This mass incursion would soon lead the British government to establish British Columbia as a crown colony of the Empire. Farther north, the Cariboo Gold Rush began on the banks of the Fraser two ...

British Columbia, cut off by the Rocky Mountains, was in the throes of the gold rush, which was bringing Americans up by the thousands. The territory had become a British colony in 1858.

When Manitoba entered Confederation in 1870, British Columbia was still an isolated British colony on the West Coast. In March 1867, the United States had bought Alaska leaving British Columbia ...