British Columbia

===Rapid growth and development (1860s to 1910s)===
{{Main|Amor De Cosmos|Canadian Confederation|Canada in World War I}}
[[File:LastSpike Craigellachie BC Canada.jpg|thumb|[[Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal|Lord Strathcona]] drives the [[Last Spike (Canadian Pacific Railway)|Last Spike]] of the [[Canadian Pacific Railway]], at [[Craigellachie, British Columbia|Craigellachie]], November 7, 1885. Completion of the [[transcontinental railroad]] was a condition of British Columbia's entry into [[Canadian Confederation|Confederation]].]]
[[File:Craigellachie (Gedenkstein).jpg|thumb|Memorial to the "last spike" in Craigellachie]]
The Confederation League led the chorus pressing for the colony to join Canada, which had been created out of three British North American colonies in 1867 (the [[Province of Canada]], [[Nova Scotia]] and [[New Brunswick]]). Several factors motivated this agitation, including the fear of annexation to the US, the overwhelming debt created by rapid population growth, the need for government-funded services to support this population, and the economic depression caused by the end of the gold rush.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} With the agreement by the Canadian government to extend the [[Canadian Pacific Railway]] to British Columbia and assume the colony's debt, British Columbia became the sixth province to join [[Canadian Confederation|Confederation]] on July 20, 1871. The Treaty of Washington sent the [[Pig War (1859)|Pig War]] San Juan Islands Border dispute to arbitration in 1871 and in 1903, the province's territory shrank again after the [[Alaska boundary dispute]] settled the vague boundary of the [[Alaska Panhandle]].

Population in British Columbia continued to expand as the [[mining]], [[forestry]], [[agriculture]], and [[fishery|fishing]] sectors were developed. Mining activity was notable throughout the Mainland, that a common epithet it, even after provincehood, was "the Gold Colony".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Belshaw|first=John Douglas|date=2015|chapter=13.9 The Gold Colony|chapter-url=https://opentextbc.ca/preconfederation/chapter/13-9-the-gold-colony/|title=Canadian History: Pre-Confederation|access-date=January 1, 2022|archive-date=January 1, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220101191944/https://opentextbc.ca/preconfederation/chapter/13-9-the-gold-colony/|url-status=live}}</ref> Agriculture attracted settlers to the fertile Fraser Valley. Cattle ranchers and later fruit growers came to the drier grasslands of the Thompson Rivers, the Cariboo, the [[Chilcotin Country|Chilcotin]], and the Okanagan. Forestry drew workers to the temperate rainforests of the coast, which was also the locus of a growing fishery.

The completion of the railway in 1885 contributed to the economy, facilitating the transportation of the region's considerable resources to the east. The milltown of Granville, also known as [[Gastown]] was selected as the terminus. This prompted the incorporation of the city of Vancouver in 1886. The completion of the [[Port of Vancouver]] spurred rapid growth, and in less than fifty years the city surpassed [[Winnipeg]], [[Manitoba]], as the largest in [[Western Canada]]. The early decades of the province were ones in which issues of land use—specifically, its settlement and development—were paramount. This included expropriation from First Nations people of their land, control over its resources, as well as the ability to trade in some resources, such as fishing.

Establishing a [[labor force|labour force]] to develop the province was problematic, and British Columbia was a destination of immigration from Europe, China, Japan and India. The influx of a non-[[Ethnic groups in Europe|European]] population stimulated resentment from the dominant ethnic groups, resulting in agitation and an attempt to restrict the ability of [[Asian people]] to immigrate to British Columbia through the imposition of a [[head tax]].{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}} This resentment culminated in mob attacks against Chinese and Japanese immigrants in Vancouver in 1887 and 1907.