Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
GEOGRAPHY
bers; there were only 220,000 of them
in all of Canada when explorer Jacques
Cartier arrived in Québec in 1534.
Western Canada is a diffi cult region
to pin down. Some defi ne it as British
Columbia and Alberta, some as every-
thing west of Ontario (generally
thought of as central Canada), while
still others would further divide that
version of Western Canada into the
Prairies, the mountains and the coast.
This guidebook uses the wider defi n-
ition, including the provinces of British
Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and
Manitoba, so that we may introduce
you to the range of landscapes found
across this part of Canada. The majes-
tic chain of mountains, the Rockies, is
an easy focus for any trip to this part
of the world. But what trip to Canada's
West would be complete without also
experiencing Calgary and the world-
famous Stampede, the rolling plains,
magnifi cent lakes and rivers of southern
Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba,
the Pacifi c metropolis of Vancouver, the
stunning coastline, the Gulf Islands or
the fruitful valleys of southern British
Columbia?
As we said, this guide covers the four
most westerly provinces of Canada:
British Columbia, located on the Pacifi c
coast and covered by vast mountain
chains; Alberta, which begins on the
eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains
and extends into the vast Canadian
prairies; Saskatchewan; and fi nally
Manitoba, which borders the central
province of Ontario. From the coast
eastward, these provinces are bor-
dered to the south by the U.S. states
of Washington, Idaho, Montana, North
Dakota and Minnesota. British Columbia
borders Alaska to the northwest and
the Yukon to the north. The north-
eastern corner of British Columbia and
the entire northern border of Alberta
and Saskatchewan are shared with the
Northwest Territories, while Manitoba's
northern border is shared by the Inuit
territory of Nunavut.
British Columbia is the largest
of these provinces with an area
of 950,000km 2 . Alberta covers
660,000km 2 , Saskatchewan stretches
over 651,900km 2 , and Manitoba, the
smallest of Canada's western provinces,
covers some 650,000km 2 .
This region has only been known to
Europeans for 200 years. In fact, the sons
of the French explorer La Vérendrye did
not set eyes on the Rocky Mountains
until the end of the 18th century, and
England's George Vancouver only ex-
plored the Pacifi c coast and Columbia
River in the last decade of the same
century. White settlement of the region
is even more recent, going back just
over 100 years in Alberta, which, like
Saskatchewan, has only existed as a
province since 1905. Aboriginal peoples
have inhabited this territory for at least
11,000 years, but never in large num-
Carved out by countless fjords and
dotted with hundreds of islands,
British Columbia's jagged coastline is
7,000km long, not counting the shores
of the islands. The largest of these is
Vancouver Island, about the size of the
Netherlands and home to the provincial
capital, Victoria. Despite its name, the
city of Vancouver is not on the island
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