Vancouver, Canada

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north by Burrard Inlet, a deep fiord reaching far inland, and to the south by the delta of the Fraser River. Curbing any westward expansion are the sandy beaches of the Pacific coast and the Strait of Georgia, to the west of which rise the mountains of Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula. Further to the north, beyond Burrard Inlet, gleam the often snow-covered ranges of the Coast Mountains.

Vancouver today

With its relatively equable climate keeping temperatures mild throughout the year and its delightful surroundings, extensive parks, green spaces and busy cultural life, Vancouver is a paradise for leisure activities.

In the last 20 years increasing numbers of skyscrapers, bank and insurance company offices, apartment blocks and hotels have sprung up in the city center, many of them incorporating modern shopping precincts - the clearest possible sign of the city's economic vitality.

Vancouver today is Canada's gateway west (i.e. to the Far East), the country's access route to the markets of Asia. As such it is the premier port on Canada's Pacific coast, in addition to being a financial, industrial and cultural center. Even so Vancouver remains a thoroughly attractive city, with a downtown area easily explored on foot. The city also reflects the diverse origins of its inhabitants with many an echo of other parts of Canada and of Europe, Asia and the USA (Vancouver's Chinatown is the second largest of any west coast city in America). Concealed among the gleaming tower blocks and modern building complexes are some delightful shopping streets (Robson St., Granville St., Denman St.), while Gastown, the oldest district, has recently been carefully restored and turned into a major tourist attraction.

Opposite downtown Vancouver, across Burrard Inlet, stretch the extensive residential suburbs of North and West Vancouver. Immediately beyond them, just a few minutes by car from the bustling city center, British Columbia's untamed wilderness begins - a vast area of forest untouched by all but the timber companies. There are good, properly surfaced roads only along the coast (Hwy. 101) and along the shores of Howe Sound (Hwy. 99) to Whistler, an increasingly popular holiday resort.

History

Research suggests that the Vancouver area was already inhabited thousands of years before the start of the Christian era. Archaeologists now believe that the Fraser Estuary was a center of the Pacific Coast Indian fishing culture.

Prior to the coming of Europeans the land on the southern shores of the Strait of Georgia was occupied by the Salish tribe of Coast Indians. The first recorded arrival of a white man was in 1791 when the Spaniard José Navéz sailed into and explored English Bay. A year later he was followed by an Englishman, Captain George Vancouver, seeking the elusive Northwest Passage. For a time after that only fur hunters and trappers penetrated to these western shores, but in 1808 Simon Fraser, traveling overland, reached the Fraser Estuary, having followed the river all the way from the Rocky Mountains. Even then, when gold diggers passed through on their way to the Cariboo Mountains in 1858, there was still no permanent settlement in the area. It was only later in the 1860s that, first lumberjacks and other frontiersmen, and then settlers, finally established themselves on the peninsula. In 1886, by which time the population was still barely 2000, Vancouver was officially declared a town - only to be destroyed by fire the same year.

Boom time came when the Canadian Pacific railway reached Burrard Inlet, eventually transforming Vancouver into North America's principal Pacific coast port (today handling 50 million tons a year). The major exports are mineral ore, cellulose, and timber, mainly bound for Asia. Long freight trains also bring wheat from Canada's prairie provinces to Vancouver for onward shipment.

In just 100 years Vancouver has grown to become the third largest metropolitan area in Canada, a conurbation whose inhabitants number 1.4 million. Almost half the population of British Columbia now live here at the mouth of the Fraser River. In addition to overseas trade and the service industries, wood processing and fishing are also economically important