How did British Columbia get it's name?

British Columbia, often referred to as B.C. or BC (French: Colombie-Britannique, C.-B.), is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu ("Splendour without diminishment"). It was the sixth province to join Confederation. Residents are referred to as British Columbians or BCers.

history

Pre-Confederation

The discovery of stone tools on the Beatton River near Fort St. John date human habitation in British Columbia to at least 11,500 years ago. The First Nations population spread throughout the region, mostly on the coast, where aboriginals achieved the highest density of any place in Canada. At the time of European contact, nearly half the aboriginal people in present-day Canada lived in BC.

The explorations of James Cook in the 1770s and George Vancouver in the 1790s, and the concessions of Spain in the 1790s established British jurisdiction over the coastal area north and west of the Columbia River. In 1793, Sir Alexander Mackenzie was the first European to journey across North America overland to the Pacific Ocean, inscribing a stone marking his accomplishment on the shoreline of South Bentinck Arm near Bella Coola. His expedition theoretically established British sovereignty inland, and a succession of other fur company explorers charted the maze of rivers and mountain ranges between the Prairies and the Pacific. Mackenzie and these other explorers — notably John Finlay, Simon Fraser, Samuel Black, and David Thompson — were primarily concerned with extending the fur trade, rather than political considerations.

Their establishment of trading posts under the auspices of the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), however, effectively established a permanent British presence in the region, which (south of 54-40 latitude) was, as of the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, under the "joint occupancy and use" of citizens of the United States and subjects of Britain (which is to say, the fur companies). This co-occupancy was ended with the Oregon Treaty of 1846.

Some of these early posts would grow into settlements, communities, and cities. Among the places in British Columbia that began as fur trading posts are Fort St. John (established 1794); Hudson's Hope (1805); Fort Nelson (1805); Fort St. James (1806); Prince George (1807); Kamloops (1812); Fort Langley (1827); Victoria (1843); Yale (1848); and Nanaimo (1853). Fur company posts that became cities in what is now the United States include Vancouver, Washington (Fort Vancouver), formerly the "capital" of Hudson's Bay operations in the Columbia District (aka the Oregon Territory).

With the amalgamation of the two fur trading companies in 1821, the region now comprising British Columbia existed in three fur trading departments. The bulk of the Central and Northern Interior was organised into the New Caledonia district, administered from Fort St. James. The Interior south of the Thompson River watershed and north of the Columbia was organised into the Columbia District, administered from Fort Vancouver (present-day Vancouver, Washington). The northeast corner of the province east of the Rockies, known as the Peace River Block, was attached to the much larger Athabasca District, headquartered in Fort Chipewyan (in present day Alberta).

Until 1849, these districts were a wholly unorganised area of British North America under the defacto jurisdiction of HBC administrators. Unlike Rupert's Land to the north and east, however, the territory was not a concession to the Company. Rather, it was simply granted a monopoly to trade with the First Nations inhabitants. All that was changed with the westward extension of American exploration, and the concomitant overlapping claims of territorial sovereignty, especially in the southern Columbia basin (within present day Washington state and Oregon). In 1846, the Oregon Treaty divided the territory along the 49th parallel to Georgia Strait, with the area south of this boundary, excluding Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands) transferred to sole American sovereignty. The Colony of Vancouver Island was created in 1849, with Victoria designated as the capital. New Caledonia continued to be an unorganized territory of British North America, "administered" by individual HBC trading post managers.

With the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858, an influx of Americans into New Caledonia prompted the colonial office to formally designate the mainland as the Colony of British Columbia, with New Westminster as its capital. A second gold rush — the Cariboo Gold Rush — followed in 1862, forcing the colonial administration into deeper debt as it struggled to meet the extensive infrastructure needs of far-flung boom communities like Barkerville and Lillooet, which literally sprang up overnight. The Vancouver Island colony was facing financial crises of its own, and pressure to merge the two eventually succeeded in 1866, with the name British Columbia being applied to the newly united colony.

just go to canadas web site www.canada.gc.ca and there are links to help you as well. If not satisfied with any answers or to confirm the answers b.c.'s website has links to its history where it looks like one answer was coppied from.