Hudson's Bay Company
bastion at Nanaimo
A-04341
Mining, especially the discovery of gold, was the beginning of the development of British Columbia's industries.

Before the gold rush of the 1850s and 1860s, the non-aboriginal population was very small, consisting of fur traders concentrated in a few trading posts and forts, and a few farmers and settlers near Fort Victoria.

Coal miners at Nanaimo,
about 1900
E-02626
Coal was discovered earlier on Vancouver Island by the Hudson's Bay Company who brought coal miners from Scotland to work the mine established near Nanaimo in 1849. Coal was a valuable fuel for steamships, to heat homes and for industrial purposes such as making steel. The coal produced from the earliest mines however, was mainly used for either powering steamships, or for export to California with its growing population.

Eventually, there were underground coal mines in many places on Vancouver Island including Nanaimo, Wellington, Cumberland, and Ladysmith. For decades these mines employed many thousands of people and made the fortunes of mine owners who were some of the province's wealthiest people. The coal was exported to other provinces and countries and was used as the fuel for the railways in British Columbia.

Today, the underground coal mines are gone, but open pit coal mines in the Southeast and Northeast parts of the province produce large quantities of coal that are sold to countries such as Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Rumania.

Drilling for oil and gas
near Fort Nelson in B.C.'s
Peace River region, 1966
I-28826
Coal is no longer used for home heating and for the railways, but it remains important for steel making and for burning in electric power plants. Coal has been replaced by oil and natural gas for heating buildings.

In transportation automobiles, using gasoline refined from oil have become increasingly important. Even the railways, which once ran on coal, now use diesel fuel also refined from oil.

Drilling rig near
Fort Nelson in 1966
I-28827
Oil exploration began in British Columbia in the 1940s and in recent decades the province has developed its own oil and natural gas industry centred in the Peace River country in the north east.

British Columbia is especially rich in natural gas and sells large amounts of it to markets in the United States, where it is transported by pipelines.

Power dam at Ocean Falls, 1925.
This dam produced power for
many years to operate the large
pulp and paper mill at Ocean Falls.
I-48408
Electric power has also increased in importance in the twentieth century. British Columbia, with its mountainous terrain and many large rivers, has harnessed its water power with dams to produce electricity.

This electricity has been used to power industry and to sell to the United States at a profit.

Power plant and dam at
Brilliant, in the Kootenays, 1956
I-27349
At first the electricity was produced mostly by privately owned electric companies, the largest being the B.C. Electric Company. In 1961 B.C. Hydro, owned by the B.C. government took over the company.

Construction of a dam
on the Peace River, 1966
I-28757
The major power projects for the province have been the numerous dams and power plants on the Columbia River and the Peace River power project.

In the 1950s the Aluminum Company of Canada developed the Kemano power project to produce large amounts of electricity for the aluminum plant it built at Kitimat on the north coast of British Columbia.

The Alcan Aluminum Plant
at Kitimat in 1959
I-28167
The aluminum from the plant, a light weight and strong metal, is important in the modern world as it is used in products ranging from cookware to aeroplanes. The bauxite ore containing the aluminum is imported and the pure processed aluminum from the smelter at Kitimat is exported for sale world-wide.


Continued...





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