George Vancouver
Born	(1757-06-22)22 June 1757 King's Lynn, Norfolk, England
Died	10 May 1798(1798-05-10) (aged 40) Petersham, Surrey, England
Occupation	Naval Officer
Signature

Captain George Vancouver RN (22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was an English officer of the British Royal Navy, best known for his 1791-95 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of contemporary Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. He also explored the Hawaiian Islands and the southwest coast of Australia.

Vancouver Island, Canada; the cities of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Vancouver, Washington, US; and Mount Vancouver on the Yukon/Alaska border; are named after him.

Early career[link]

Vancouver's first naval service was as a midshipman aboard HMS Resolution, on James Cook's second voyage (1772–1775) searching for Terra Australis. He also accompanied Cook's third voyage (1776–1778), this time aboard Resolution's sister ship, HMS Discovery and the first European sighting and exploration of the Hawaiian Islands. Upon his return to Britain in 1779, Vancouver was commissioned as a lieutenant and posted aboard the sloop HMS Martin surveying coastlines.

In the late 1780s the Spanish empire commissioned an expedition to the Pacific Northwest. However, the 1789 Nootka Crisis intervened. Spain and Britain came close to war over ownership of the Nootka Sound on contemporary Vancouver Island, and of greater importance, the right to colonize and settle the Pacific Northwest coast. Henry Roberts and Vancouver joined Britain's more warlike vessels. Vancouver went with Joseph Whidbey to HMS Courageux. When the first Nootka Convention ended the crisis in 1790, Vancouver was given command of HMS Discovery to take possession of Nootka Sound and to survey the coasts.^[1]

Vancouver's explorations[link]

A life sized statue covered in gold of George Vancouver on top of the British Columbia Parliament Buildings in Victoria

The Vancouver Expedition[link]

Departing England with two ships in April 1791, Vancouver commanded an expedition charged with exploring the Pacific region. In its first year the expedition travelled to Cape Town, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and China, collecting botanical samples and surveying coastlines along the way. Proceeding to North America, Vancouver followed the coasts of present day Oregon and Washington northward. In April 1792 he encountered American Captain Robert Gray off the coast of Oregon just prior to Gray's sailing up the Columbia River.

Vancouver entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca, between Vancouver Island and the Washington state mainland on 29 April 1792. 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 in small craft propelled by both sail and oar; maneuvering larger sail-powered vessels in uncharted waters was generally impractical and dangerous.

Vancouver was the first European to enter Burrard Inlet on 13 June 1792, naming it after his friend Sir Harry Burrard. It is the present day main harbour area of the City of Vancouver beyond Stanley Park. He surveyed Howe Sound and Jervis Inlet over the next nine days.^[2] Then, on his 35th birthday on 22 June 1792, he returned to Point Grey, the present day location of the University of British Columbia. Here he unexpectedly met a Spanish expedition led by Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayetano Valdés y Flores. Vancouver was "mortified" (his word) to learn they already had a crude chart of the Strait of Georgia based on the 1791 exploratory voyage of José María Narváez the year before, under command of Francisco de Eliza. For three weeks they cooperatively explored the Georgia Strait and the Discovery Islands area before sailing separately towards Nootka Sound.

After the summer surveying season ended, in November 1792 Vancouver went to Nootka, then the region's most important harbour, on contemporary Vancouver Island. Here he was to receive any British buildings and lands returned by the Spanish from claims by Francisco de Eliza for the Spanish crown. The Spanish commander, Juan Francisco Bodega y Quadra, was very cordial and he and Vancouver exchanged the maps they had made, but no agreement was reached; they decided to await further instructions. At this time, they decided to name the large island on which Nootka was now proven to be located as Quadra and Vancouver Island. Years later, as Spanish influence declined, the name was shortened to simply Vancouver Island.^[3]

In October 1792, he sent Lieutenant William Robert Broughton with several boats up the Columbia River. Broughton got as far as the Columbia River Gorge, sighting and naming Mount Hood.

Vancouver sailed south along the coast of Spanish Alta California, visiting Chumash villages at Point Conception and near Mission San Buenaventura.^[4] Vancouver spent the winter in continuing exploration of the Sandwich Islands, the contemporary islands of Hawaii.

Further explorations[link]

The next year, 1793, he returned to British Columbia and proceeded further north, unknowingly missing the overland explorer Alexander Mackenzie by only 48 days. He got to 56°30'N, having explored north from Point Menzies in Burke Channel to the northwest coast of Prince of Wales Island. He sailed around the latter island, as well as circumnavigating Revillagigedo Island and charting parts of the coasts of Mitkof, Zarembo, Etolin, Wrangell, Kuiu and Kupreanof Islands.^[5] With worsening weather, he sailed south to Alta California, hoping to find Bodega y Quadra and fulfill his territorial mission, but the Spaniard was not there. He again spent the winter in the Sandwich Islands.

In 1794, he first went to Cook Inlet, the northernmost point of his exploration, and from there followed the coast south. Boat parties charted the east coasts of Chichagof and Baranof Islands, circumnavigated Admiralty Island, explored to the head of Lynn Canal, and charted the rest of Kuiu Island and nearly all of Kupreanof Island.^[5] He then set sail for Great Britain by way of Cape Horn, returning in September 1795, thus completing a circumnavigation.

Later life[link]

In The Caneing in Conduit Street (1796), James Gillray caricatured Pitt's streetcorner assault on Vancouver.

Vancouver faced difficulties when he returned home to England. The accomplished and politically well-connected naturalist Archibald Menzies complained that his servant had been pressed into service during a shipboard emergency; sailing master Joseph Whidbey had a competing claim for pay as expedition astronomer; and Thomas Pitt, 2nd Baron Camelford, whom Vancouver had disciplined for numerous infractions and eventually sent home in disgrace, challenged him to a duel. Vancouver was attacked in the newspapers and assaulted on the street by Pitt. His career was effectively at an end.

Captain George Vancouver, one of Britain's greatest explorers and navigators, died in obscurity on 10 May 1798 at the age of 40, less than three years after completing his voyages and expeditions. His modest grave lies in St. Peters churchyard, Petersham, Surrey, in southern England.

Legacy[link]

Navigation[link]

Vancouver determined that the Northwest Passage did not exist at the latitudes that had long been suggested. His charts of the North American northwest coast were so extremely accurate that they served as the key reference for coastal navigation for generations. Robin Fisher, the academic Vice President of Mount Royal University in Calgary and author of two books on Vancouver, states:

He [Vancouver] put the northwest coast on the map...He drew up a map of the north-west coast that was accurate to the 'nth degree,' to the point it was still being used into the modern day as a navigational aid. That's unusual for a map from that early a time.^[6]

However, Vancouver failed to discover two of the largest and most important rivers on the Pacific coast, the Fraser River and the Columbia River. He also missed the Skeena River near Prince Rupert in northern British Columbia. Vancouver did eventually learn of the river before he finished his survey—from Robert Gray, captain of the American merchant ship that was the first Euroamerican sailing of the Columbia River on 11 May 1792, after first sighting it on an earlier voyage in 1788. However it and the Fraser River never made it onto Vancouver's charts. Stephen R. Bown, noted in Mercator's World magazine (November/December 1999) that:

How Vancouver could have missed these rivers while accurately charting hundreds of comparatively insignificant inlets, islands, and streams is hard to fathom. What is certain is that his failure to spot the Columbia had great implications for the future political development of the Pacific Northwest...."^[7][8]

While it is difficult to comprehend how Vancouver missed the Fraser River, much of this river's delta was subject to flooding and summer freshet which prevented the captain from spotting any of its great channels as he sailed the entire shoreline from Point Roberts, Washington to Point Grey in 1792.^[9] The Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest, with the 1791 Francisco de Eliza expedition preceding Vancouver by a year, had also missed the Fraser River although they knew from its muddy plume that there was a major river located nearby.^[9]

Indigenous peoples[link]

Vancouver generally established a good rapport with both Indians and European trappers. Captain Vancouver played an undeniable role in the subsequent series of upheavals and losses in the lives and homelands of the Indians on the North American Pacific Coast, since his explorations opened up the region to European colonization of the New World. Historical records show Vancouver enjoyed good relations with native leaders both in Hawaii – where King Kamehameha I ceded Hawaii to Vancouver in 1794 – as well as the Pacific Northwest and California.^[10] Vancouver's journals exhibit a high degree of sensitivity to natives. He wrote of meeting the Chumash people,^[4] and of his exploration of a small island on the Alaskan coast on which an important burial site was marked by a sepulchre of "peculiar character" lined with boards and fragments of military instruments lying near a square box covered with mats.^[10] Vancouver states:

This we naturally conjectured contained the remains of some person of consequence, and it much excited the curiosity of some of our party; but as further examination could not possibly have served any useful purpose, and might have given umbrage and pain to the friends of the deceased, should it be their custom to visit the repositories of their dead, I did not think it right that it should be disturbed.^[10]

Vancouver also displayed contempt in his journals towards unscrupulous western traders who provided guns to natives by writing:

I am extremely concerned to be compelled to state here, that many of the traders from the civilised world have not only pursued a line of conduct, diametrically opposite to the true principles of justice in their commercial dealings, but have fomented discords, and stirred up contentions, between the different tribes, in order to increase the demand for these destructive engines... They have been likewise eager to instruct the natives in the use of European arms of all descriptions; and have shewn by their own example, that they consider gain as the only object of pursuit; and whether this be acquired by fair and honourable means, or otherwise, so long as the advantage is secured, the manner how it is obtained seems to have been, with too many of them, but a very secondary consideration.^[10]

Robin Fisher notes that Vancouver's "relationships with aboriginal groups were generally peaceful; indeed, his detailed survey would not have been possible if they had been hostile."^[10] While there were hostile incidents at the end of Vancouver's last season – the most serious of which involved a clash with Tlingits at Behm Canal in southeast Alaska in 1794 – these were the exceptions to Vancouver's exploration of the U.S. and Canadian Northwest coast.^[10]

Despite a long history of warfare between Britain and Spain, Vancouver maintained excellent relations with his Spanish counterparts and even feted a Spanish sea captain aboard the tall ship HMS Discovery during his 1792 trip to the Vancouver region.^[6]

Memorials[link]

Statue of George Vancouver in King's Lynn.

• Various locations have been named after George Vancouver, notably:
  • Vancouver Island, Canada
  • Hudson's Bay Company's 1825 Fort Vancouver
  • Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
  • Vancouver, Washington, USA
  • Vancouver Peninsula, Australia
  • Mount Vancouver, eighth highest mountain in Canada
  • Vancouver Bay in Jervis Inlet was named after him when Capt. G.H. Richards resurveyed the area in 1860.
  • Vancouver Maritime Museum

• Statues of Vancouver are located in front of Vancouver City Hall, in King's Lynn and on top of the dome of the British Columbia Parliament Buildings.
• The Vancouver Quarter Shopping Centre bears his name in his home town of King's Lynn, England.
• Canada Post issued a pair of 14-cent stamps to mark the 200th anniversary of Captain Cook's arrival at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island on 26 April 1978. George Vancouver was a crewman on this voyage.
• "Gate to the Northwest Passage"; a commemorative statue by Vancouver artist Alan Chung Hung was commissioned by Parks Canada and installed at the mouth of False Creek in Vanier Park near the Vancouver Maritime Museum in 1980.
• Canada Post issued a 37-cent stamp inscribed Vancouver Explores the Coast on 17 March 1988. It was one of a set of four stamps issued to honour Exploration of Canada – Recognizers.
• The George Vancouver Rose, named in his honour and hybridized by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.^[11]
• Virgin Trains British Rail Class 221 unit 221129 is named in his honour.

Many collections were made on the voyage: one was donated by Archibald Menzies to the British Museum 1796; another made by surgeon George Goodman Hewett (1765–1834) was donated by A. W. Franks to the British Museum in 1891. An account of these has been published: see J. C. H. King 1994. 'Vancouver's Ethnography' Journal of the History of Collections. 6(1):35–58.

250th birthday commemorations[link]

1980 Commemorative Statue to Capt. George Vancouver by Vancouver artist Alan Chung Hung

Canada Post issued a $1.55 postage stamp to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Vancouver's birth, on 22 June 2007. The stamp has an embossed image of Vancouver seen from behind as he gazes forward towards a mountainous coastline. This may be the first Canadian stamp not to show the subject's face.^[12]

The City of Vancouver in Canada organized a celebration to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Vancouver's birth, in June 2007 at the Vancouver Maritime Museum.^[13] The one-hour festivities included the presentation of a massive 63 by 114 centimetre carrot cake, the firing of a gun salute by the Royal Canadian Artillery's 15th Field Regiment and a performance by the Vancouver Firefighter's Band.^[13] Vancouver's mayor, Sam Sullivan, officially declared 22 June 2007 to be "George Day".^[13]

The Musqueam native elder Larry Grant attended the festivities and acknowledged that some of his people might disapprove of his presence, but also noted:

"Many people don't feel aboriginal people should be celebrating this occasion...I believe it has helped the world and that's part of who we are. That's the legacy of our people. We're generous to a fault. The legacy is strong and a good one, in the sense that without the first nations working with the colonials, it [B.C.] wouldn't have been part of Canada to begin with and Britain would be the poorer for it."^[13]

Origins of the family name[link]

There has been some debate about the origins of the Vancouver name. It is now commonly accepted that the name Vancouver derives from the expression van Coevorden, meaning "(originating) from Coevorden", a city in the northeast of the Netherlands. This city is apparently named after the "Coeverden" family of the 13 – 15th Century. An alternative theory^[14] is that Vancouver is a misspelling or anglicized version of Van Couwen, a Dutch name.^[15]

In the 16th century, a number of businessmen from the Coevorden area (and the Netherlands in general) did move to England. Some of them were known as Van Coeverden. Others adopted the surname Oxford, as in oxen fording (a river), which is approximately the English translation of Coevorden. However this is not the exact name of the noble family mentioned in the history books that claim Vancouver's noble lineage: that name was Coeverden not Coevorden.

In the 1970s, Adrien Mansvelt, a former Consul General of the Netherlands based in Vancouver, published a collation of information in both historical and genealogical journals and in the Vancouver Sun newspaper.^[16][17][18] Mansvelt's theory was later presented by the city during the Expo 86 World's Fair, as historical fact.

Mr. Mansvelt's theories, however, are based on many assumptions and possibilities that may be flawed. Genealogy is the study or investigation of ancestry and family history, with undeniable proof of traceability through family lineage of birth, marriage and death records. Mansveld bases his research on no such proof and uses the words "assumed", "possible" and "may" time and again throughout his essay. (see Mansvelts essay) This problematic information was then used as rock solid proof for Mr. W. Kaye Lamb to write his book A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World, 1791–1795.

W. Kaye Lamb, in summarizing Mansvelt's unsubstantiated 1973 research, suggests evidence of close family ties between the Vancouver family of Britain and the Van Coeverden family of Holland as well as George Vancouver's own words from his diaries in referring to his Dutch ancestry:

As the name Vancouver suggests, the Vancouvers were of Dutch origin. Popular theory suggests that they were descended from the titled van Coeverden family, one of the oldest in the Netherlands. By the twelfth century, and for many years thereafter, their castle at Coevorden, in the Province of Drenthe, was an important fortress on the eastern frontier. George Vancouver was aware of this. In July 1794, he named the Lynn Canal "after the place of my nativity" and Point Couverden (which he spelt incorrectly) "after the seat of my ancestors". Vancouver's great grandfather, Reint Wolter van Couverden, was probably the first of the line to establish an English connection. While serving as a squire at one of the German courts he met Johanna (Jane) Lilingston, an English girl who was one of the ladies in waiting. They were married in 1699. Their son, Lucas Hendrik van Couverden, married Vancouver's grandmother, Sarah. In his later years he probably anglicized his name and spent most of his time in England. By the eighteenth century, the estates of the van Couverdens were mostly in the Province of Overijssel, and some of the family were living in Vollenhove, on the Zuider Zee. The English and Dutch branches kept in touch, and in 1798 (the date of Vancouver's death) George Vancouver's brother Charles would marry a kinswoman, Louise Josephine van Couverden, of Vollenhove. Both were great-grandchildren of Reint Wolter van Couverden."^[19]

George Vancouver named the south point of what is now Couverden Island Point Couverden during his exploration of the North American Pacific coast, presumably to honour his family's Dutch hometown of Coevorden.^[20] It is located at the western point of entry to Lynn Canal in southeastern Alaska.^[21]

Works by George Vancouver[link]

• Voyage Of Discovery To The North Pacific Ocean, And Round The World In The Years 1791–95, by George Vancouver ISBN 0-7812-5100-1. Original written by Vancouver and completed by his brother John and published in 1798.Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, alternative link Vol 1
  • Edited in 1984 by W. Kaye Lamb and renamed The Voyage of George Vancouver 1791–1795; published by the Hakluyt Society of London, England.

Affiliations[link]

• TS Vancouver, Australian Navy Cadets

See also[link]

• European and American voyages of scientific exploration

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Madness, Betrayal and the Lash: The Epic Voyage of Captain George Vancouver by Stephen R. Bown. Published by Douglas & McIntyre 2008.
• Vancouver A Life: 1757–1798 by George Godwin. Published by D. Appleton and Company, 1931.
• Adventures in Two Hemispheres Including Captain Vancouver's Voyage by James Stirrat Marshall and Carrie Marshall. Published by Telex Printing Service, 1955.
• The Life and Voyages of Captain George Vancouver by Bern Anderson. Published by University of Washington Press, 1966.
• Captain Vancouver: A Portrait of His Life by Alison Gifford. Published by St. James Press, 1986.
• Journal of the Voyages of the H.M.S. Discovery and Chatham by Thomas Manby. Published by Ye Galleon Press, 1988.
• Vancouver's Voyage: Charting the Northwest Coast, 1791–1795 by Robin Fisher and Gary Fiegehen. Published by Douglas & McIntyre, 1992.
• On Stormy Seas, The Triumphs and Torments of Captain George Vancouver by B. Guild Gillespie. Published by Horsdal & Schubart, 1992.
• Captain Vancouver: North-West Navigator by E.C. Coleman. Published by Tempus, 2007.
• Sailing with Vancouver: A Modern Sea Dog, Antique Charts and a Voyage Through Time by Sam McKinney. Published by Touchwood Editions, 2004.
• The Early Exploration of Inland Washington Waters: Journals and Logs from Six Expeditions, 1786–1792 edited by Richard W. Blumenthal. Published by McFarland & Company, 2004.
• A Discovery Journal: George Vancouver's First Survey Season – 1792 by John E. Roberts. Published by Trafford Publishing, 2005.
• With Vancouver in Inland Washington Waters: Journals of 12 Crewmen April–June 1792 edited by Richard W. Blumenthal. Published by McFarland & Company, 2007.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Vancouver

• Captain Vancouver – Archive Records of the Vancouver Family
• Burial and Marriage records of the Vancouver family – All Saints' Church, King's Lynn
• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• George Vancouver (1757–1798), Explorer, illustrations in the National Portrait Gallery.
• Discoverers Web
• The True Meaning of Vancouver – Etymology of his name.
• Vancouver, an Alternate Theory
• Web exhibit of two letters by George Vancouver and his commission to 4th Lieutenant
• Gary Little's interactive Google map showing the path Vancouver followed during his 11-day survey of the southwest coast of British Columbia
• Coevorden: What connection does Vancouver have with Coevorden, an industrial town of about 20,000 in the northeast Netherlands?- The History of Metropolitan Vancouver website. (Retrieved on 11 June 2007)

 Laughton, John Knox (1899). "Vancouver, George". In Sidney Lee. Dictionary of National Biography. 58. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 

Vancouver
—  City  —
City of Vancouver
Clockwise from top: Downtown Vancouver as seen from the southern shore of False Creek, The University Endowment Lands, Lions Gate Bridge, a view from Granville Street Bridge, Burrard Bridge, The Millennium Gate (Chinatown), and totem poles in Stanley Park
Flag Coat of arms of Vancouver Coat of arms Official logo of Vancouver Logo
Nickname(s): See article
Motto: "By Sea, Land, and Air We Prosper"
Location of Vancouver within Metro Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada
Vancouver Location of Vancouver in Canada
Coordinates: 49°15′N 123°6′W / 49.25°N 123.1°W / 49.25; -123.1
Country	Canada
Province	British Columbia
Region	Lower Mainland
Regional District	Metro Vancouver
Incorporated	1886
Named for	Captain George Vancouver
Government
• Mayor	Gregor Robertson (Vision Vancouver)
• City Council	List of Councillors Suzanne Anton (NPA) David Cadman (COPE) George Chow (Vision) Heather Deal (Vision) Kerry Jang (Vision) Raymond Louie (Vision) Geoff Meggs (Vision) Andrea Reimer (Vision) Tim Stevenson (Vision) Ellen Woodsworth (COPE)
• MPs (Fed.)	List of MPs Don Davies (New Democrat) Libby Davies (New Democrat) Hedy Fry (Liberal) Joyce Murray (Liberal) Wai Young (Conservative)
• MLAs (Prov.)	List of MLAs Spencer Chandra Herbert (NDP) Christy Clark (BC Lib) Adrian Dix (NDP) Mable Elmore (NDP) Colin Hansen (BC Lib) Kash Heed (BC Lib) Jenny Kwan (NDP) Margaret MacDiarmid (BC Lib) Mary McNeil (BC Lib) Shane Simpson (NDP) Moira Stilwell (BC Lib)
Area
• City	114.97 km2 (44.39 sq mi)
• Metro	2,878.52 km2 (1,111.40 sq mi)
Elevation	0-152 m (0-501 ft)
Population (2011 Census)[1]
• City	603,502 (8th)
• Density	5,249/km2 (13,590/sq mi)
• Metro	2,313,328 (3rd)
• Demonym	Vancouverite
Time zone	PST (UTC−8)
• Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC−7)
Postal code span	V5K to V6Z
Area code(s)	604, 778
NTS Map	092G03
GNBC Code	JBRIK
Website	City of Vancouver

Vancouver (/vænˈkuːvər/) is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. The 2011 census recorded more than 603,000 people in the city, making it the eighth largest among Canadian cities.^[1] The metropolitan area, with more than 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country^[1] and the most populous in Western Canada. With 5,249 people per square kilometre (13,590 per sq mile), the City of Vancouver is the most densely populated Canadian municipality among those with 5,000 residents or more.^[2] Vancouver is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities in Canada, with 52% for whom English is not their first language.^[3][4]

The original settlement, named Gastown, grew around the Hastings Mill logging sawmill and a nearby tavern, both established in 1867. Enlarging to become the townsite of Granville, with the announcement that the railhead would reach the site it was renamed "Vancouver" and incorporated as a city in 1886. By 1887, the transcontinental railway was extended to the city to take advantage of its large natural seaport, which soon became a vital link in a trade route between the Orient, Eastern Canada, and London.^[5][6] As of 2009, Port Metro Vancouver is the busiest and largest port in Canada, and the most diversified port in North America.^[7] While forestry remains its largest industry, Vancouver is well known as an urban centre surrounded by nature, making tourism its second-largest industry.^[8] Major film production studios in Vancouver and Burnaby have turned Metro Vancouver into the third-largest film production centre in North America after Los Angeles and New York City, earning it the film industry nickname, Hollywood North.^[9][10]

Vancouver has ranked highly in worldwide "liveable city" rankings for more than a decade according to business magazine assessments^[11][12] and it was also acknowledged by Economist Intelligence Unit as the first city to rank among the top-ten of the world's most liveable cities for five straight years.^[13] It has hosted many international conferences and events, including the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, Expo 86, and the World Police and Fire Games in 1989 and 2009. The 2010 Winter Olympics and 2010 Winter Paralympics were held in Vancouver and nearby Whistler, a resort community 125 km (78 mi) north of the city.^[14]

History[link]

Indigenous peoples[link]

Archaeological records indicate the presence of Aboriginal people in the Vancouver area from 8,000 to 10,000 years ago.^[15][16] The city is located in the traditional territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tseil-Waututh (Burrard) peoples of the Coast Salish group.^[17] They had villages in various parts of present day Vancouver, such as Stanley Park, False Creek, Kitsilano, Point Grey and near the mouth of the Fraser River.^[16]

Exploration and contact[link]

The first European to explore the coastline of present-day Point Grey and parts of Burrard Inlet was José María Narváez of Spain, in 1791, although one author contends that Francis Drake may have visited the area in 1579.^[18] The city is named after George Vancouver, who explored the inner harbour of Burrard Inlet in 1792 and gave various places British names.^[19][20][21]

The explorer and North West Company trader Simon Fraser and his crew were the first known people of European race to set foot on the site of the present-day city. In 1808, they travelled from the east down the Fraser River, perhaps as far as Point Grey.^[22]

Early growth[link]

The Fraser Gold Rush of 1858 brought over 25,000 men, mainly from California, to nearby New Westminster (founded February 14, 1859) on the Fraser River, on their way to the Fraser Canyon, bypassing what would become Vancouver.^[23][24][25] Vancouver is among British Columbia's youngest cities;^[26] the first European settlement in what is now Vancouver was not until 1862 at McLeery's Farm on the Fraser River, just east of the ancient village of Musqueam in what is now Marpole. A sawmill established at Moodyville (now the City of North Vancouver) in 1863, began the city's long relationship with logging. It was quickly followed by mills owned by Captain Edward Stamp on the south shore of the inlet. Stamp, who had begun lumbering in the Port Alberni area, first attempted to run a mill at Brockton Point, but difficult currents and reefs forced the relocation of the operation in 1867 to a point near the foot of Gore Street. This mill, known as the Hastings Mill, became the nucleus around which Vancouver formed. The mill's central role in the city waned after the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in the 1880s. It nevertheless remained important to the local economy until it closed in the 1920s.^[27]

The settlement which came to be called Gastown grew up quickly around the original makeshift tavern established by "Gassy" Jack Deighton in 1867 on the edge of the Hastings Mill property.^[26][28] In 1870, the colonial government surveyed the settlement and laid out a townsite, renamed "Granville" in honour of the then-British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Granville. This site, with its natural harbour, was selected in 1884^[29] as the terminus for the Canadian Pacific Railway, to the disappointment of Port Moody, New Westminster and Victoria, all of which had vied to be the railhead. A railway was among the inducements for British Columbia to join the Confederation in 1871, but the Pacific Scandal and arguments over the use of Chinese labour delayed construction until the 1880s.^[30]

A portrait of the first Vancouver City Council meeting after the 1886 fire. The tent shown was on the east side of the 100 block Carrall.^[31]

Panorama of Vancouver, 1898

Incorporation[link]

The City of Vancouver was incorporated on April 6, 1886, the same year that the first transcontinental train arrived. CPR president William Van Horne arrived in Port Moody to establish the CPR terminus recommended by Henry John Cambie, and gave the city its name in honour of George Vancouver.^[26] The Great Vancouver Fire on June 13, 1886, razed the entire city. The Vancouver Fire Department was established that year and the city quickly rebuilt.^[27] Vancouver's population grew from a settlement of 1,000 people in 1881 to over 20,000 by the turn of the century and 100,000 by 1911.^[32]

Vancouver merchants outfitted prospectors bound for the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898.^[23] One of those merchants, Charles Woodward, had opened the first Woodward's store at Abbott and Cordova Streets in 1892 and, along with Spencer's and the Hudson's Bay department stores, formed the core of the city's retail sector for decades.^[33]

The economy of early Vancouver was dominated by large companies such as the CPR, which fueled economic activity and led to the rapid development of the new city;^[34] in fact the CPR was the main real estate owner and housing developer in the city. While some manufacturing did develop, natural resources became the basis for Vancouver's economy. The resource sector was initially based on logging and later on exports moving through the seaport, where commercial traffic constituted the largest economic sector in Vancouver by the 1930s.^[35]

Twentieth century[link]

The dominance of the economy by big business was accompanied by an often militant labour movement. The first major sympathy strike was in 1903 when railway employees struck against the CPR for union recognition. Labour leader Frank Rogers was killed by CPR police while picketing at the docks, becoming the movement's first martyr in British Columbia.^[36] The rise of industrial tensions throughout the province led to Canada's first general strike in 1918, at the Cumberland coal mines on Vancouver Island.^[37] Following a lull in the 1920s, the strike wave peaked in 1935 when unemployed men flooded the city to protest conditions in the relief camps run by the military in remote areas throughout the province.^[38][39] After two tense months of daily and disruptive protesting, the relief camp strikers decided to take their grievances to the federal government and embarked on the On-to-Ottawa Trek,^[39] but their protest was put down by force. The workers were arrested near Mission and interned in work camps for the duration of the Depression.^[40]

Other social movements, such as the first-wave feminist, moral reform, and temperance movements were also influential in Vancouver's development. Mary Ellen Smith, a Vancouver suffragist and prohibitionist, became the first woman elected to a provincial legislature in Canada in 1918.^[41] Alcohol prohibition began in the First World War and lasted until 1921, when the provincial government established control over alcohol sales, a practice still in place today.^[42] Canada's first drug law came about following an inquiry conducted by the federal Minister of Labour and future Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King. King was sent to investigate damages claims resulting from a riot when the Asiatic Exclusion League led a rampage through Chinatown and Japantown. Two of the claimants were opium manufacturers, and after further investigation, King found that white women were reportedly frequenting opium dens as well as Chinese men. A federal law banning the manufacture, sale, and importation of opium for non-medicinal purposes was soon passed based on these revelations.^[43]

Amalgamation with Point Grey and South Vancouver gave the city its final boundaries not long before it became the third-largest metropolis in the country. As of January 1, 1929, the population of the enlarged Vancouver was 228,193.^[44]

Geography[link]

23 neighborhood communities of Vancouver (local usage varies)

Located on the Burrard Peninsula, Vancouver lies between Burrard Inlet to the north and the Fraser River to the south. The Strait of Georgia, to the west, is shielded from the Pacific Ocean by Vancouver Island. The city has an area of 114 km² (44 sq mi), including both flat and hilly ground, and is in the Pacific Time Zone (UTC−8) and the Pacific Maritime Ecozone.^[45] Until the city's naming in 1885, "Vancouver" referred to Vancouver Island, and it remains a common misconception that the city is located on the island.^[46][47] The island and the city are both named after Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver (as is the city of Vancouver, Washington in the United States).

Vancouver has one of the largest urban parks in North America, Stanley Park, which covers 404.9 hectares (1,001 acres).^[48] The North Shore Mountains dominate the cityscape, and on a clear day scenic vistas include the snow-capped volcano Mount Baker in the state of Washington to the southeast, Vancouver Island across the Strait of Georgia to the west and southwest, and Bowen Island to the northwest.^[49]

Ecology[link]

The vegetation in the Vancouver area was originally temperate rain forest, consisting of conifers with scattered pockets of maple and alder, and large areas of swampland (even in upland areas, due to poor drainage).^[50] The conifers were a typical coastal British Columbia mix of Douglas fir, Western red cedar and Western Hemlock.^[51] The area is thought to have had the largest trees of these species on the British Columbia Coast. Only in Elliott Bay, Seattle did the size of trees rival those of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The largest trees in Vancouver's old-growth forest were in the Gastown area, where the first logging occurred, and on the southern slopes of False Creek and English Bay, especially around Jericho Beach. The forest in Stanley Park was logged between the 1860s and 1880s, and evidence of old-fashioned logging techniques such as springboard notches can still be seen there.^[52]

Many plants and trees growing throughout Vancouver and the Lower Mainland were imported from other parts of the continent and from points across the Pacific. Examples include the monkey puzzle tree, the Japanese Maple, and various flowering exotics, such as magnolias, azaleas, and rhododendrons. Some rhododendrons have grown to immense sizes,^{[citation needed]} as have other species imported from harsher climates in Eastern Canada or Europe. The native Douglas Maple can also attain a tremendous size. Many of the city's streets are lined with flowering varieties of Japanese cherry trees donated from the 1930s onward by the government of Japan. These flower for several weeks in early spring each year, an occasion celebrated by the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival. Other streets are lined with flowering chestnut, horse chestnut and other decorative shade trees.^[53]

Climate[link]

Vancouver's climate is mild enough in the winter to allow Windmill Palms to grow

Vancouver is one of the warmest Canadian cities. Vancouver's climate is temperate by Canadian standards and is usually classified as Oceanic or Marine west coast, which under the Köppen climate classification system would be Cfb. The summer months are typically dry, with an average of only one in five days during July and August receiving precipitation. In contrast, precipitation falls during nearly half the days from November through March.^[54]

Annual precipitation as measured at Vancouver International Airport in Richmond averages 1,199 millimetres (47.2 in), though this varies dramatically throughout the metropolitan area due to the topography and is considerably higher in the downtown area. In winter, a majority of days receive measurable precipitation. Summer months are drier and sunnier with moderate temperatures, tempered by sea breezes. The daily maximum averages 22 °C (72 °F) in July and August, with highs rarely reaching 30 °C (86 °F).^[55]

The highest temperature ever recorded was 34.4 °C (93.9 °F) on July 30, 2009.^[56]

On average, snow falls on eleven days per year, with three days receiving 6 cm (2.4 in) or more. Average yearly snowfall is 48.2 cm (19.0 in) but typically does not remain on the ground for long.^[55]

Winters in Greater Vancouver are the fourth mildest of Canadian cities after nearby Victoria, Nanaimo and Duncan, all on Vancouver Island.^[57]