Vancouver, British Columbia

“ British Columbia (the mainland portion) and Vancouver Island. The city is accessible to oceangoing ships of 16 ft. draught. It is the chief centre of the farming country of the lower Fraser and has a small export lumber trade. In 1898 the greater portion of the business part of the city was destroyed by fire, and though much of it was rebuilt, the establishment of the city of Vancouver, only 12 m. distant, seriously affected its growth. It is connected with Vancouver by an electric railway. ”

“ Of the thirteen thousand population six thousand are Chinese, and they form in the city a dense, insoluble, unassimilating mass. Victoria has one railway, that to the prosperous Nanaimo coal-mines. The island has abundance of coal, some copper, and timber. But Vancouver has taken away from Victoria all its importance as a port. The Government and Parliament buildings are detached, but pleasant and commodious edifices. There is a decorous British air about everything. Throughout British Columbia the judges and the lawyers wear the gown and band and the horse-hair wig. ”

“ They continually recalled to us the surprise of some of the early explorers at seeing an uncultivated country look so much like a garden. We were told that much less rain falls here than on the American side; the winds depositing their moisture as snow on the mountains before they reach Victoria, which gives it a dryer winter climate.
Vancouver, in his narrative, repeatedly speaks of the serenity of the weather here, and says that the scenery recalled to him delightful places in England. He felt as if the smooth, lawn-like slopes of the island must have been cleared by man. ”

“ Here, where the Japanese Current meets the cold air from off the coast, fogs are very liable to prevail, though it was not so in the writer’s case. We are now in comparatively open navigation and can lay our course without fear. Soon Queen Charlotte’s Sound is entered, and for a day and a half the steamer again skirts the picturesque shore of Vancouver, whose features are reproduced in the deep, quiet waters with marvelous distinctness, until finally we are once more landed at Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. ”

“ All Vancouver's friends, patrons, and officers—lieutenants, pursers, pilots, and pilot's mates—are abundantly honored in the names scattered about this region. He appears, too, to have had a good appreciation of nature, and praised, in his report, the landscape and the flowers. He regarded somewhat, in his nomenclature, the natural features of the country; as in Point Partridge, the eastern headland of Whidby Island; Hazel Point, on Hood's Canal;158 Cypress Island, one of the San Juan group; and Birch Bay, south of the delta of Fraser River. ”

“ To the west lay the curving white sands of English Bay, and beyond, in the clear air of the long British Columbia twilight, they could see the strong mountainous profile of Vancouver Island.
“The topography of our City,” explained Robert Rennie, “lying between Burrard Inlet and False Creek, is very much like that of New York on Manhattan Island. The narrows are deep enough for the largest ship afloat, and the Inlet—a veritable inland sea—has unlimited room for docks.
“The name ‘Narrows’ seems a feeble word for such a magnificent spot,” observed Donald. ”

“ Having examined two hundred and fifteen miles of coast, Vancouver and his two ships now entered the inlet—Da Fuca Straits—now the boundary between the United States and British Columbia. All day they made their way up the strait, till night came, and Vancouver relates with pride that "we had now advanced farther up this inlet than Mr. Grey or any other person from the civilised world." ”

“ British Columbia and Vancouver’s Island.—This new settlement made great progress from the very dawn of its recognition as a colony. The capital, called Victoria, sprang up as if by magic, and became a centre of business activity and colonial enterprise. Situated on the Pacific, the climate is favourable, and the position, politically and commercially, most important. The citizens of the United States laid claim to an island near Vancouver’s Island, which was a source of alarm lest war between the two states should arise from the dispute. ”

“ Vancouver failed in the same way to discover the Fraser, the great river of British Columbia, although he actually entered the delta of the50 river, and sailed about among the sand-banks, naming one of them Sturgeon Bank; while the Spanish explorers, who were there about the same time, recognized the fact of its existence far out at sea, in the irregular currents, the sand-banks, the drift of trees and logs, and also in the depression in the Cascade Mountains, which marks its channel. ”

“ Vancouver Island, not the least important portion of British Columbia, which, from its great wealth of natural resources and its commanding position on the Pacific coast, is fast becoming one of the richest and most prosperous districts of the province. Coal-mining and lumbering are the chief industries, and fishing, quartz-mining, copper-smelting, ship-building, whaling and other branches are being rapidly developed. ”

“ The organisation of part of the territory west of the Rocky Mountains into the province of British Columbia is rapidly modifying the character of its native population. But in recent years there were frequently to be found at Fort Vancouver upwards of two hundred voyageurs with their Indian wives and families, in addition to the factors and clerks. Thither also resorted for trading purposes, Chinook, Nootka, Nisqually, Walla-walla, Klikatat, Kalapurgas, Klackamuss, Cowlitz, and other Indians. ”

“ Vancouver's Island and British Columbia had passed from the occupation of the Hudson's Bay Company into an efficient colonial organization. The gold-fields of the interior had been ascertained to equal in productiveness, and greatly to exceed in extent, those of California. The prospect for agriculture was no less favorable,—while the commercial importance of Vancouver and the harbors of Puget's Sound is unquestionable. ”

“ Mr. Benton then showed from a report of Major Pilcher, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and who had visited the Columbia River, that actual colonization was going on there, attended by every circumstance that indicated ownership and the design of a permanent settlement. Fort Vancouver, the principal of these British establishments, for there are many of them within our boundaries, is thus described by Major Pilcher:
"This fort is on the north side of the Columbia, nearly opposite the mouth of the Multnomah, in the region of tide-water, and near the head of ship navigation. ”

“ In view of all the circumstances of Gray’s discovery, and his impartation of it to the British, this language of Vancouver has a coolness, as John Fiske remarks, which would be very refreshing on a hot day.
On November 10th, the Chatham crossed the bar outward bound for Monterey to join the Discovery.
Such, in rapid view, were the essential facts in the long and curiously complicated finding of our River. We see that various nations bore each a part. We see the foundation of the subsequent contention between Great Britain and the United States. ”

“ Victoria on Vancouver Island. The Dolly Varden trout is very plentiful in all these rivers. Some very fine bags of large fish have been made in the Squamish River in Butte inlet. On Vancouver Island there is good fishing, easily reached from Victoria. The Cowichan River and Lake are the best known. Steel-head and rainbow can both be got on fly and minnow. The flies used are even larger than those on the Thompson. Personally, I have never fished on Vancouver Island, but from all that I have heard I should say that sport is not so good there as on the upper mainland. ”

“ Both Vancouver and Victoria are already extremely important ports, and expect much additional ocean trade when the Panama Canal is opened. The northern port of Prince Rupert is also busy, although the railway, of which it is the terminal, is not yet completed. There are many other ports and inland towns; mining, railway construction, and lumbering camps all needing supplies; and the man who understands dairying or market-gardening or fruit growing has a choice of opportunities in British Columbia. ”

“ Vancouver Island (30) , a rugged-coasted island on the W. of North America; belongs to British Columbia; is separated from it by a strait of the sea; is 278 m. long and 50 to 65 m. of average breadth; is covered with forests, and only partially cultivated; is rich in minerals, and has extensive fisheries.
Vandals, a fierce nation of the Teutonic race, who, from the NE. of Europe, invaded Rome on the E., mutilating and destroying the works of art in the city.
Vanderbilt, Cornelius, American millionaire, born on Staten Island ”

“ Fort Vancouver in 1845 gradually rising slope of land extends in a superb swell several miles to the north. Every feature of scenery that could delight the eye—Mt. Hood with the Cascades to the east, the Willamette Valley to the south, the Portland and Scappoose hills to the west, the River blending all—seems to have been lavished on Vancouver. It has been a surprise to many that the great city had not grown here rather than at Portland, which, though on an equally fine location, is on the tributary and much smaller Willamette. ”

“ They catch the earliest hint of sunrise, they hold the last color of sunset. Twin mountains they are, lifting their twin peaks above the fairest city in all Canada, and known throughout the British Empire as "The Lions of Vancouver." Sometimes the smoke of forest fires blurs them until they gleam like opals in a purple atmosphere, too beautiful for words to paint. ”

“ It stretches from the Atlantic Ocean on the east to the Pacific on the west, and from the United States boundary on the south to the Arctic Ocean on the north. The distance from Halifax in Nova Scotia to Vancouver in British Columbia is about 3,660 miles, whilst that from Halifax to Liverpool is only about 2,820; and the traveller, wishing to go from Victoria in Vancouver Island to Dawson in the Yukon District, has to make a journey by land and water of over 1,500 miles.
It is just as well for the intending immigrant to try to realize that Canada is a land of “magnificent distances” ”

“ Sir Edward considered Oregon a British possession , and was much disturbed when he dis covered that Douglas would not supply his men with fresh meat and vegetables. He evidently had expected to find British fortifications on the Columbia , since he records in his “ Narrative " that " no Fort Vancouver exists ; it is merely the mercantile post of the Hudson's Bay Company. " Among the Douglas papers in the British Columbia Archives there is a manuscript book dating from this period entitled “ Establishment of Servants , Columbia District , Out ( f i t ) 1839. " ”

“ A true sportsman, his heart is in his job, and if he only be given a free hand and adequate funds, the preservation of game in British Columbia will be in safe hands.
The licence, 100 dollars, is not a heavy one, [13] but I think it might with justice be graduated, fixing one sum, say 50 dollars, for Vancouver Island, where only wapiti, an occasional bear and deer are found, and imposing the higher licence for the Mainland, to include moose, mountain sheep, goat, caribou and grizzly bear. ”

“ By this management, it became impossible for them to [Pg 27] dispose of drink to the Indians; their small allowance being always immediately consumed in a meeting or parting carouse.
The arrival of men from the interior at Fort Vancouver usually took place in the month of June, when the Columbia was high, and a stirring scene it was. The chief traders generally contrived their march through the upper country, their camps, and their rendezvous, so as to meet the Express which annually came to Vancouver from Canada and the Red River settlements. ”

“ When the British company abandoned it the United States government took possession of Vancouver for a military post; and now the tourist beholds, scattered over the plain, a thriving town of two thousand inhabitants, and bordering on it the wellkept garrison grounds of the troops, with neat officers' quarters encircling the parade. Vancouver is the seat of government of Clarke County, and possesses many advantages, which are to be brought more prominently to light by railroad communication with the Puget Sound region and Eastern Washington in the near future. ”

“ Vancouver city, the terminus of the C.P.R., on the mainland, has 25,000 inhabitants (1901) . Until May 1886 its site was covered by a dense forest. In two months it had grown quite a town, then a fire destroyed every house save one. It lies on the fine Coal Harbour, a widening of Burrard Inlet. It is easy to see what a fine city is to be here one day.
I found the Vancouver hotel large, comfortable enough, but ordinary. Stanley Park is the Government reservation, and contains very old and gigantic trees— what a magnificent land, another of the heritages of the British race. ”

“ Vancouver Barracks, east of the city, is an important U.S. military post (established in 1849) and the headquarters of the Military Department of the Columbia (including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, except the part in Yellowstone Park, and Alaska) ; the military reservation includes some 640 acres. The post commands an excellent view of the Columbia, and of the mountain peaks, Mt Hood, Three Sisters, Jefferson and St Helens. The city has a public library and a public park, and there is a U.S. Land Office here. ”