Territorial Evolution, 1871

Canada

The fear of losing the territories to the West was also behind Canada's interest in the colony of British Columbia. By the end of the 1860s, the Cariboo gold rush was over and British Columbia was facing a very large public debt. Some British Columbians wanted their colony to become part of the United States. Their side received a boost in 1869, when an American transcontinental railway offered West Coast people an easy way to travel and ship their products to the East. Towards the end of 1869, a petition to join the United States was circulated: it was signed by one hundred and four people (out of a population of roughly ten thousand inhabitants).

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Photograph of a Canadian Pacific Railway Surveying Operations Camp, 1871

Other British Columbians started a campaign to persuade the inhabitants to join Canada. One of the leaders of the campaign was the editor of the British Colonist, who had changed his name from Smith to Amor de Cosmos. Talks between the colony and Canada began in 1870. It was finally agreed that British Columbia should enter Confederation, that the large debt of the province would be taken over by Canada, and that a Canadian railway, to link British Columbia to the East, would be begun within two years and completed within ten years. British Columbia became the sixth Canadian province on July 20, 1871.

British Columbia

The colony of Vancouver Island had been set up by the British government in 1849 to keep the American settlers (who were moving into Oregon at that time) from taking it over. Then, in 1856, gold was found on the mainland. The colony of British Columbia was created in 1858 because of the Cariboo gold rush. Queen Victoria named the colony. The original boundaries of British Columbia were drawn in 1858 when the colony was created. The boundaries were: the United States to the south; the Pacific Ocean to the west, the 55th parallel in the north; and, to the east, the watershed between the rivers that flowed into the Pacific and those that flowed to the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. In 1863, a northern territory, the Stickeen Territory, was added to British Columbia, and the northern boundary became the 60th parallel. The two colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island were joined in 1866; they kept the name of British Columbia, and Victoria became the capital city. When British Columbia joined Canada as a province in July 1871, it kept both Vancouver Island and the previously delimited boundaries.

The animation Territorial Evolution 1867 to 1999 shows sequentially the history of the political boundary changes in Canada from Confederation to the creation of Nunavut.

• Territorial Evolution, 1867 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1870 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1873 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1874 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1876 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1880 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1881 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1882 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1886 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1889 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1895 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1897 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1898 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1901 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1905 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1912 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1920 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1927 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1949 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1999 Map | Read about this map
• Territorial Evolution, 1867 to 1999 Map | Read about this map

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• Territorial Evolution
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