50 Fun Facts About British Columbia

Which city, founded as a Hudson's Bay Company fort in 1843, is the capital of British Columbia?

Victoria sits on the southern tip of Vancouver Island rather than the mainland, and it is far smaller than Vancouver, the province's largest city.

Which sci-fi series shot its first five seasons in Vancouver before moving production to Los Angeles?

The X-Files left after season five, reportedly to suit star David Duchovny's schedule, though its second feature film came back to shoot in Vancouver.

Which name for a hairy forest giant did British Columbia teacher J.W. Burns coin in 1929 from a Halkomelem word?

Sasquatch reached the public through a Maclean's magazine article in which Burns retold stories from the Sts'ailes Nation, with whom he lived and worked.

Which environmental group began in Vancouver with a 1971 boat voyage to protest a US nuclear test at Amchitka?

Greenpeace never reached the test site, because a US Coast Guard ship forced the chartered boat to turn back, but news of the voyage won wide sympathy.

Which Vancouver Island city gave its name to a no-bake dessert bar layered with custard icing and chocolate?

Nanaimo bars earned a Canada Post stamp in 2019, and critics promptly complained that the picture got the proportions of the three layers wrong.

Which runner raised in Port Coquitlam began the Marathon of Hope across Canada in 1980 on an artificial leg?

Terry Fox ran for 143 days before cancer forced him to stop outside Thunder Bay, and the annual run in his name became the world's largest one-day cancer fundraiser.

Which British Columbia ski resort, first mapped as London Mountain, co-hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics with Vancouver?

Whistler got its lasting name from the shrill call of the hoary marmots on its slopes, which replaced the surveyors' label inspired by the fog.

Which legendary serpent-like creature is said to inhabit Okanagan Lake in the interior of British Columbia?

Ogopogo is the settlers' name for a water being the Syilx people called Naitaka, and sceptics say many sightings are simply floating logs.

Which Vancouver park, about a fifth larger than New York's Central Park, is named after a governor general of Canada?

Stanley Park honours the same Lord Stanley who donated hockey's most famous trophy, and he dedicated it in person as the first governor general to visit Vancouver.

Which Vancouver-born actor began acting on television at thirteen and later starred as the superhero Deadpool?

Ryan Reynolds earned a Golden Globe nomination for the part, in a film that had sat in development since about 2000.

Which Canadian province is British Columbia's only provincial neighbour, lying along its eastern border?

Alberta is the one province that touches British Columbia, whose other neighbours are two northern territories and four American states.

Which northeastern British Columbia town, a wartime railhead, is the starting point of the Alaska Highway?

Dawson Creek marks the start of a road the US Army pushed through in 1942, running by way of Whitehorse to Delta Junction.

Which archipelago off British Columbia's north coast officially dropped the name Queen Charlotte Islands in 2010?

Haida Gwaii means islands of the Haida people, whereas the old name came from a fur trader's ship named for the wife of King George III.

Which rare white-furred animal of British Columbia's coastal rainforest is the province's official mammal?

Spirit bear cubs can be born to two black parents, because the pale coat comes from a recessive gene and is not albinism.

Which show garden on Vancouver Island's Saanich Peninsula was created from an exhausted limestone quarry?

Butchart Gardens began in 1909, when Jennie Butchart set about turning her cement-making husband's worked-out pit into the Sunken Garden.

Which preserved Cariboo gold-rush town is named after an English prospector who struck gold there in 1862?

Barkerville grew up around the claim of Billy Barker, a Cambridgeshire man whose diggings eventually yielded about 37,500 ounces of gold.

Which athletic clothing brand, known for its yoga pants, did Chip Wilson found in Vancouver in 1998?

Lululemon began as a retailer of yoga wear and opened its first standalone store in November 2000, two years after it was founded.

Which politician born in Port Alberni became Canada's first female prime minister in 1993?

Kim Campbell had already been Canada's first woman justice minister and the first woman to serve as defence minister of any NATO country.

Which Burnaby-born crooner spent six teenage summers working as a commercial fisherman alongside his father?

Michael Bublé got his first nightclub slots at 16 because his grandfather, a plumber, traded free plumbing work for his grandson's stage time.

Which river, the longest within British Columbia, reaches the sea just south of the city of Vancouver?

The Fraser River is named after Simon Fraser, who led a North West Company expedition down it in 1808, almost to its mouth.

Which project did Canada promise British Columbia in 1871 as the price of joining Confederation, delivering it in 1885?

A transcontinental railway was finished at Craigellachie, where the company director driving the last spike bent his first one and needed a replacement.

Which gift-giving feast of Northwest Coast First Nations did Canadian law criminalize from 1885 until 1951?

Potlatch hosts gained standing by giving wealth away, which missionaries and officials called wasteful, yet the feasts carried on underground despite jail terms.

Which driverless rapid transit system opened in Vancouver in time for the Expo 86 world's fair?

SkyTrain got its name during the fair because the first line runs mostly on elevated guideways, giving riders wide views over the city.

Which historic Vancouver neighbourhood grew around the saloon that steamboat captain John Deighton opened in 1867?

Gastown takes its name from Deighton's nickname, Gassy Jack, which he earned through his habit of talking at great length.

Which Royal Navy captain landed in Nootka Sound in March 1778 and named the inlet King George's Sound?

James Cook stepped ashore on what is now Bligh Island, named for his sailing master, the man who later lost the Bounty to mutineers.

Which Vancouver suspension bridge did the Guinness brewing family build to open up its land on the North Shore?

Lions Gate opened in 1938 and was sold to the province in 1955 for exactly what it had cost to build, though drivers kept paying the toll until 1963.

Which fur trader reached the Pacific at Bella Coola in 1793, twelve years ahead of Lewis and Clark?

Alexander Mackenzie had made the first recorded crossing of North America north of Mexico, and he missed meeting George Vancouver on the coast by just 48 days.

Which mainland city, officially nicknamed the Royal City, was founded as capital of the Colony of British Columbia?

New Westminster owes both its name and its nickname to the Queen, who chose the name herself after London turned down Queensborough.

Which chartered steamship carrying 376 passengers from Punjab was refused entry at Vancouver and sent back in 1914?

Komagata Maru passengers were British subjects, yet only 24 were allowed ashore before the ship was escorted out by the navy after two months at anchor.

Which fossil bed in Yoho National Park is famous for preserving the soft parts of Cambrian sea animals?

The Burgess Shale was found in 1909 by Charles Walcott, who kept returning to quarry it for years, and most of his classifications were later rejected.

Which Canadian scored the overtime winner against the United States in the men's hockey final at Vancouver 2010?

Sidney Crosby had been left off Canada's Olympic team four years earlier, and his winner in Vancouver became known simply as the Golden Goal.

Which Baywatch star, born in Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, made the news at birth as a Centennial Baby?

Pamela Anderson arrived on July 1, 1967, the hundredth anniversary of Canada's founding, which is why the press covered her birth.

Which 1982 Sylvester Stallone film was shot almost entirely in and around the town of Hope, British Columbia?

First Blood passed the town off as Hope, Washington, and in 2020 the real Hope put up a carved wooden statue of John Rambo.

Which British Columbia painter of forests and totem poles won a Governor General's Award for the book Klee Wyck?

Emily Carr was born in 1871, the very year British Columbia joined Canada, and the title of her first book was the Indigenous name she had been given.

Which marine mammal's southern resident community, made up of J, K and L pods, lives in the Salish Sea?

Killer whale pods here belong to a fish-eating type, and field studies running since 1973 have traced a near-complete family tree of the living animals.

Which image fills the lower part of British Columbia's flag, beneath a Union Jack marked with a crown?

A setting sun marks British Columbia as Canada's westernmost province, while the wavy blue and white lines behind it place it between ocean and mountains.

Which Vancouver Island town beside Long Beach has had a surfing culture since the 1960s and draws winter storm watchers?

Tofino's waves even tempted Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who stood up on a surfboard at his first attempt while visiting to inspect a proposed national park.

Which North Vancouver river is spanned by a tourist footbridge first built of hemp rope and cedar planks in 1889?

The Capilano bridge was rebuilt with wire cables in 1903, and today it hangs 70 metres above the water and stretches 140 metres across the canyon.

Which monument stands exactly on the border between Surrey and Blaine, Washington, in the median of the highway?

The Peace Arch was dedicated in 1921 to commemorate the 1814 Treaty of Ghent, and it was among North America's first structures built to resist earthquakes.

Which First Nation of the Nass River valley signed British Columbia's first modern treaty, in force since 2000?

The Nisga'a had pressed their land claim since 1887, and their 1973 court case was the first in which Canada's top court accepted that Aboriginal title existed.

Which Hudson's Bay Company fur trader became the first governor of the mainland Colony of British Columbia?

James Douglas was already governor of Vancouver Island, so for several years one man ran both of Britain's Pacific colonies.

Which British Columbia village set Canada's heat record of 49.6 C in June 2021, one day before a wildfire destroyed it?

Lytton's reading was the highest temperature ever recorded north of 45 degrees latitude, and it beat the all-time record for Europe as well.

Which Vancouver Island backpacking route was built in 1907 so that rescuers could reach shipwreck survivors?

The West Coast Trail began as the Dominion Lifesaving Trail, along a shore so deadly to ships that it was called the Graveyard of the Pacific.

Which pidgin trade language of the Pacific Northwest gave British Columbia English the words skookum and saltchuck?

Chinook Jargon had about 100,000 speakers in the 1860s but only around 100 by 1962; skookum means strong and saltchuck means salt water.

Which British Columbia mountain is the highest point in the Canadian Rockies and the range's most prominent peak?

Mount Robson was first climbed in 1913 by a party led by the guide Conrad Kain, up what was then the hardest ice face climbed on the continent.

Which American community south of Vancouver can be reached overland from the rest of its country only through Canada?

Point Roberts was cut off in 1846, when negotiators ran the border along the 49th parallel without precise knowledge of what the line would slice through.

Which newspaper founder and second premier of British Columbia had his name legally changed in California in 1854?

Amor De Cosmos was born plain William Smith in Nova Scotia, and he said the new name honoured his love of order, beauty, the world and the universe.

Which township near the southern tip of Vancouver Island is the home port of Canada's Pacific naval fleet?

Esquimalt was a base of the Royal Navy's Pacific Station until the British withdrew in 1905, and Canada's new naval service took it over in 1910.

Which twin-peaked underwater hazard in Seymour Narrows was destroyed in 1958 by a huge planned explosion?

Ripple Rock had damaged or sunk at least 120 vessels before engineers tunnelled up into its peaks from a nearby island and packed them with explosives.

Which premier led British Columbia from 1952 to 1972, the longest term in its history, and created BC Ferries?

W.A.C. Bennett had left school in grade nine to work in a hardware store, and friends and mockers alike took to calling him Wacky.