Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of the island, and his main concerns were to maintain law and order and to purchase land
from the natives. He made treaties with the tribes in which the land became the “entire
propertyofthewhitepeopleforever.”Inreturn,tribesretaineduseoftheirvillagesitesand
enclosed fields and could hunt and fish on unoccupied lands. Each indigenous family was
paid a pitiful compensation.
The Growth of Victoria
In the late 1850s, gold strikes on the mainland's Thompson and Fraser Rivers brought
thousands of gold miners into Victoria, the region's only port and source of supplies.
Overnight, Victoria became a classic boomtown, but with a distinctly British flavor; most
of the company men, early settlers, and military personnel firmly maintained their home-
land traditions and celebrations. Even after the gold rush ended, Victoria remained an en-
ergetic bastion of military, economic, and political activity and was officially incorporated
as a city in 1862. In 1868, two years after the colonies of Vancouver Island and British
Columbia were united, Victoria was made the capital. Throughout the two world wars,
Victoria continuedtogrow.Thecommencement offerryservicebetweenTsawwassenand
Sidney in 1903 created a small population boom, but Victoria has always lagged well be-
hind Vancouver in the population stakes.
When British Columbia joined the confederation to become a Canadian province in 1871,
its population was only 36,000, and 27,000 of the residents were natives. With the com-
pletion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, immigration during the early 20th cen-
tury, and the rapid industrial development after World War II, the provincial population
burgeoned. Between 1951 and 1971 it doubled. Today 4.4 million people live in British
Columbia (7.4percentofCanada'stotal).Thepopulationisconcentrated inthesouthwest,
namely in Vancouver (the population of Greater Vancouver is 2.5 million), on the south
end of Vancouver Island (Victoria's population is 320,000), and in the Okanagan Valley.
These three areas make up less than 1 percent of the province but account for over 80 per-
cent of the population. The overall population density is just 3.5 people per square kilo-
meter.
Around 34 percent of British Columbians are of British origin, followed by 30 percent
of other European lineage, mostly French and German. To really get the British feeling,
just spend some time in Victoria—a city that has retained its original English customs and
traditions from days gone by. First Nations make up 3.7 percent of the population. While
