who were the first settlers in british columbia
History of British Columbia British Columbia, before the arrival of the Europeans, was home to many Indigenous peoples speaking more than 30 different languages, including Babine-Witsuwit'en, Danezaa (Beaver), Carrier, Chilcotin, Gitxsan, Haida, Halkomelem, Kaska, Kutenai, Lillooet, Nisga'a, Nuu-chah-nulth, Nuxalk, Sekani, Shuswap, Sinixt, Squamish, Tagish, Tahltan, Thompson, Tlingit, Tsetsaut, and Tsimshian. There was frequent contact between bands and voyages across the Strait of Georgia and the Strait of Juan de Fuca were common.
Indigenous peoples in Canada The first inhabitants of North America arrived in Canada at least 15,000 years ago, though increasing evidence suggests an even earlier arrival.[40] It is believed the inhabitants entered the Americas pursuing Pleistocene mammals such as the giant beaver, steppe wisent, musk ox, mastodons, woolly mammoths and ancient reindeer (early caribou).[41] One route hypothesized is that people walked south by way of an ice-free corridor on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, and then fanned out across North America before continuing on to South America.[42] The other conjectured route is that they migrated, either on foot or using primitive boats, down the Pacific Coast to the tip of South America, and then crossed the Rockies and Andes.[43] Evidence of the latter has been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds of metres following the last ice age.[44][45]