Recreation and Places to Visit

British Columbia is famous for its spectacular mountains and beautiful coastal scenery, which are well represented in the many provincial and federal parks, including Yoho, Kootenay, Glacier, and Pacific Rim national parks. Parts of the Queen Charlotte Islands have been designated a National Park reserve.

National and local politicians have worked actively to preserve the rugged wilderness of British Columbia. In the mid-1990s the provincial government set aside a large area in northwestern British Columbia as the Tatshenshini-Alsek wilderness. With adjacent Kluane National Park and Reserve in Yukon Territory and Alaska’s Wrangell-Saint Elias and Glacier Bay national parks, this area forms a continuous, spectacular, undisturbed wilderness totaling 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq mi) in three political jurisdictions.

In 2006 provincial officials announced the creation of the Great Bear Rain Forest, which preserves 1.8 million hectares (4.4 million acres) of British Columbian coastal wilderness as parkland. The park is about twice the size of Yellowstone National Park in the United States. The agreement, which took about a decade to formulate, also strictly limits development and resource exploitation on an additional 4.6 million hectares (11.4 million acres) in the region.

Vancouver is home to a number of major professional sports franchises, including the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League and the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League.

Natural Regions

Mountain ranges, collectively known as the Canadian Cordillera, cover much of British Columbia. The northeastern corner of the province, referred to as the Peace River district, is part of the western prairie and also includes the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. In the southwestern corner of the province, the Lower Fraser Valley forms a flat, fertile triangle of intensively used land.

The Eastern Mountain System comprises a complex belt of glacier-covered ranges and valleys running southeast to northwest. This region is dominated by the Rocky Mountains. Lesser ranges include the Cassiar and Omineca mountains in the north, and the Cariboo, Selkirk, Monashee, and Purcell ranges of the Columbia Mountain system in the south. The most prominent valley in the region is the Rocky Mountain Trench, a deep, narrow rift valley between the Rocky Mountains in the east and the Columbia Mountain system in the west.

The Intermontane, or Interior, Region is also a rugged area. The central section, around Prince George and Williams Lake, has broken, rolling terrain, but both the northern and southern portions contain mountain ranges with elevations only slightly lower than those of the Rockies. The valleys of the southern interior run north to south, and many contain large lakes.

The Western Mountain System is dominated by the glacier-covered Coast Mountains, which include the province’s highest peak, Mount Fairweather, in the extreme northwest. The many islands along the Pacific coast are the highest points of a partly submerged mountain range. Much of the coast has fjord scenery, consisting of many narrow inlets between steep cliffs. The only significant coastal lowlands are in the lower Fraser River Valley and around Victoria on southeastern Vancouver Island.

Rivers and Lakes

Runoff from the mountains feeds many streams and large rivers in British Columbia. The most prominent are the Fraser, Skeena, Nass, Stikine, Columbia, and Kootenay rivers, all of which run toward the Pacific Ocean, and the Peace River, which flows northeast toward the Arctic Ocean. The Fraser rises in the Rocky Mountains and is joined by the Nechako, Quesnel, Chilcotin, and Thompson rivers along its 1,370-km (850-mi) course to the Strait of Georgia, near Vancouver.

The Columbia River, one of the largest rivers in western North America, begins in southeastern British Columbia and flows 740 km (460 mi) before entering the United States. Rivers and their valleys have provided important, if often difficult, routes through the mountains for people in British Columbia. The Fraser, in particular, forms an important transportation corridor.

British Columbia has many large natural lakes, especially in the valleys of the southern and central interior. Among these are Babine, Atlin, Kootenay, Ootsa, Okanagan, Upper and Lower Arrow, and Quesnel lakes. Several high dams have impounded large reservoirs, particularly on the Columbia, Nechako, and Peace rivers. Williston Lake, on the Peace River, is the province’s largest freshwater body. Hydroelectric power generation is well developed in the province.

Historical Sites

Most of British Columbia’s historical sites commemorate the pioneers and early settlers of the province. Barkerville Provincial Historical Park, in the Cariboo Mountains, is a restored mining town that was founded during the gold rush of the 1860s. National historical sites in the province are Fort Langley, east of Vancouver; a reconstruction of the Hudson’s Bay Company fort; and Fort Rodd Hill, near Victoria, with 19th-century fortifications.

Source: MSN Encarta: Online Encyclopedia