age of discovery
It is hard to imagine British Columbia prior to European contact. A vast, sparsely populated wilderness - Aboriginal communities scattered along its rugged coastline or clustered around lakes and along rivers. Equally hard to imagine is how in a brief span of two centuries, the landscape, both physical and cultural, has been so dramatically changed. This change began with the fur trade, bringing explorers who first mapped the region (then known as “New Caledonia”) and establishing trade with the First Nations people.
Spanish Banks
An historic journey, and the names they left behind
Where the City of Vancouver reaches westward into the Gulf of Georgia there is a place called Spanish Banks. The name commemorates the meeting in 1792 of English explorer George Vancouver with Spanish explorers Galiano & Valdes.
Voyageur
The first Europeans to cross the North American continent
The first Europeans to cross the continent of North America were the fur trade explorers of the Northwest Trading Company and the Hudson’s Bay Trading Company. Travelling in Birch-bark canoes, they explored West from Hudson’s Bay (HBC) or Lachine, Quebec (NWC). Following the inland river and lake systems, and led by explorers like Alexander MacKenzie, Simon Fraser and David Thompson, they built trading posts, explored waterways and created the first maps of those regions. The backbone of these ventures; the men who paid with their sweat and blood, were the Voyageurs.
Ghost of Simon Fraser
Noted Fur Trade explorer
On May 22, 1808, Simon Fraser began an expedition, which has been described as one of the greatest in North American history, to explore the river then believed to be the Columbia, to its mouth. Fraser had been chosen to spearhead the Northwest Company's western trade expansion.
THE BALLAD OF JOHN RAE
The last link in the Northwest Passage
John Rae was one of the most amazing of 19th century Arctic explorers.
Rae’s willingness to learn from and engage with the Indigenous Peoples of the North allowed him to excel far beyond the maritime-based model employed by other Arctic explorers of his day.