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PROVINCE OF

BRITISH COLUMBIA,

CANADA.

ITS CLIMATE AND RESOURCES;

WITH

INFORMATION FOR EMIGRANTS.

“Well, I may frankly tell you that I think British Columbia a glorious Province--a Province which Canada should be proud to possess, and whose association with the Dominion she ought to regard as the crowning triumph of Federation."--Speech of Governor-General The Earl of Dufferin, 20th Sept., 1876.

4245

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE
MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.

VICTORIA, B. C.:

PRINTED BY RICHARD WOLFENDEN, GOVERNMENT PRINTER.
1883.

Can 2108.83.5

HARVARD COFRE

MAR 26 1925

LIBRARY

Irancis Parkman ofened

0

The information in this pamphlet is compiled, as far as possible,

from official and trustworthy sources,-the authorities generally

Part II.-Information for Emigrants.

The Index is at the end.

BRITISH COLUMBIA.

ITS CLIMATE AND RESOURCES; WITH INFORMATION FOR EMIGRANTS.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

The province of British Columbia (including Vancouver, Queen Charlotte and other islands along the coast) is that portion of Canada which looks out on the Pacific ocean. It is the only British territory on the western, or Pacific ocean, side of the North American continent. From its commanding geographical position, its fine climate, its harbours, the variety of its resources, its vast deposits of coal, iron and other minerals of economic value, the province may be regarded as, in many respects, a duplicate, in North-west America, of Great Britain and Ireland.

The great

Vancouver Island was constituted a colony in 1849. mainland territory became a colony in 1858. The two colonies were united in 1866 under the name of British Columbia, and so continued until the 20th July, 1871, at which date the colony became one of the provinces of the Dominion of Canada.

COAST LINE.

The coast, on a straight line, is about 600 miles, but, following indentations, would measure many thousand miles. It extends from the 49th parallel of north latitude (U.S. boundary line) northward to the United States territory of Alaska in 54° 40′ north latitude. The greater portion of the coast has a broad mountainous border, cut by numerous inlets and arms of the sea, and fringed with islands along its whole length. Running parallel to the coast range of mountains is another range, partly submerged, which appears above the surface of the sea, in the large islands of Vancouver and Queen Charlotte, and is represented, in the south, by the Olympian mountains of Washington Territory (U.S.), and, northward, by the islands of the coast archipelago of Alaska (U.S.). In this outer halfsubmerged range which forms a noble barrier for the protection of the mainland shores of the province, are three remarkable sea gaps; namely, the Strait of Fuca, the wide opening between Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands, and Dixon's entrance farther north. The Strait of Fuca and Dixon's entrance are continued eastward, and represented in the inland interior, by depressions more or less marked in the structural character of the mainland, as is evidenced

by the course of the great drainage rivers.

The Fraser reaches the sea opposite the end of the Strait of Fuca; the Skeena falls into the Pacific near the head of Dixon's entrance.

A persistent north-west and south-east sea valley, accessible from the ocean through these sea gaps, thus stretches along the whole seaboard, separating the island-fringed, deeply-indented coast of the mainland from the large outlying islands above mentioned

EARL OF DUFFERIN'S DESCRIPTION OF BRITISH COLUMBIA COAST LINE.

(See Speech at Victoria, 10th September, 1876.)

"Such a spectacle as its coast line presents is not to be paralleled by any country in the world. Day after day for a whole week, in a vessel of nearly 2000 tons, we threaded an interminable labyrinth of watery lanes and reaches that wound endlessly in and out of a network of islands, promontories, and peninsulas for thousands of miles, unruffled by the slightest swell from the adjoining ocean, and presenting at every turn an ever shifting combination of rock, verdure, forest, glacier, and snow-capped mountain of unrivalled grandeur and beauty. When it is remembered that this wonderful system of navigation, equally well adapted to the largest line of battle-ship and the frailest canoe, fringes the entire seaboard of your province and communicates at points sometimes more than a hundred miles from the coast, with a multitude of valleys stretching eastward into the interior, while at the same time it is furnished with innumerable harbours on either hand, one is lost in admiration at the facilities for inter-communication which are thus provided for the future inhabitants of this wonderful region."

GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE PROVINCE.

The Rocky Mountains proper form the Eastern boundary of the Mainland of the Province, which thus lies between that range and the Pacific ocean. The country exhibits the diversified and bold physical features that characterize the whole Cordillera region of the West coast of North America, of which it is a part. This so-called Cordillera region, lying between the long chain of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific ocean, and belonging partly to the United States and partly to Britain, runs north-westward and south-eastward with the general trend of the coast of the Pacific ocean, and is divided into two subordinate mountainous districts by an irregular belt of high plateau country running for a long distance in the same direction.

In the Province of British Columbia are included over 800 miles in length of this Cordillera region, with an average breadth of about

* His Excellency, it will be noticed, mentions these mainland coast valleys in relation to the facilities for inter-communication. The agricultural areas on the coast of the province will be described in the sequel.

400 miles. Proceeding westward from the Rocky Mountains, the physical structure and connections of the rocky formations of the country are as follow:-

The ranges of mountains in British Columbia that lie immediately west of the Rocky Mountains proper and fringe, for the most part, the eastern and north-eastern sides of the irregular interior plateau, are known in the province as the Purcell, Selkirk, Columbia, Cariboo, and Omineca Mountains. These may be taken collectively as the representatives of the Bitter Root ranges of the American Territory of Idaho to the southward.

The British Columbian interior plateau itself is a northerly continuation of the great basin of Utah and Nevada (U. S.) It is about 100 miles in average width, closed northward by an irregular mountainous country about latitude 55° 30′, and, to the south, by a second irregular transverse mountainous region near the 49th parallel.

The British Columbian coast range-the broad western buttress of the interior plateau--a chain which begins near the mouth of the Fraser river and runs northward along the whole coast-is a distinct mountain system, uplifted later than the Sierra Nevada of California, and not of the same materials as the Cascade mountains of Oregon.

The above mentioned outlying range, half submerged in the ocean (partly visible in the islands of Vancouver and Queen Charlotte), may be included with the Coast. range.

SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN BOUNDARIES.

The 49th parallel of north latitude (the United States boundary line) is the southern boundary of the province, with a deflection which leaves the whole of Vancouver Island within Canadian territory.

The 60th parallel of north latitude is the northern boundary of British Columbia. [See Appendix A.] The area of the province is about 350,000 square miles.

A country with a surface so extensive and diversified, necessarily presents varying conditions for settlement, and has varieties of climate corresponding to its topography.

GENERAL TOPOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS.

Broadly viewed, there are two grand divisions of the country,the humid forest region of the coast, and the dry grazing region of the interior of the mainland. Vegetation is luxuriant in the coast region; the soil of the arable area is moist and loamy. The interior is more open, with plains and valleys, climate dry, timber scarce and rather poor, soil fertile but light, herbage excellent. These different grand divisions of the country will be described as we proceed. At present a word or two on the climate will be in place.

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