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Preamble: Sensing the Past

For as long as I can remember, I have viewed British Columbia as a kind of promised land. Growing up in northwest Minnesota a few miles south of the Canadian border, I would, while waiting in the car...

Middle-aged man with sideburns wearing a coat with epaulets and large buttons and a medal attached to the front, standing and looking slightly to the side

Chapter 1: Today’s British Columbia Coming into View

The origins of British Columbia as an Indigenous place go back to time immemorial. Its location on the western edge of a continent, North America, and an ocean away from the adjacent continent of...

Dark-skinned man wearing a brimmed hat, loose shirt and long pants, holding a shallow pan and shovel looks down, standing in front of a tent. An older man with a beard is sitting against the tent, on the bank of a river in the mountains

Chapter 2: The Year That Changed Everything (1858)

James Douglas’s governorship of Vancouver Island, following its acquisition by Britain in 1846, was one thing; to be landed with a gold rush on the mainland thirty times that island’s size was...

A wooden bridge connects rocky roads set into the mountainside, overlooking a steep drop to the side

Chapter 3: James Douglas and the Colonial Office (1859–64)

James Douglas had singlehandedly—or rather doublehandedly along with the Colonial Office in faraway London headed by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton—managed the 1858 gold rush across the vast, then...

Seven light-skinned men and one darker-skinned man, alternatively sitting and standing, wear coats and bow ties in front of the side wall of a wooden structure

Chapter 4: The Colonial Office in Action (1864–67)

Britain’s governance of its two remote colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia had never been easy. Indicative on a practical level was, Douglas explained in 1863, the twists and turns...

Light-skinned man wearing an open coat over a knee-length tunic and a tall white collar and knee-high boots, sits with his hands clasped in his lap, left leg crossed over, whole body shifted slightly and face looking to the left

Chapter 5: The Moderating Influence of Bishop Hills (1860–63)

For all of the amazing tales of the origins and survival of the two remote British colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, huddled together as they were on the far west coast of North...

Thirteen men sitting and two standing, all wearing brimmed hats and holding mining tools, are on a pile of logs in front of a tall wooden structure with a sloped roof and a large wheel attached to the side

Chapter 6: Taking Gold Miners Seriously (1858–71)

Beneath the surface of events, as penned from the top down—be it by James Douglas, Bishop Hills, or from within the Colonial Office—everyday life from 1858 onward was, in the future British...

Four women and a girl wearing dresses with puffy, loose shirts with high collars and heavy skirts, sit and stand around three men wearing heavy suits with ties against a floral cloth background

Chapter 7: Crediting Indigenous Women

The tendency during the early years of non-Indigenous men’s presence in the future British Columbia to view Indigenous women as lesser persons than their non-Indigenous counterparts was...

Light-skinned man with curly hair thinning at the top and a full beard, wearing a wide collared blazer on top of a white shirt and striped bow tie, leans one arm on a stand covered in cloth, looking slightly to the side

Chapter 8: Along the Pathway to Canada (1866–71)

The pathway that the Colony of British Columbia took to Confederation with Canada in 1871 was neither even nor straightforward. While the notion of Confederation had been around, there was no...

Appendix

Members of the Colonial Office during the time covered by British Columbia in the Balance Secretary of State for War and the Colonies Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl...

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