Immigrants

Group of Chinese Men
Barkerville, 189-, A-03783
What reasons can you think of for leaving your home to go to a strange land? A land with many challenges; harsh living conditions, hard work, and new languages and customs to learn. While British Columbia in the nineteenth and twentieth century presented these difficulties to immigrants, it also offered new opportunities and new freedom. Many people began to travel here from all over the world.

Many immigrants came to British Columbia for economic opportunities such as the fur trade, farming, gold prospecting (see the Cariboo Gold Rush gallery), or to help build railways such as Canadian Pacific Railway and the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway (the "E & N"), both begun in the nineteenth century.

Canadian Pacific Railway Gang
Laying Track Near Salmon Arm, 1885
Detail of I-30811

Charles and Nancy Alexander, 187-.
The Alexanders, originally from Missouri,
ran a prosperous farm in Saanich
A-01068
Other immigrants came for freedom from oppression in their own countries. The Doukhobors came from Russia for the opportunity to freely practice their religion. African Americans came from the United States to escape slavery and discrimination.

Ivar Fougner, pioneer teacher and first
secretary of the colony at Bella Coola,
relaxing at home, 189-.
G-00951

Most immigrants were searching for a place they could feel at home. Here's what Ivar Fougner, one of the founding settlers of the Norwegian community of Bella Coola, wrote in his diary just before moving:

"Oh, for a home of my own. A place where I should stay and be content; Give it me, and the peace of mind, dearer than old! ... Wanderer in life where is your goal?"

Provincial Archives of British Columbia. Sound Heritage. Victoria. Vol.VI, no.4.


To see more photographs and quotations from people telling stories about their lives their celebrations and work experiences follow the links below. These stories are called "oral history", and come from tape-recorded interviews collected for the B.C. Archives and previously published in the journal Sound Heritage.

Blacks      Chinese
Doukhobors      East Indians
Japanese      Norwegian

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