Chapter 10 Section 3 British Columbia:

Economic and Cultural Changes

Each of the first groups to come to

British Columbia had a complex society

and its own language and customs.

The first European explorers

to arrive in the late 1700s

wanted to trade.

The lives of the indigenous peoples in British Columbia were

not changed as much by trade with Europeans, as by the discovery of gold!

Victoria’s population

doubled overnight when

over 400 miners arrived.

Boomtowns sprung up in the Cariboo region since the

government built a highway to the

region.

Canadian laws banned

indigenous peoples’ customs,

religion and languages, by

the late 1880s.

Canadians began to work on a railroad which would link

Montreal and Vancouver in 1881.

Because of the

enormous size of the

project, immigrants

from all over the

world came to Canada

to find work on

the railroad.

Many people who live in British Columbia today feel that their

future lies with other countries, not with the rest of Canada.

British Columbia’s

location ties it to the

economy and culture of the Pacific Rim.

Reviewing Key Terms

totem pole

boomtown

A tall, carved wooden pole that contains the symbols

of a particular

Native American

group, clan or family is a totem pole.

A boomtown is a settlement that springs up

quickly to serve the needs of miners.