Colonial Despatches

Vancouver is British Columbia's largest city. It is located on the southwest shores of the province, roughly 50 km north of the Canada-US border, and a 90 minute ferry ride from Vancouver Island. Vancouver looks out to the Strait of Georgia, and the Salish Sea, into which the nearby Fraser River flows.

The city was named, posthumously, after Captain Vancouver, who sailed nearby waters in the 1790s. In 1906, Walbran characterized it as growing and prosperous.1 Further, Walbran notes that the area was known as Granville, prior to Canadian Pacific Railway adopting Vancouver as its terminus; and thanks, in part, to the rail line, the city grew. It incorporated in 1886 as Vancouver—a handle proposed by William van Horne, general manager of the CPR.2

• 1. John T. Walbran, British Columbia Coast Names (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1971), 507.
• 2. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Placenames (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 619.