Vancouver History

Native Peoples of Vancouver

The Coast Salish people, which included the Songhee tribe, were the original inhabitants of Vancouver. There is evidence of a fortified village at Finlayson Point in Beacon Hill Park that existed prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The Songhees' traditional foods included salmon, shellfish, whale, deer, duck, berries, camas root and herbs. The Coast Salish traditionally lived in bighouses.

Spanish & British Explorations of Vancouver

The Spanish claim to Alaska and the Pacific Northwest had dated back to a 1493 papal bull and rights contained in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas; these two formal acts gave Spain the exclusive rights to colonize all of the Western Hemisphere (excluding Brazil), including the exclusive rights to colonize all of the the west coast of North America.

Confident of their claims, the Spanish Empire did not explore or settle the northwest coast of North America for almost 300 years. By the late 1700s, however, learning of Russian Empire and British arrivals along the Pacific coast, Spain finally grew sufficiently concerned about their claims to the Pacific Northwest and set out to learn the extent of the Russian and British encroachment.

In late 1774, the viceroy of New Spain commanded Juan Jose Perez Hernandez to explore the Pacific coast with the objective of reaching 60° north latitude (about the latitude of today's Cordova, Alaska) to discover possible Russian settlements and to re-assert the long-standing Spanish claim to the Pacific Northwest. Rumors of Russian fur traders caused the Spanish to send the frigate Santiago north under the command of Perez, crewed mostly by Mexicans. Interestingly, Perez was given explicit instructions to treat all natives with respect, and to establish friendly relations with any natives encountered.

It was during this journey in 1774 that Perez became the first European to visit Vancouver Island. It wasn't until 17 years later that the first European to explore the coastline of present-day Point Grey and part of Burrard Inlet was the Spaniard Jose Maria Narvaez; his expedition took place in 1791.

One year later, British Captain George Vancouver explored the inner harbor of Burrard Inlet. His orders included a survey of every inlet and outlet on the west coast of the mainland, all the way north to Alaska. Most of this work was done from small boats powered by both oars and sail, because maneuvering larger sail-powered vessels in uncharted waters was generally impractical and dangerous due to strong tidal currents.

In 1808, the North West Company, rivals of the Hudson's Bay Company, dispatched Simon Fraser to the western territories to establish trading posts in the region. He and his fellow explorers traveled down the Fraser River as far as Point Grey, near the site of today's University of British Columbia, thus becoming the first Europeans known to have set foot on the site of present-day Vancouver.

Captain George Vancouver

Simon Fraser

The Gold Rush of 1858

Gold was discovered in 1855 on the Thompson River in British Columbia. In 1858, news of the strike was spread to San Francisco when the then governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, sent a shipment of ore to the San Francisco mint.

San Francisco and the California gold fields met the news with excitement, and within a month 30,000 men descended upon Victoria, the only real outpost in the area, and which until that time had maintained a population of only 450 men, women and children. This was a record for mass movement of mining populations on the North American frontier.

Shortly thereafter, they moved to the mouth of the Fraser River and what would become the city of Vancouver. Fearing a takeover of the area by the Americans, the Crown Colony of British Columbia was established at Fort Langley on November 19, 1858. The capital of the new Crown Colony of British Columbia was set at New Westminster (once called Sapperton, because British sappers, or road builders, were stationed there), today a part of the city of Vancouver.

The gold rush was short-lived, but the immigrants saw potential in the area's vast timber wealth. And while most of the immigrants returned to the United States, many did stay to start a new life in British Columbia.

Life After the Gold Rush

The first European settlement was established in 1862 at McLeery's Farm on the Fraser River, just east of what is today the city of Marpole. A sawmill was built at Moodyville (now the city of North Vancouver) in 1863, followed by mills owned by Captain Edward Stamp on the south shore of the Burrard Inlet. Stamp's mill was established near the foot of Gore Street, then known as Hastings Mill. This formed the nucleus of what would become the city of Vancouver.

The Imperial Parliament passed an act for the Union of the crown colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island in August, 1866, and the act became effective in November of the same year. As a result of the act, New Westminster became the capital of the new Colony of British Columbia.

In 1867, the loquacious John "Gassy Jack" Deighton arrived in the area and set up a tavern on the edges of the Hastings Mill property. His saloon catered to the thirsty mill workers and prospectors who found their way to the area. Over time, additional small shops were built, and the village of Gastown was born.

Also in 1867, Canada was confederated. In 1868, the capital of the colony of British Columbia was relocated to Victoria.

In 1870, the colonial government surveyed the settlement and laid out a town site, which was renamed "Granville" in honor of the then-British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Granville. Granville was chosen to be the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway; the building of the railway was among the preconditions for British Columbia to join the Confederation. In 1871, British Columbia became the sixth member of the Canadian Confederation.

The City of Vancouver was incorporated in 1886, the same year that the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed. The name of the city was chosen by the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway to honor George Vancouver.

In June, 1886, a fire destroyed the entire downtown area in just 20 minutes. Rebuilding began immediately, and many of the buildings constructed in that year remain in the Gastown area.

From a population of 1,000 souls in 1881, Vancouver grew to over 20,000 residents at the turn of the century, and over 100,000 by 1911.

Vancouver in the 20th Century

Vancouver prospered during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898, selling equipment to prospectors heading north to Alaska. Merchants, including the Hudson Bay Company, Woodward's and Spencer's, came to dominate the retail trade in the city at the turn of the century, while the Canadian Pacific Railway exercised great economic influence in the further development of the city. The resource sector was the backbone of Vancouver's economy, which was comprised of logging and mining.

The opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 further spurred the growth of the city, as travel, imports and exports to and from Europe increased substantially.

In the 1920s, the city of Vancouver annexed Point Grey and South Vancouver, thus giving Vancouver the footprint that exists to this day. In 1929, the population of Vancouver exceeded 225,000 residents.

The Great Depression of the 1930s was felt strongly in Vancouver. It wasn't until the beginning of World War II that the city was pulled out of the slump. During the war, the city became a hub of ship-building, factories were established and exports and real estate boomed. East Indian and Chinese-Canadian citizens got the provincial vote in 1947, followed by Japanese-Canadians in 1949.

The 1950s were a prosperous time in the city, and, as in the United States, this was a period that saw extensive development of the suburban areas. By 1961, the population of Vancouver exceeded 800,000 residents.

The 1980s and 1990s saw a substantial influx of immigrants from Hong Kong settling in Vancouver and its suburban areas. The spur was the 1984 signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, laying out the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China in 1997. This created one of the highest concentrations of ethnic Chinese residents in North America. During this time, the population of Greater Vancouver rose from 1.2 million residents in 1981 to 2.25 million in 2007.

Today's Vancouver

Vancouver has become one of the largest film capitals in North America, earning the name Hollywood North. The city has also become one of the most expensive places to buy real estate in Canada. It will play host to the 2010 Winter Olympics, which are set to take place in nearby Whistler.

Vancouver is consistently ranked one of the three most livable cities in the world. According to a 2008 report by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, Vancouver has the fourth highest quality of living in the world, after Zurich, Vienna and Geneva, and ranked first in a survey by The Economist magazine. Vancouver also currently ranks one of the cleanest cities in the world.