1700's - European Exploration and Contact
The oral histories of coastal Indigenous groups of British Columbia have long told of a massive earthquake and tsunami in early 1700 which devastated the coast and its inhabitants. The painting here by Tsimshian artist Bill Helin depicts this event.
The 1700's marked a period of European exploration and contact with coastal Indigenous groups.
- By the 1740's, Russians had begun trading on the B.C. coast.
- In 1778, British explorer Captain James Cook became the first European to set foot in British Columbia on his third expedition to the Pacific.
- During this time, Spanish explorers Perez and Quadra were also exploring the coast. A fort was built in Nootka Sound.
- In 1776, a devastating small pox epidemic hit Indigenous communities, other epidemics followed.
- In 1793, Alexander MacKenzie became the first European to cross North America overland.
Useful Websites
Digital Library Resources
Recommended Titles
A Perfect Eden: Encounters by Early Explorers of Vancouver Island
971.12 L42p
2016
This book gathers the early recorded histories and personal accounts left by Chinese seafarers, Spanish and British naval officers, traders seeking sea otter pelts, colonial surveyors, as well as soldiers, settlers, and other adventurers, starting from many centuries ago.
British Columbia Waters: The Explorations of Vancouver and the Spanish
971.102 B65e
2014
This follow-up book resumes the saga and follows George Vancouver and the Spanish in 1792 through British Columbia waters while they complete their circumnavigation of Vancouver Island.
French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous Women in the Making of the Pacific Northwest
979 B25f
2014
The history of the Pacific Northwest from the perspective of French Canadians involved in the fur economy, the Indigenous women whose presence in their lives encouraged them to stay, and their descendants.
In the Footsteps of Alexander Mackenzie: Archaeology and the Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail
971.175 B62i
2015
In the late 1970s an archaeological team was sent into a remote region of British Columbia to document the Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail--part of explorer Alexander Mackenzie's 18th-century crossing of North America.
Northwest History Index
This card index in Special Collection provides access to the Northwest History Collection, a heritage collection covering the early history and exploration of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest.
The collection includes:
- magazine and newspaper articles
- pamphlets
- books
- chapters in books
- many other resources
As of August 1998, no new material has been added to the Northwest History Index. It is continued by the British Columbia Index.