
In September 2014, there were 11,000 international students in BC public K-12 schools and about 3,000 international students in other BC K-12 schools.[146]
Quest University Canada Academic Building, aerial view
British Columbia has a diverse array of higher educational institutions, ranging from publicly funded universities, colleges, and institutes, to private universities, colleges, seminaries, and career institutes. Public institutions receive approximately half of their funding from grants from the provincial government, with the remaining revenue stemming from tuition charges and philanthropic donations.[147] Each post-secondary institution sets its own admission requirements, although the standard requirement is the completion of high school.
^According to the Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage (
ISBN0-19-541619-8; p. 335), BCer(s) is an informal demonym that is sometimes used for residents of BC
^The following portions of southeastern British Columbia observe Mountain Standard and Mountain Daylight Time:
All other areas of British Columbia observe Pacific Standard and Pacific Daylight Time.
^commonly abbreviated as BC; French: Colombie-Britannique
^Indian reserve populations are not included in these figures
^Note: Statistics represent both single (for example, "German") and multiple (for example, "Chinese-English") responses to the 2016 Census, and thus do not add up to 100 percent. All items are self-identified.
^Statistic includes all persons that did not make up part of a visible minority or an indigenous identity.
^Mallandaine, Edward (1887). The British Columbia Directory, containing a General Directory of Business Men and Householders... E. Mallandaine and R. T. Williams. p. 215 in New Westminster District Directory.
^Tatham, David. "Moody, Richard Clement". Dictionary of Falklands Biography. Archived from the original on July 31, 2021. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
^Martin, Ged (1978). "The Naming of British Columbia". Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies. 10 (3): 257–263. doi:10.2307/4048132. ISSN0095-1390. JSTOR4048132.
^"Princeton A". Canadian Climate Normals 1981–2010. Environment Canada. September 25, 2013. Archived from the original on January 16, 2019. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
^"GLACIER NP ROGERS PASS". Canadian Climate Normals 1981–2010 Station Data. Environment Canada. September 25, 2013. Archived from the original on January 16, 2019. Retrieved January 16, 2019.
^Heidorn, Keith C. (2002). "North America's Record Cold". The Weather Doctor Almanac. Archived from the original on July 21, 2012. Retrieved July 14, 2012.
^"Sealife". Oceanwatch BC Coast. November 28, 2016. Archived from the original on February 12, 2022. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
^BC Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management, Conservation Data Centre
^Coates, K. Dave; Haeussler, Sybille; Lindeburgh, Scott; Pojar, Rosamund; Stock, Arthur J. (January 1994). Ecology and Silviculture of Interior Spruce in British Columbia(PDF) (Report). Canada/British Columbia Partnership Agreement Forest Resource Development: FRDA II. ISSN0835-0752. Archived(PDF) from the original on February 21, 2018. Retrieved October 30, 2022.
^Moody, Richard Clement. Letter of Colonel Richard Clement Moody, R.E., to Arthur Blackwood, February 1, 1859, preserved in the British Columbia Historical Quarterly (January – April 1951), ed. Willard E. Ireland, Archives of British Columbia. British Columbia Historical Association. pp. 85–107.
^Belshaw, John Douglas (2015). "13.9 The Gold Colony". Canadian History: Pre-Confederation. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022. Retrieved January 1, 2022.
^Dickson, Greg; Forsythe, Mark (Summer 2015). "From the West Coast to the Western Front: British Columbians and the Great War". British Columbia History magazine. Vol. 48, no. 2.
^Wallechinsky, D.; Loucky, J. (2010). The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics: 2010 Edition. p. 12.
^Lovely, Warren; Maltais, Catherine (February 19, 2019). "British Columbia 2019 Budget"(PDF). National Bank of Canada Financial Markets: 1–3. Archived from the original(PDF) on December 24, 2019. Retrieved September 19, 2019 – via National Bank of Canada.
^Modigliani, Leah (2018). Engendering an Avant-Garde: the unsettled landscapes of Vancouver Photo-Conceptualism. Rethinking art histories. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 2. ISBN978-1-5261-0119-8.
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Washington State University Vancouver (also WSU Vancouver) is a regional campus of Washington State University.
WSU Vancouver is located on a 351-acre (1.42 km2) campus outside of Vancouver, Washington, approximately eight miles (13 km) north of the Columbia River and 17 miles (27 km) north of downtown Portland, Oregon. Degrees offered by WSU Vancouver are conferred by Washington State University. Previously an undergraduate transfer college, WSU Vancouver expanded to a full four-year university in 2006.[1]
Washington State University began offering courses in Southwest Washington in 1983 as part of the Southwest Washington Joint Center for Education. In 1989, the university in Pullman formally established Washington State University Vancouver as a branch campus of the state's land-grant institution.[3]
In 1990, the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board approved placing the campus at Salmon Creek, a community north of Vancouver. The site was chosen over two other finalists, a campus adjacent to Clark College and a site in Mlll Plain.[4]
The current campus opened in 1996. In Fall 2006, WSU Vancouver admitted freshmen and sophomores for the first time and began offering lower-division courses.[3]
The 351-acre (1.42 km2) campus has many computing and research laboratories, including student computing labs, fabrication labs, science research labs, group instruction labs, fine arts labs, a circuits and microprocessors lab, computer-aided drafting lab and a writing center. The science resources and instrumentation possessed by the campus consist of GC/MS, HPLC (UVvis), DNA sequencer, TOC/N, RT-PCR, Flame ionization detector, two Phantom cameras, a scanning electron microscope, an Instron tensile tester, and a confocal microscope, along with a fully functional cleanroom.
WSU Vancouver's library has more than 800 journals in hardcopy and over 9,000 full-text online journals and newspapers, a core collection of more than 30,000 books and access to more than 100 major bibliographic databases. The library participates in several local and regional library consortia, including the Portland Area Library System and ORBIS/CASCADE (the Oregon and Washington Cooperative Library Project). It also houses the Environmental Information Cooperative Library.
WSU Vancouver offers bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctorate degrees in more than 40 fields of study.[5] Students may also be enrolled in science graduate study programs in the School of Biological Sciences in Pullman and pursue their entire degree at WSU Vancouver; greatly enhancing the number of degrees available at the master's and doctoral level by proxy.[6]
The School of Engineering and Computer Science at WSU Vancouver operates several research laboratories, including the Nanomaterials-Sensor Laboratory, Wireless Circuit and System Research Lab, Computer Aided Engineering Lab, Electric Power Systems Lab, Robotics and Automation Lab, Radio Frequency (RF) Research Laboratory, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Lab, Micro-Nano-Bio Systems Lab, Electrochemical Engineering Lab, Fluid Dynamics Lab, Interfacial Fluid Dynamics Lab, Parallel and Distributed Data Management Systems Lab, Distributed Systems Research Lab.[7] Usually faculties receive funding from government agencies, and local companies. There are also many research labs in the School of Environmental Science, Biology, Mathematics, and Neuroscience. These include the aquatic ecology lab, conservation biology lab, and the ecology of Mt. St. Helens, among others.
The opening of the Firstenburg Student Commons (FSC) in the Fall of 2007 marked a change in student life on the Vancouver campus.[8]
Although there is currently no on-campus housing, WSU Vancouver offers many activities and events for students. For example, there are many student-run organizations such as a History Club, Cougar Pride LGBT club and KOUG radio. KOUG Radio is a student-run radio station that occasionally features radio shows broadcast by DJs, most of whom are students at the university. Another student-run organization is the Salmon Creek Journal, a visual arts and literary magazine created by students, alumni and faculty.[9]
A total of 17,228 graduates have completed study at WSU Vancouver. Roughly 92 percent of alumni remain in the area.[10] As the campus is located close to many industrial and tech corporations, most of the WSU Vancouver alumni works in nearby companies located in Washington, Oregon, and California.
In the novel Fifty Shades of Grey, the main character, Anastasia Steele, attends and graduates from WSU Vancouver.[11] In response to this association, Avantika Bawa, a professor of Fine Arts at WSU Vancouver curated a 2013 show of student work titled 'Better Shades of Grey'.[12]
Vancouver shares its name with the larger city of Vancouver in southern British Columbia, Canada, approximately 300 miles (480 km) to the north. Both cities were named after British sea captain George Vancouver, but the U.S. city is older. Vancouver, British Columbia, was incorporated 29 years after the incorporation of Vancouver, Washington, and more than 60 years after the name Vancouver was first used in reference to the historic Fort Vancouver trading post on the Columbia River. City officials have periodically suggested changing the U.S. city's name to Fort Vancouver to reduce confusion with its larger and better-known northern neighbor. Many Pacific Northwest residents distinguish between the two cities by referring to the Canadian city as "Vancouver, B.C." and the United States city as "Vancouver, Washington", or "Vancouver, USA".[5][6][7] Local nicknames formerly included "Vantucky" (though this is used as a derogatory term)[8][9][10][11][12] and "The 'Couv(e)".[13]
The Vancouver area was inhabited by several Native American tribes, most recently the Chinook and Klickitat nations, with permanent settlements of timber longhouses.[14] The Chinookan and Klickitat names for the area were reportedly Skit-so-to-ho and Ala-si-kas, respectively, meaning "land of the mud-turtles".[15][16] First known European contact was made by William Robert Broughton in 1792,[17][18] with approximately half of the indigenous population killed by smallpox before the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived in the area in 1806.[14] Within another fifty years, other diseases such as measles, malaria and influenza had reduced the Chinookan population from an estimated 80,000 "to a few dozen refugees, landless, slaveless and swindled out of a treaty".[14]
Meriwether Lewis wrote that the Vancouver area was "the only desired situation for settlement west of the Rocky Mountains". The first permanent European settlement did not occur until 1824, when Fort Vancouver was established as a fur trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company. From that time on, the area was settled by both the US and Britain under a "joint occupation" agreement. Joint occupation led to the Oregon boundary dispute and ended on June 15, 1846, with the signing of the Oregon Treaty, which gave the United States full control of the area. Before 1845, American Henry Williamson laid out a large claim west of the Hudson's Bay Company (including part of the present-day Port of Vancouver), called Vancouver City and properly registered his claim at the U.S. courthouse in Oregon City, before leaving for California.[19]: 42 In 1848, Williamson had it surveyed and platted by Peter Crawford. In 1850, Amos Short traced over the claim of Williamson and named the town Columbia City.[20] It changed to Vancouver in 1855. The City of Vancouver was incorporated on January 23, 1857.[21]
Based on an act of the 1859–60 legislature, Vancouver was briefly the capital of Washington Territory, before capital status was returned to Olympia by a 2–1 ruling of the territorial supreme court, in accordance with Isaac Stevens' preference and concern that proximity to the border with Oregon might give some of the state's influence away to Oregon.[22][23][24]
The neighborhood of Sifton was the terminus of an early electric trolley operated by the Northcoast Power Company that also served nearby Orchards from 1910 until 1926. The trolleys made ten stops and ran once per hour, charging 15 cents each way. A mural in the heart of Orchards depicts the trolley and the rural character of the area at the time it was operating. The community was named after Doctor Sifton, a promoter of the trolley service.[25]
According to the archives of the Vancouver Columbian newspaper, the Orchards-Sifton route ran along Vancouver's Main Street to 26th Street (renamed Fourth Plain Blvd.), then from 26th to K Street and thence north to 33rd Street. From there, it ran on 33rd over Burnt Bridge Creek and past the city limits. At that point the trolley became more like a regular train as it followed a cut through the wilderness. Few houses were seen between Vancouver and Orchards. The public's growing preference for motor cars in the 1920s heralded the end of the trolley.
Separated from Oregon until 1917, when the new Interstate Bridge began to replace ferries, Vancouver had three shipyards just downstream which produced ships for World War I before World War II brought an enormous economic boom. An Alcoa aluminum plant opened on September 2, 1940, using inexpensive power from the nearby New Deal hydropower turbines at Bonneville Dam. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Henry Kaiser opened a shipyard next to the U.S. Army base, which by 1944 employed as many as 36,000 people in a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week production of Liberty ships, landing ship tanks, and escort carriers. This influx of shipyard workers boosted the population from 18,000 to over 80,000 in just a few months, leading to the creation of the Vancouver Housing Authority and six new residential developments: Fruit Valley, Fourth Plain Village, Bagley Downs, Ogden Meadows, Burton Homes and McLoughlin Heights. Each of these was later incorporated into the city, and are well-known neighborhoods, while the neighboring "shipyard city" of Vanport, Oregon, would be destroyed by the Memorial Day flood of 1948.[citation needed]
Vancouver has experienced conflicts with other Clark County communities because of rapid growth in the area. [citation needed] The city's first annexation more than doubled its size in 1909, with the largest annexation of 1997 adding 11,258 acres (45.56 km2) and 58,171 residents.[26] As a result of urban growth and the 1997 annexation, Vancouver is often thought of as split between two areas, [citation needed] East and West Vancouver, divided by NE Andresen Road. West Vancouver is home to downtown Vancouver and most of the more historical parts of the city, as well as recent high-density mixed-use development. East Vancouver includes the communities of Cascade Park East and West, which had populations of 6,996 and 6,956 in 1990, before annexation.
More than one-third of the Vancouver urban area's population lives in unincorporated urban areas north of the city limits, including the communities of Hazel Dell, Felida, Orchards and Salmon Creek. If county leaders had approved another major annexation plan in 2006, Vancouver would have surpassed Tacoma and Spokane to become the state's second-largest city.[27]
Army presence in Vancouver was very strong, as the Department of the Columbia built and moved to Vancouver Barracks, the military reservation for which stretched from the river to what is currently Fourth Plain Boulevard and was the largest Army base in the region until surpassed by Fort Lewis, 120 miles (190 km) to the north. Built on the old company gardens and skirmish range, Pearson Army Field (later Pearson Field) was a key facility, and at one point the US Army Signal Corps operated the largest spruce cut-up plant in the world to provide much-needed wood for airplanes. Vancouver became the end point for two ultra-long flights from Moscow, USSR, over the North Pole. The first of these flights was performed by Valery Chkalov in 1937 on a Tupolev ANT-25RD airplane. Chkalov was originally scheduled to land at an airstrip on Swan Island in nearby Portland, Oregon, but was redirected at the last minute to Vancouver's Pearson Airfield. In June 1975, a monument was dedicated commemorating the event near State Highway 14, then moved to the north side of Pearson Field in 1987. Chkalov Drive, in east Vancouver, was named in his honor.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 49.86 sq mi (129.14 km2), of which 46.46 sq mi (120.33 km2) is land and 3.4 sq mi (8.81 km2) is water.[29]
Vancouver lies just north of Portland, Oregon, with which it shares a similar climate. Both are classified as warm-summer Mediterranean (Csb) on the Köppen climate classification, but with certain key differences. High pressures east of the Cascade Range create something of a venturi effect, leading to cold east winds down the Columbia River Gorge. Unsheltered by the Willamette Valley, Vancouver has historically seen colder temperatures, including "silver thaw" storms where freezing rain cakes limbs and power lines. Such storms can paralyze Vancouver. This occasionally freezes the river, and in 1916 cut electric power in the city for almost two weeks. Rainfall occurs frequently throughout the fall, winter, and spring, but ceases around the middle of June, with dry and warm weather lasting through September. Average annual precipitation is 42 in (1,100 mm). Heavy snowfalls are infrequent and snow often falls and doesn't stick, with major snowstorms only occurring every 2–4 years. Close proximity to the river was also a concern for flooding, before dams constricted the river, destroying features such as Celilo Falls. Periodic floods have been a nuisance, with two of the most destructive occurring in June 1894 and May 1948. The 1948 Columbia River flood almost topped the Interstate Bridge's support piers and completely destroyed nearby Vanport, Oregon. Other unusual storms include the Columbus Day Storm of 1962 and an April 5, 1972, tornado which rated F3 on the Fujita scale, striking a local school. An EF1 tornado struck on January 10, 2008, just after noon, causing moderate damage along a two-mile (3.2 km) path from Vancouver Lake to the unincorporated Hazel Dell area.[citation needed]
Because many Vancouver residents work in Portland, there is typically significant rush-hour traffic congestion on two bridges that cross the Columbia River – the Interstate Bridge and the Glenn Jackson Bridge. In 2017 there were 297,932 weekday vehicle crossings on the two bridges.[30]
Climate data for Vancouver, Washington (1991–2020 normals, extremes 1891–present)
As of the 2020 census, there were 190,915 people, and 75,663 households in the county.[3] The population density was 3,917.2/sq mi.The racial makeup of the city was 76.5% White, 2.3% African American, 0.6% Native American, 5.5% Asian, 1.6% Pacific Islander, and 9.1% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 14.7% of the population.[3]
22.1% of the population were under 18, and 6.2% were under 5. 15.7% of people were older than 65. The gender makeup of the city was 50.6% female, and 49.4% male.[3]
The median household income was $67,462, but the per capita income was $36,053. 12.7% of the population was below the poverty line.[3]
The ancestry of the city is 16.1% German, 10.9% English, 9.7% Irish, 3.9% Norwegian, 2.9% Italian, 2.8% French,1.5% Polish, and 0.7% Subsaharan African.[3]
Vancouver, Washington – Racial and ethnic composition Note: the U.S. Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race.
As of the 2010 census, there were 161,791 people, 65,691 households, and 40,246 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,482.4/sq mi (1,344.6/km2). There were 70,005 housing units at an average density of 1,506.8/sq mi (581.8/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 80.9% White, 2.9% African American, 1.0% Native American, 5.0% Asian, 1.0% Pacific Islander, 4.3% from other races, and 4.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 10.4% of the population.
There were 65,691 households, of which 31.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 42.6% were married couples living together, 13.2% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.5% had a male householder with no wife present, and 38.7% were non-families. 30.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.43 and the average family size was 3.02.
The median age in the city was 35.9 years. 24% of residents were under the age of 18; 9.4% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 28.9% were from 25 to 44; 25.3% were from 45 to 64; and 12.4% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.8% male and 51.2% female.
As of the 2000 census, there were 143,560 people, 56,628 households, and 36,298 families living in the city. The population density is 3,354.7 people per square mile (1,295.3 people/km2). There were 60,039 housing units at an average density of 1,403.0 units per square mile (541.7 units/km2). According to the 2000 census, The racial makeup of the city was 76.2% White, 2.9% African American, 1.0% Native American, 5.0% Asian, 1.0% Pacific Islander, and 4.80% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 10.4% of the population. 16.4% were of German, 9.2% English, 8.4% Irish and 7.9% American ancestry. 89.2% spoke English, 5.1% Spanish, 3.2% Russian, 1.4% Ukrainian and 1.1% Vietnamese at home.
There were 56,628 households, out of which 33.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.3% were married couples living together, 12.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.9% were non-families. 27.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.50 and the average family size was 3.06.
In the city, 26.7% of the population was under the age of 18, 9.8% was from 18 to 24, 32.1% from 25 to 44, 20.6% from 45 to 64, and 10.7% was 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females, there were 96.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.8 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $41,618, and the median income for a family was $47,696. Males had a median income of $37,306 versus $26,940 for females. The per capita income for the city was $20,192. 9.4% of families and 12.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.1% of those under the age of 18 and 8.2% of those 65 and older.
The Vancouver economy is characterized by border economics with neighboring Portland, Oregon. The state of Washington levies no individual or corporate income taxes and levies a property tax below the national average and a sales tax above the national median.[36] The State of Oregon has even lower property taxes and no sales tax but one of the highest state income taxes.[37] As a result, many Vancouver residents prefer to shop in neighboring Portland where they do not pay sales taxes,[38] then live and work in Vancouver where they do not pay state income tax (though Washington residents who work in Oregon must pay Oregon income tax.) For the same reasons, the city is popular with retirees. Conversely, the city is less favored by students and young adults.[citation needed] In 2003, 70% of workers in Vancouver worked in Clark County. There is a risk in sales tax avoidance because Washington has a use tax due on all purchases made in Oregon that are then returned to Washington. Vancouver residents "shop at their own risk" when attempting to avoid the sales tax in Washington, although the rule is rarely, if ever, enforced[citation needed] except for purchases requiring registration, such as motor vehicles.
The taxation and demographics of the area depresses the retail sector of Vancouver's economy.[citation needed] Oregon has stricter development laws to protect the timber industry;[citation needed] therefore, Vancouver tends to attract a higher proportion of the region's sprawling development. The voting base also led to rejection of extension of Portland's light-rail system into the city for several years.[citation needed] In 2013, Washington transitioned away from being a control state.
The economic history of Vancouver reflects the region. Moving from a salmon- and trade-based indigenous economy by the Chinook people, the Hudson's Bay Company pioneered extractive industries such as the fur trade and timber. Subsistence agricultural gave way to market and export crops such as apples, strawberries and prunes. Largely bypassed by the railroad in the 1880s, when the Oregon Steam Navigation company would ferry trains across the river downstream from St. Helens, Oregon to Kalama, Washington, early downtown development was focused around Washington Street (where ferries arrived), lumber and Vancouver Barracks activities such as a large spruce mill for manufacturing airplanes. A 1908 railroad swing bridge across the Columbia allowed greater industrial developments such as the Standifer Shipyard during the first world war.[39] With the Interstate Bridge and Bonneville Dam Vancouver saw an industrial boom in the 1940s, including the Kaiser shipyard and Alcoa, as well as a Boise Cascade paper mill, just west of the Interstate Bridge.[19]
As the old-growth forests were depleted and heavy industry left the United States, Vancouver's economy largely changed to high tech and service industry jobs, with many residents commuting to Portland. Vancouver contains the corporate headquarters for Nautilus, Inc., ZoomInfo, Papa Murphy's Pizza and The Holland (parent company of the Burgerville restaurant chain).[40]
The Port of Vancouver USA operates a port on the Columbia River, which separates Oregon to the south and Washington to the north. It handles over 400 ocean-going vessels annually, as well as a number of barges which ply the river and its tributaries as far as Lewiston, Idaho.
The Vancouver Energy project was a proposed crude oil transport hub in the Port of Vancouver USA. It was estimated to produce the equivalent of $1.6 billion in employment income during the terminal's construction and for its first 15 years of operation.[41] Vancouver Energy ended its bid to build the hub in February 2018 following Governor Jay Inslee's rejection of the project.[42]
In 2017, there were 4,550 employer firms.[43] 2,143 of these firms were shown to be owned by men, and 943 were shown to be owned by women. 556 of the firms were shown to be owned by minorities, and 3,234 were not shown to be owned by minorities. 241 of these firms were owned by veterans.[43]
Grant Street Pier, on Vancouver waterfrontClark County Historical Museum
In 1997, the city of Vancouver decided to dedicate the next 15–20 years to redeveloping and revitalizing the downtown core, west of I-5 and south of Evergreen Boulevard. The first projects started in the early 2000s with the construction of many tall condominium structures around Esther Short Park. The most lauded outside investment was the construction of a Hilton hotel directly across from the park.[citation needed] The Downtown redevelopment of Vancouver continued after a slowdown during the 2009–2012 recession. Numerous projects began to rise up around the city core and as of mid-2020 more than three dozen projects with mid-rise or high-rise structures were completed, under construction, or proposed.[45][46]
In 2016 the first ground was broken[47] for the $1.5 billion, 21-block redevelopment of Vancouver's waterfront at the former site of Boise Cascade Paper Mill. The site had been inaccessible to the public for more than 100 years.[citation needed] The project was planned for 3,300 residential units, and roughly 1 million square feet (93,000 m2) of office and retail space.[48] Around 15,000 people were in attendance for the official grand opening, in 2018, of the project and associated public space including Grant Street Pier, a cable-stayed viewing deck that extends out over the Columbia River.[49][50]
The Redevelopment of Terminal One master plan was approved by the city council in 2017.[51] This $500 million project will include multiple phases over several years including a seven-story AC Marriott hotel that began site preparation and construction in late 2019.[52] Future plans in the master plan called for a mixed-use complex of mid-rise buildings on four blocks and a complete rebuild of the original 100-year-old Terminal One dock and pier. A public open-air market is also planned.
The Columbian newspaper moved to a new seven-story office building adjacent to the Hilton in 2008. Two years later, The Columbian filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the building defaulted to Bank of America. In June 2010, the City of Vancouver agreed to purchase the office building for use as a new city hall for $18.5 million, a fraction of the $41.5 million sale price the owners of The Columbian office building had been asking prior to filing for bankruptcy. In 2011, the city consolidated five separate buildings housing 300 employees into the new building, located at 415 W. 6th Street. The move saved the city approximately $1 million a year in facility lease and maintenance costs.[53]
The Fort Vancouver Regional Library District opened a new library on C Street at Evergreen Boulevard in 2011. Future plans on C Street include a new Marriott hotel and roughly 250 new condominiums.
Panoramic scrolling image of Vancouver skyline taken from Hayden Island in 2023
Vancouver relies on a council–manager form of government composed of seven city council members including a non-partisan mayor's office. The mayor and council members serve four year terms. As is common in council-manager municipal government, the council oversees legislative issues such as local ordinances, while executive and administrative leadership is carried out by a city manager hired by the council. Vancouver also serves as the seat of Clark County and its associated county manager and council.
In the early 2000s, Vancouver began seeing a revitalization of the local arts scene and cultural events. In 2010 there was a movement among local artists to form cooperatives and meet with established local gallery owners for a monthly forum known as "Art Conversations". Many of Vancouver's art galleries are located in downtown Vancouver, and in 2014, the City Council formally designated an "Arts District" in the downtown core.[54]
The Kiggins Theatre located within the Downtown Vancouver Art District, was built in 1936 by architect Day Hillborn. It was named for J.P. Kiggins, an entrepreneur and politician who cut a swath through town in the early 20th century, serving as Vancouver's mayor for 15 non-consecutive years between 1908 and 1935. It was renovated and reopened in 2011 as an independent film and community event venue.
The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra first formed in the late 1970s. Conducted and directed by Dr. Salvadore Brotons, the Symphony regularly performs concerts.[55]
Every June since 2006, the Recycled Arts Festival held in Esther Short Park has featured the work of dozens of artists whose creations are made from at least 75% reused or recycled materials, along with live music and food.[56]
Since the mid-1960s, Vancouver has hosted a Fourth of Julyfireworks display on the grounds of Fort Vancouver National Historic Site that draws many people to the city. The display routinely ran to 45 minutes, attracted up to 60,000 visitors and was broadcast on area television, one of the largest west of the Mississippi River. Due to the death of key organizer "Mister Fireworks" Jim Larson and economic conditions during the Great Recession, the show was not held in 2009.[57] A shorter, redesigned show debuted in 2010 and brought in approximately 35,000 people.[58] As of 2019, The Historic Trust (formerly the "Fort Vancouver National Trust"[59]) continues to organize the fireworks event.[60] The fireworks were not held in 2020 or 2021 due to COVID-19.[61]
4 Days of Aloha, also known as the Hawaiian Festival, takes place in late July in Esther Short Park, Clark College, and Fort Vancouver. Started in 2012 by "Aunty" Deva Yamashiro, a hula dancer and self-appointed cultural ambassador for Hawaii, the festival features live music, dance performances, craft workshops, and a celebration of Hawaiian food, arts, and culture.[62]
The 1935 art deco telephone exchange building at Eleventh and Washington
The 1941 Clark County Courthouse, designed by prolific local architect Day Hillborn
Smith Tower, a round downtown apartment building for the elderly, built in 1965
The Hilton Hotel and Vancouver Convention Center across from Esther Short Park
Many of these buildings have been repurposed. The 1867 Slocum House, an Italianate villa-style residence originally built one block south of its current location in Esther Short Park, was moved to its present location in 1966 and now houses a winery and art gallery.[66] The Carnegie Library was expanded in the 1940s, becoming the Clark County Historical Museum after a new library was built in 1963. Other buildings have been torn down for urban renewal or renovated to house professional offices for lawyers and accountants.
Vancouver Public Schools' elementary schools include Sarah J. Anderson, Chinook, Eisenhower, Felida, Ben Franklin, Fruit Valley Community Learning Center, Harney, Hazel Dell, Hough, Martin Luther King, Lake Shore, Lincoln, Marshall, Minnehaha, Peter S. Ogden, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sacajawea, Salmon Creek, Truman, Walnut Grove, and Washington.
The Evergreen School District covers most of east Vancouver and has seven high schools: Evergreen High School, Mountain View High School, Henrietta Lacks Health and Bioscience High School, Heritage High School, Union High School, Legacy High School, and Cascadia Technical Academy (formerly Clark County Vocational Skills Center).[68]
The district has six middle schools: Cascade, Covington, Frontier, Pacific, Shahala, and Wy'East.
Evergreen School District's 21 elementary schools are: Burton, Burnt Bridge Creek, Columbia Valley, Crestline, Ellsworth, Emerald, Endeavour, Fircrest, Fisher's Landing, Harmony, Hearthwood, Illahee, Image, Marrion, Mill Plain, Orchards, Pioneer, Riverview, Sifton, Silver Star, Sunset, and York.
Vancouver is located within the Portland media market for print, radio, and television media. It does, however, serve as the hometown for some media, including The Columbian, the Portland, Oregon newspaper The Oregonian that covers some southwest Washington news, and The Vancouver Voice which was southwest Washington's only alternative periodical for a time, and published from 2006 to 2011.
Vancouver has two interstate freeways, I-5 and I-205, both of which run north–south, across the Columbia River into Portland and toward Seattle. It also has two heavily travelled state highways within the city limits. SR 14 begins at I-5 in downtown Vancouver and makes its way east. It is a freeway all the way until Camas. SR 500 begins from I-5 at 39th Street in north Vancouver, travels east connecting with I-205, and continues east into the suburb of Orchards where the freeway terminates at Fourth Plain Boulevard, and meets with the south end of north–south-oriented 117th Ave., SR 503. A third state highway, SR 501, starts at I-5 and heads west through downtown and continues along a path that runs between the Columbia River and Vancouver Lake.
The area's mass transit system is C-Tran, the Clark County Public Transportation Benefit Area Authority, which operates 135 buses, vanpools, and paratransit vehicles. There are also a number of express routes into Portland's downtown.
There have been multiple discussions about extending Portland's Max Light Rail system into Vancouver. In 1995, Clark County voters rejected a ballot measure that would have funded a light rail extension north into Vancouver.[69] Opposition to paying for light rail was strong at that time, but slowly declined over the following several years, eventually leading Vancouver officials to begin discussing the idea again.[70][71] Meanwhile, TriMet reconstituted its planned MAX line to Vancouver as a shorter line running only within Portland, which could potentially be extended across the river and into Clark County at a later date. This extension of the MAX system opened in 2004 as the Yellow Line,[72] running as far north as the Portland Expo Center, approximately 1 mile (2 km) south of downtown Vancouver. In 2012, Vancouver voters rejected a sales tax proposal to fund light rail operations in connection with the Columbia River Crossing proposal.[73] In 2022, the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program included a new proposal for a light rail extension into downtown Vancouver.[74]
Pearson Field, located near downtown Vancouver, is the main airport serving the city. The airport is intended primarily for general aviation without any commercial air service. The nearest commercial airport is Portland International Airport (PDX).
^Jayne, Greg (June 5, 2011). "Maneuver by council makes county look like Podunkville (commentary)". The Columbian. Archived from the original on July 2, 2011. Retrieved June 5, 2011. Because part of the impact of bringing professional baseball to town would be in helping Vancouver to shed its image as Podunkville. As Vantucky. As a sleepy little burg that is a suburb of Portland.
^Native Sons of Oregon (1901). "The Oregon Native Son". Oregon Native Son and Historical Magazine. 2. Native Son Publishing Company: 324. OCLC7748147. Retrieved November 6, 2019. Called by the Chinooks Skit-so-to-ho, and Ala-si-kas by the Klikitats. Its meaning is "place of mud-turtles."
^ abJollata, Pat (2004). Images of America: Downtown Vancouver. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN0-7385-2959-1.
^Olson, Jerry (March 30, 2014). "GLO Surveyor Personal Notes"(PDF). Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. Archived(PDF) from the original on August 27, 2019. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
^"Senate Resolution 8636"(PDF). Washington State Legislature. 2005. Archived from the original(PDF) on February 21, 2017. Retrieved November 6, 2019.
^Meany, Edmond S. (1923). Origin of Washington geographic names. Seattle: University of Washington Press. p. 270. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved January 17, 2020.
^"Columbia River Bridges". Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council. Archived from the original on February 7, 2019. Retrieved November 6, 2019.
Fort Vancouver was a 19th-century fur trading post built in the winter of 1824–1825.[2] It was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of the Columbia River in present-day Vancouver, Washington. The fort was a major center of the regional fur trading. Every year trade goods and supplies from London arrived either via ships sailing to the Pacific Ocean or overland from Hudson Bay via the York Factory Express. Supplies and trade goods were exchanged with a plethora of Indigenous cultures for fur pelts. Furs from Fort Vancouver were often shipped to the Chinese port of Guangzhou where they were traded for Chinese manufactured goods for sale in the United Kingdom. At its pinnacle, Fort Vancouver watched over 34 outposts, 24 ports, six ships, and 600 employees. Today, a full-scale replica of the fort, with internal buildings, has been constructed and is open to the public as Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
Map of the Pacific Northwest "jointly occupied" by the US and Britain. The influence of Fort Vancouver and its secondary stations extended from Russian America to Mexican ruled Alta California.
During the War of 1812, the Pacific Northwest was a distant region of the conflict. Two rival fur trading outfits, the Canadian North West Company (NWC) and the American Pacific Fur Company (PFC), had until then both operated in the region peaceably. Funded largely by John Jacob Astor, the PFC operated without many opportunities for military defense by the United States Navy. News of the war and of a coming British warship put the American company in a difficult position. In October 1813, management met at Fort Astoria and agreed to transfer its assets to the NWC. HMS Racoon arrived the following month and in honor of George III of the United Kingdom, Fort Astoria was renamed to Fort George.[3]
In negotiations with American Albert Gallatin throughout 1818, British plenipotentiaryFrederick John Robinson was offered a proposition for a partition that would have, as Gallatin stated, "all the waters emptying in the sound called the Gulf of Georgia."[4] Frederick Merk has argued the definition used by the negotiators of the Gulf of Georgia included the entirety of the Puget Sound, in addition to the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca.[5] This would have given the United Kingdom the most favorable location for ports north of Alta California and south of Russian America.[6] Robinson did not agree to the proposal and subsequent talks did not focus on establishing a permanent border west of the Rocky Mountains.
The Treaty of 1818 made the resources of the vast region were to be "free and open" to citizens from either nation.[7] The treaty wasn't made to combine American and British interests against other colonial powers in the region. Rather, the document states that the joint occupancy of the Pacific Northwest was intended to "prevent disputes" between the two nations from arising.[7] In the ensuing years, the North West Company continued to expand its operations in the Pacific Northwest. Skirmishes with its major competitor, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), had already flared into the Pemmican War. The end of the conflict in 1821 saw the NWC mandated by the British Government to merge into the HBC.
Throughout 1825 and 1826, British officials continued to offer Americans partition plans for the Pacific Coast of North America. These largely originated in part from correspondence with the NWC and later HBC. The border would continue to extend west on the 49th parallel to the Rocky Mountains, where the Columbia (and some times the Snake River) would be used as the border until it reached the Pacific Ocean. Secretary of State for Foreign AffairsGeorge Canning has been appraised by later historians as the most supportive British Foreign minister in securing a border along the Columbia.[8]United States Secretary of StateHenry Clay had given instructions to the American plenipotentiaries to offer a partition of the Pacific Northwest along the 49th parallel to the Pacific Ocean.[9] The difference in the two considered plans were too much to solve, making the diplomats put off a formal colonial division once more.
Fort Vancouver was established on the north bank of the Columbia River in the winter of 1824–1825.[2] The London-based Hudson's Bay Company established it to serve as the headquarters of the Company's interior fur trade.[10] In the early 1820s a general reorganization of all NWC properties, now entirely under HBC management, was overseen directly by Sir George Simpson. The newly established Columbia District needed a more suitable headquarters than Fort George at the mouth of the Columbia. Simpson was instrumental in the establishment of Fort Vancouver.[11] Using the HBC position that any settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute would confirm the border placement along the Columbia; Simpson selected a location situated opposite from the mouth of the Willamette River. This expanse was an open and fertile prairie that was outside the flood plain and had easy access to the Columbia.[12]
Cots in the Douglas Quarters inside the Chief Factor's house
An employee of the HBC, wrote a general description of Fort Vancouver and its structural composition as it was in 1843:
The fort is in the shape of a parallelogram, about 250 yards long, by 150 broad; enclosed by a sort of wooden wall, made of pickets, or large beams firmly fixed in the ground, and closely fitted together, twenty feet high, and strongly secured on the inside by buttresses. At each angle there is a bastion, mounting two twelve pounders, and in the centre there some eighteen pounders; ... these cannon have become useless. The area within is divided into two courts, around which are arranged about forty neat, strong wooden buildings, one story high, designed for various purposes...[13]
The fort was substantial. The palisades that protected it were 750 ft (230 m) long, 450 ft (140 m) wide and about 20 ft (6.1 m) high. Inside, there were 24 buildings, including housing, warehouses, a school, a library, a pharmacy, a chapel, a blacksmith, plus a large manufacturing facility. The Chief Factor's residence in the center of Fort Vancouver was two stories tall. Inside was a dining hall where company clerks, traders, physicians, and others of the gentleman class would dine with the supervising Chief Factor.[14] In general, the entirety of the Chief Factor's House and its meals were typically barred for general laborers and fur trappers.[15] After dinner the majority of these gentlemen would relocate to the "Bachelor's Hall" to "amuse themselves as they please, either in smoking, reading, or telling and listening to stories of their own and others' curious adventures".[16] As Dunn recalled;
The smoking room ... presents the appearance of an armory and a museum. All sorts of weapons, and dresses, and curiosities of civilized and savage life, and of the various implements for the prosecution of the [fur] trade, may be seen there.[15]
Outside the ramparts there was additional housing, as well as fields, gardens, fruit orchards, a shipyard, a distillery, a tannery, a sawmill, and a dairy. By 1843, situated roughly 600 yards outside Fort Vancouver were about sixty wooden houses. This small settlement was inhabited by fur trappers, machinists and other laborers of the fort. There they resided with their Indigenous or Métis wives and families. The dwellings were organized into orderly rows.[17] The settlement was commonly referred to as Kanaka Village because of the many Hawaiians in company employ who lived there. In fact, it has been suggested that the Fort had the "largest single group of Hawaiians ever to congregate outside their home islands".[18]
With high demand from Europe for fur-based textiles in the early 19th Century, the HBC was forced to expand its fur trade operations across North America to the Pacific Northwest. Prior to the establishment of Fort Vancouver, the HBC's largest westward fort was Fort William in present-day Ontario, which the company gained through its merger with the NWC. From its establishment, Fort Vancouver was the regional headquarters of the HBC's fur trade operations in the Columbia District.[19] The territory it oversaw stretched from the Rocky Mountains in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and from Sitka in the north to San Francisco in the south. Fur trappers would bring pelts collected during the winter to the fort to be traded in exchange for company credit. The credit, issued by the company clerks, could be used to purchase goods in the fort's trade shops. Furs from throughout the Columbia District were brought to Fort Vancouver from smaller HBC outposts either overland, or by water via the Columbia River. Once they were sorted and inventoried by the company's clerks, the furs were hung out to dry in the fur storehouse, a large two-story post-on-sill building located within the walls of the fort. After the furs had been processed, they were mixed, weighed into 270-pound (120 kg) bundles, and packed with tobacco leaves as an insecticide. The 270-pound bundle of furs would be placed in a large press and wrapped in elk or bear hide to create overseas fur bales. The large 270-pound bales were then placed on boats on the Columbia River for shipment to London via the HBC trade routes. The furs would then be auctioned off to textile manufacturers in London. A large demand came from hatters who produced popular beaver felted hats.
For most of its existence, Fort Vancouver was the largest non-Indigenous settlement in the Pacific Northwest. The population of the fort and the environs was mostly French Canadians, Métis, and Kanaka Hawaiians; there were also English, Scots, Irish, and a variety of Indigenous peoples including Iroquois and Cree. The common language spoken at the fort was Canadian French, while company records and official journals were kept in English. However, trading and relations with the surrounding community were done in Chinook Jargon, a pidgin of Chinook, Nootka, Chehalis, English, French, Hawaiian, and other elements.
A survey of the total personnel at Fort Vancouver in 1846 reveals a culturally and materially diverse populace. Notably, the number of employees from the Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland Islands was 57 men. This is exactly the same number as the combined number of workers from England and mainland Scotland.[20] The number of men hired from Upper Canada, Lower Canada, and Rupert's Land was in total 91. These men came from English, French Canadian, Métis, Iroquois, Cree, and other cultural backgrounds. Most notable however, was that Kanaka Hawaiians totaled 154 that year, or 43% of the total fort population.[20]
Chief Factor Dr. John McLoughlin was its first manager, a position he held for nearly 22 years, from 1824 to 1845.[11] McLoughlin applied the laws of Upper Canada to British subjects, kept peace with the natives and sought to maintain law and order with American settlers as well. McLoughlin was later hailed as the Father of Oregon for allowing Americans to settle south of the Columbia River. Against the company's wishes, he provided substantial aid and assistance to westbound American settlers in the territory. He left the company in 1846 to found Oregon City in the Willamette Valley.
James Douglas spent nineteen years in Fort Vancouver; serving as a clerk until 1834 when he was promoted to the rank of Chief Trader. From October 1838 to November 1839, while McLoughlin was on furlough in Europe, Chief Trader Douglas was in charge. In November 1839 Douglas was promoted to the rank of Chief Factor. Douglas took on several temporary assignments elsewhere, to set up HBC's trading post at Yerba Buena (San Francisco) California in 1841, and to establish Fort Victoria in 1843, but from 1839 to 1845 there were normally two Chief Factors based at Fort Vancouver, with McLoughlin in charge and Douglas as his subordinate.[21]
At its inception, Governor George Simpson wanted the fort to be self-sufficient as food was costly to ship. Fort staff typically maintained one year's extra supplies in the fort warehouses to avoid the disastrous consequences of shipwrecks and other calamities. Fort Vancouver eventually began to produce a surplus of food, some of which was used to provision other HBC posts in the Columbia Department. The area around the fort was commonly known as "La Jolie Prairie" (the pretty prairie) or "Belle Vue Point" (beautiful vista). In time, Fort Vancouver diversified its economic activities beyond fur trading and begin exporting agricultural foodstuffs from HBC farms, along with salmon, lumber, and other products. It developed markets for these exports in Russian America, the Hawaiian Kingdom, and Mexican California. The HBC opened agencies in Sitka, Honolulu, and Yerba Buena (San Francisco) to facilitate such trade.[22]
Route of the HBC York Factory Express, 1820s to 1840s. Modern political boundaries shown.
Fort Vancouver was supplied in part through the overland York Factory Express. It originated from a route used by the NWC between Fort George to Fort William on Lake Superior.[23] Each spring two brigades were sent, one from Fort Vancouver and the other from York Factory. A typical brigade consisted of about forty to seventy five men. These men carried supplies, furs and correspondence by boat, horseback and in backpacks for various HBC posts and personnel along the route. Furs stored at the York Factory would in turn be sold at London in an annual fur sale. Indians along the way were often paid in trade goods to help them portage around falls and unnavigable rapids.
The HBC, which controlled the fur trade in much of what Americans styled the Oregon Country, had previously discouraged settlement because it interfered with the lucrative fur trade. By 1838, however, American settlers were coming across the Rocky Mountains and their numbers increased each subsequent year. Many left from St. Louis, Missouri, and followed a fairly straight, but difficult, route called the Oregon Trail. For many settlers the fort became the last stop on the Oregon Trail where they could get supplies before starting their homestead.
During the Great Migration of 1843 an estimated 700 to 1,000 American settlers arrived via the Oregon Trail.
The signing of the RAC-HBC Agreement with the Russian-American Company pushed the HBC into creating an agricultural subsidiary, the Pugets Sound Agricultural Company in 1840. Herds of sheep and cattle were purchased in Alta California and raised at Fort Nisqually. Agricultural products were sown and grown in abundance at Fort Cowlitz and exported with foodstuffs produced at Fort Vancouver to Russian America. Recruitment from retired HBC laborers residing in the Willamette Valley as agriculturalists, through the use of priests François Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers,[24] utterly failed to convince any farmer to leave for vicinity of the Cowlitz farms.[25] While additional plans called for recruitment in Scotland, these too came to nothing.[26]
The only successful source of early colonists for the PSAC would come from the Red River colony. In November 1839, Sir George Simpson instructed Duncan Finlayson to begin promoting the PSAC to colonists.[27]James Sinclair was later appointed by Finlayson to guide the settler families that signed the PSAC agreement to Fort Vancouver.[28] They left Fort Garry (modern Winnipeg) in June 1841 with 121 people that consisted of 23 families. When they arrived at Fort Vancouver, they then numbered 21 families of 116 people.[28] Fourteen of them were relocated to Fort Nisqually, while the remaining seven families were sent to Fort Cowlitz.[29]
Signed in 1846, the Oregon Treaty set the Canada–United States border at the 49th parallel north, putting Fort Vancouver within American territory. Although the treaty ensured that the HBC could continue to operate and had free access to navigate the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, and the Columbia River, company operations were effectively stifled by the treaty and became unprofitable and were soon closed down.
The modern reconstruction, showing the outer palisade and the single corner bastion.
Because of its significance in United States history a plan was put together to preserve the location. Fort Vancouver was declared a US National Monument on June 19, 1948, and redesignated as Fort Vancouver National Historic Site on June 30, 1961. This was taken a step further in 1996 when a 366-acre (1.48 km2) area around the fort, including Kanaka Village, the Columbia Barracks and the bank of the river, was established as the Vancouver National Historic Reserve maintained by the National Park Service. It is possible to tour the fort. Notable buildings of the restored Fort Vancouver include a bake house, where hardtack baking techniques are shown,[30] a blacksmith shop,[31] a carpenter shop and its collection of carpentry tools,[32] and the kitchen, where daily meals were prepared.[33]
Galbraith, John S. (1954), "The Early History of the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company, 1838–43", Oregon Historical Quarterly, 55 (3), Oregon Historical Society: 234–259
Galbraith, John S. (1957a), The Hudson's Bay Company as an Imperial Factor, 1821–1869, Toronto: University of Toronto Press
Koppel, Tom (1995), McLean, Elizabeth (ed.), Kanaka: The Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, Vancouver: Whitecap Books
Meany, Edmond S. (1914), "Three Diplomats Prominent in the Oregon Question", The Washington Historical Quarterly, 5 (3): 207–214, JSTOR40474377
Merk, Frederick (1950), "The Ghost River Caledonia in the Oregon Negotiation of 1818", The American Historical Review, 50 (3), Oxford: Oxford University Press: 530–551, doi:10.2307/1843497, JSTOR1843497
Watson, Bruce McIntyre (2010), Lives Lived West of the Divide: A Biographical Dictionary of Fur Traders Working West of the Rockies, 1793–1858, Kelowna, BC: University of British Columbia, ISBN978-0-9810212-7-0
Winter, Oscar Osburn (1967), "The British in Oregon Country: A Triptych View", The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 58 (4), University of Washington: 179–187
