Editing History of Canada (section)

===Pacific colonies===
{{Further|History of British Columbia}}
[[File:Oregoncountry2.png|thumb|Map of the [[Columbia District]], also referred to as [[Oregon Country]]. The region was [[Oregon boundary dispute|disputed territory]] between the UK and the US until 1846, with the signing of the [[Oregon Treaty]].]]
Spanish explorers had taken the lead in the [[Pacific Northwest|Pacific Northwest coast]], with the voyages of [[Juan José Pérez Hernández]] in 1774 and 1775.<ref name=Barman>{{cite book|first1=Jean |last1=Barman|title=The West beyond the West: a history of British Columbia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_X_aK5pD5kgC&pg=PA20|year=1996|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-7185-9|page=20}}</ref> By the time the Spanish determined to build a fort on [[Vancouver Island]], the British navigator [[James Cook]] had visited [[Nootka Sound]] and charted the coast as far as Alaska, while British and American [[Maritime Fur Trade|maritime fur traders]] had begun a busy era of commerce with [[Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast|the coastal peoples]] to satisfy the brisk market for sea otter pelts in China, thereby launching what became known as the [[Old China Trade|China Trade]].<ref name=Sutton>{{cite book|first1=John |last1=Sutton Lutz|title=Makúk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J2MNSaoAecIC&pg=PA44|year=2009|publisher=UBC Press|isbn=978-0-7748-5827-4|page=44}}</ref>
In 1789 war threatened between Britain and Spain on their respective rights; the [[Nootka Crisis]] was resolved peacefully largely in favour of Britain, the much stronger naval power at the time. In 1793 [[Alexander Mackenzie (explorer)|Alexander MacKenzie]], a Scotsman working for the [[North West Company]], crossed the continent and with his Aboriginal guides and French-Canadian crew, reached the mouth of the [[Bella Coola River]], completing the first continental crossing north of Mexico, missing [[George Vancouver]]'s charting expedition to the region by only a few weeks.<ref>{{cite book
|first1=Margaret
|last1=Ormsby
|author-link = Margaret Ormsby
|title=British Columbia: A History
|publisher=Macmillan
|year=1976
|url=https://www.questia.com/library/book/british-columbia-a-history-by-margaret-a-ormsby.jsp
|isbn=978-0-7581-8813-7
|page= 33
|access-date=April 16, 2010}}</ref> In 1821, the North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company merged, with a combined trading territory that was extended by a licence to the [[North-Western Territory]] and the [[Columbia District|Columbia]] and [[New Caledonia (Canada)|New Caledonia]] fur districts, which reached the Arctic Ocean on the north and the Pacific Ocean on the west.<ref>{{cite web
|title=Our History
|publisher=Hudson's Bay Company
|url=http://www.hbc.com/hbc/history/
|year=2009
|access-date=April 16, 2010
|archive-date=April 24, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100424100034/http://www.hbc.com/hbc/history/
|url-status=dead
}}</ref>

The [[Colony of Vancouver Island]] was chartered in 1849, with the trading post at [[Fort Victoria (British Columbia)|Fort Victoria]] as the capital. This was followed by the [[Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands]] in 1853, and by the creation of the [[Colony of British Columbia (1858-1866)|Colony of British Columbia]] in 1858 and the [[Stikine Territory]] in 1861, with the latter three being founded expressly to keep those regions from being overrun and annexed by American gold miners.<ref name=Barman2>{{cite book|first1=Jean |last1=Barman|title=The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JbYe6fCOSTAC&pg=PA67|access-date=September 8, 2013|year=2006|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-7185-9|page=67}}</ref> The Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands and most of the Stikine Territory were merged into the Colony of British Columbia in 1863 (the remainder, north of the 60th Parallel, became part of the North-Western Territory).<ref name=Barman2/>