WEST COAST

LOCATION

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PLACE

The West Coast is surrounded by: Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, U.S. Washington, Idaho, Alaska,
& Alberta. The West Coast is located at 48.4284 degrees North & 123.3656 degrees West. British Columbia is made up of mostly mountains, rivers, & beaches.

REGION AND MOVEMENT

LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

SLANG WORDS

• Left Coast = British Columbia
• New West =New Westminster
• Poco = Port Coquitlam
• Back East= any area east of the Rockies
• Cariboozer= a person from Caribou Country

SLANG WORDS

• “Bush” or “The Bush”=an area of hunting, mines, or forests
• Bushed= someone uncivilized
• The Island=Vancouver Island
• Coastie=a person with city attitudes & clothes
• Whale’s Tale= a dessert made of fried dough, usually topped with lemon juice and cinnamon sugar

A dollar coin is called a loon or if you have more than one they are called loonies. A loonie is a $2 coin, however they were both replaced by the plastic note in 2013. A plastic dollar is called a note in Canada. One U.S. dollar is equivalent to $1.27 in Canadian money.

The thing that interested me the most was that the Carousel Theatre hosted “The Chronicles of Narnia”. This breathtaking performance took place from November 25, 2017 to December 31, 2017.

The Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria, is a world class museum. You can explore the museum’s highly realistic settings like a tar-scented trip on the “HMS Discovery” and a wooly mammoth in his rocky, icy domain. The Finnerty Gardens, also located in B.C. , contain over 4,000 different trees & shrubs with more than 1,500 rhododendron & azalea plants.

The Capilano Suspension Bridge can be found in a park with wildlife tours in Vancouver, B.C. It was built in 1889, is 450 feet long, & sways as you walk across it! The park has seasonal events such as the “Raptors Birds of Prey” show. An aquarium in Vancouver, Canada’s LARGEST, offers tours of penguins, a dolphin show, sea otter feedings, shark dives, & 50,000 aquatic creatures.

At Blackcomb Mountain, B.C. you can hike the 2.7 to 31.1 miles of hiking trails. Here you can go on an eco-tour or spend a morning or evening watching some bears, drive through “Moose Valley”, spectate a few bald eagles, visit a rainforest, or experience a sunset in a Land Rover.

Fly fishing guides in Whistler B.C. have specialized in remote wilderness fly fishing by helicopter, & float plane off the coast & Chilcotin mountains of B.C. for trout, char, & salmon. 90% of the world’s heli-skiing takes place in British Columbia. Heli-skiing is off-trail skiing or snowboarding that is accessed by a helicopter, as opposed to a ski lift.

PEOPLE

4,817,160 people lived in British Columbia in 2017, & in 1946 B.C. finally had just over 1,000,000 people . Cideries, wineries, & breweries all produce beverages from locally grown produce. Many restaurants incorporate fresh British Colombian ingredients in their dishes, and there are dining options that cover every type of global cuisine. B.C. nationally celebrates: New Years Day, Good Friday, Canada Day, Labour Day, & Christmas.

The ancestors of British Columbia where Native Americans and sometimes wore colorful robes with decorative feathers .

HISTORY

British Columbia’s first inhabitants may have journeyed From Asia via a land bridge across the Bering Sea. As the ice receded, from the Ice Age, forests advanced and the changing sea levels exposed the temporary land bridge connecting Asia to the “New World”. The European arrival was caused when Captain James Cook reach the West Coast of Vancouver island in 1778. Discovery of gold in the Fraser River and Cariboo brought a quick influx of prospectors, merchants, pioneers, and other colorful figures to BC in the 1860s

Goldminers came from around the world coming from as far as China, the Fraser Valley expanded from sleepy hamlets to bustling cities. Boomtowns were born due to the Fraser River gold rush, and many aboriginal peoples lost ancestral lands. Transportation development and massive building projects marked another rapid economic expansion during the 1950s and 1960s. Expensive damning projects turned rivers into lakes and the trans Canada Highway was completed.

LA TOPIC

The Fraser River Food happened on June 10th, 1948. It occurred due to massive snowpacks & a sudden white-hot spell. The river reached a peak elevation of 7.6 meters. The flood damaged or demolished around 2,300 homes, left 1,500 people homeless, & killed 10 people. The Fraser River Flood of 1948 was a dark & serious time for the people of The Fraser Valley. However they made their dams and dykes better to help with the next flood.

CURRENT EVENT

894,491 hectares burned since April 1 2017. B.C. is now starting into its worst ever record holding wildfire season. The previous record for BC was set in 1958 went about 855,000 hectares were burned. The record keeping began in 1950. 2017 is also sneaking up on 2009 the most expensive fire season on the books for British Columbia. That year 3064 wildfires burned 247,000 hectares at a cost of $382,000,000.

Compare this year’s fire to the challenging 2015 fire season that saw 1858 wildfires consume 369,000 hectares at a cost of $297,000,000. The unprecedented year has seen 1029 wildfires start across the province of B.C. costing 315.7 to date and about 3,900 are currently on the ground and working on the fires. “This year is far and away the worst we’ve ever seen in terms of the hectares burned.” said chief wildfire information officer Kevin Skrepnek.