1.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
2.
British Columbia
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British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada, with a population of more than four million people located between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. British Columbia is also a component of the Pacific Northwest and the Cascadia bioregion, along with the U. S. states of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The first British settlement in the area was Fort Victoria, established in 1843, subsequently, on the mainland, the Colony of British Columbia was founded by Richard Clement Moody and the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, in response to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Port Moody is named after him, in 1866, Vancouver Island became part of the colony of British Columbia, and Victoria became the united colonys capital. In 1871, British Columbia became the province of Canada. Its Latin motto is Splendor sine occasu, the capital of British Columbia remains Victoria, the fifteenth-largest metropolitan region in Canada, named for the Queen who created the original European colonies. The largest city is Vancouver, the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, the largest in Western Canada, in October 2013, British Columbia had an estimated population of 4,606,371. British Columbia evolved from British possessions that were established in what is now British Columbia by 1871, First Nations, the original inhabitants of the land, have a history of at least 10,000 years in the area. Today there are few treaties and the question of Aboriginal Title, notably, the Tsilhqotin Nation has established Aboriginal title to a portion of their territory, as a result of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision. BCs economy is diverse, with service producing industries accounting for the largest portion of the provinces GDP and it is the endpoint of transcontinental railways, and the site of major Pacific ports that enable international trade. Though less than 5% of its vast 944,735 km2 land is arable and its climate encourages outdoor recreation and tourism, though its economic mainstay has long been resource extraction, principally logging, farming, and mining. Vancouver, the provinces largest city and metropolitan area, also serves as the headquarters of many western-based natural resource companies and it also benefits from a strong housing market and a per capita income well above the national average. The Northern Interior region has a climate with very cold winters. The climate of Vancouver is by far the mildest winter climate of the major Canadian cities, the provinces name was chosen by Queen Victoria, when the Colony of British Columbia, i. e. the Mainland, became a British colony in 1858. The current southern border of British Columbia was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, British Columbias land area is 944,735 square kilometres. British Columbias rugged coastline stretches for more than 27,000 kilometres and it is the only province in Canada that borders the Pacific Ocean. British Columbias capital is Victoria, located at the tip of Vancouver Island. Only a narrow strip of the Island, from Campbell River to Victoria, is significantly populated, much of the western part of Vancouver Island and the rest of the coast is covered by thick, tall and sometimes impenetrable temperate rainforest
3.
Squamish people
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The Squamish people are an indigenous people in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. In 2012, there was population of 3,893 band members registered with the Squamish Nation and their language is the Squamish language or Sḵwx̱wú7mesh snichim, considered a part of the Coast Salish languages, and is categorized as nearly extinct with just 10 fluent speakers as of 2010. The traditional territory covered Point Grey as the southern border, from here, it continued northward to Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast, up the Howe Sound. The northern part included the Squamish, Cheakamus, Elaho and Mamquam rivers, up the Cheakamus River it included land past Whistler, British Columbia. The southern and eastern part of their territory includes Indian Arm, along Burrard Inlet, through False Creek then English Bay, today the Squamish people live mostly in seven communities, located in West Vancouver, North Vancouver, and within and nearby to the District of Squamish. The Squamish people’s history, culture, societal customs, and other knowledge was transmitted by tradition from generation to generation without a writing system. Today oral tradition continues to be an aspect of their traditional culture. This continued until European contact and diseases in 1791, which caused changes to the people. Charles Hill-Tout became the first European to document Squamish oral history in the early 1900s, later, many anthropologists and linguists came to work with Squamish informants and elders to document Squamish culture and history. Although first recorded contact with Europeans happened with George Vancouver and José María Narváez in 1791–1792 disease had devastated much of the population before in the 1770s, for decades following, more diseases, including influenza, reduced the population significantly. Oral tradition transmits history, literature, law and other knowledges verbally across generations, without a writing system, the passing on of this history is regarded as the duty of responsible elders. Those who possessed a great deal of knowledge were regarded as aristocrats, like other Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, the Squamish have stories of the Transformer brothers who went around the world transforming things and people. Other stories transmitted through generations are of ancestral characters doing things or involved in events, oral tradition and history, including new events, continues to be passed on in this form to this day. Squamish oral history traces back to founding fathers of their people, an aged informant of the Squamish people named Mel̓ḵw’s, said to be over 100 years old, was interviewed by Charles Hill-Tout in 1986. He recited oral history on the origins of the world, but the tops of the mountains came out of the sea and land was formed. The first man to appear was named X̱i7lánexw and he was given a wife, an adze, and a salmon trap. X̱i7lánexw and his wife populated the land and the Squamish descend from these ancestors, dominic Charlie told a similar story in 1965 about the origins of his people. Their oral history talks about the Great Flood also, in a story said to happen at Chʼiyáḵmesh, in the Squamish Valley, a man who survived the flood was walking down the river, feeling depressed about the loss of his people from the flood
4.
Writing system
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A writing system is any conventional method of visually representing verbal communication. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a form of information storage. The processes of encoding and decoding writing systems involve shared understanding between writers and readers of the meaning behind the sets of characters that make up a script, the general attributes of writing systems can be placed into broad categories such as alphabets, syllabaries, or logographies. Any particular system can have attributes of more than one category, in the alphabetic category, there is a standard set of letters of consonants and vowels that encode based on the general principle that the letters represent speech sounds. In a syllabary, each symbol correlates to a syllable or mora, in a logography, each character represents a word, morpheme, or other semantic units. Other categories include abjads, which differ from alphabets in that vowels are not indicated, alphabets typically use a set of 20-to-35 symbols to fully express a language, whereas syllabaries can have 80-to-100, and logographies can have several hundreds of symbols. Systems will also enable the stringing together of these groupings in order to enable a full expression of the language. The reading step can be accomplished purely in the mind as an internal process, writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, which used pictograms, ideograms and other mnemonic symbols. Proto-writing lacked the ability to capture and express a range of thoughts. Soon after, writing provided a form of long distance communication. With the advent of publishing, it provided the medium for a form of mass communication. Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that a system is always associated with at least one spoken language. In contrast, visual representations such as drawings, paintings, and non-verbal items on maps, such as contour lines, are not language-related. Some other symbols, such as numerals and the ampersand, are not directly linked to any specific language, every human community possesses language, which many regard as an innate and defining condition of humanity. However, the development of writing systems, and the process by which they have supplanted traditional oral systems of communication, have been sporadic, uneven, once established, writing systems generally change more slowly than their spoken counterparts. Thus they often preserve features and expressions which are no current in the spoken language. One of the benefits of writing systems is that they can preserve a permanent record of information expressed in a language. In the examination of individual scripts, the study of writing systems has developed along partially independent lines, thus, the terminology employed differs somewhat from field to field
5.
Squamish, British Columbia
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Squamish is a community and a district municipality in the Canadian province of British Columbia, located at the north end of Howe Sound on the Sea to Sky Highway. The population of the Squamish census agglomeration – including First Nation reserves of the Squamish Nation not governed by the municipality – is 15,256, the town of Squamish had its beginning during the construction of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway in the 1910s. It was the first southern terminus of that railway, the town remains important in the operations of the line and also the port. Forestry has traditionally been the industry in the area. However, Western Pulps Squamish Operation permanently ceased operation on January 26,2006, before the pulp mill, the towns largest employer had been International Forest Products with its sawmill and logging operation, but it closed a few years prior to the pulp mills closing. In recent years, Squamish has become popular with Vancouver and Whistler residents escaping the increased cost of living in those places, tourism is an increasingly important part of the towns economy, with an emphasis on outdoor recreation. The Squamish people are a people whose homeland includes the present day area of Squamish, British Columbia. The word Squamish derives from the name of the people which in their language is Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, the people reside primarily on a number of Indian Reserves owned and managed by the Squamish Nation in the Squamish Valley area. A few places and names in the Squamish area derive from Squamish language words, ch’iyáḵmesh is the name of an old village that was located on the Cheakamus River. St’á7mes is a community located near the entrance to the town of Squamish, which lies below the Stawamus Chief. Mámx̱wem is where the Mamquam River name comes from as well, residents of Indian Reserves are not governed by the District of Squamish but by the Squamish Nation. The Squamish Nations population and Indian Reserves also include villages in North Vancouver, the name Keh Kait was the traditional name for the site of downtown Squamish. Attractions include the Stawamus Chief, a huge cliff-faced granite massif favoured by rock climbers, in all, between Shannon Falls, Murrin Park, The Malamute, and the Little Smoke Bluffs, there are over 1200 rock-climbing routes in the Squamish area. In recent years, Squamish has also become a destination for bouldering. Another activity for which Squamish is well known is mountain biking, there are over 600 trails suitable to riders that can ride very steep trails with large gaps and steep rock. One of the more well-known events supported by the mountain biking community is the Test of Metal, limited to 800 riders, the race is known to sell out quickly. Kiteboarding and windsurfing are popular sports in Squamish during the summer. Predictable wind on warm sunny days makes the Squamish Spit a top kiteboarding location in western Canada, squamishs extensive quality trail system is a key feature of an annual 50-mile ultra trail run, the Squamish 50
6.
North Vancouver (district municipality)
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The District of North Vancouver is a district municipality in British Columbia, Canada and is part of the Greater Vancouver Regional District. It surrounds the City of North Vancouver on three sides, as of 2016, the District stands as the second wealthiest city in Canada, with neighbouring West Vancouver the richest. The municipality is characterized as being a relatively quiet, affluent suburban hub home to many middle and upper-middle class families. Homes in the District generally range from mid-sized family bungalows to large luxury houses. Some developments have popped up across the district in recent years, the District is served by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, British Columbia Ambulance Service, and the District of North Vancouver Fire Department. The District of North Vancouver is separated from Vancouver by the Burrard Inlet and it can be accessed by the Lions Gate Bridge, the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, and the SeaBus passenger ferry. The District is bounded by the Capilano River to the west, Indian Arm to the east, Burrard Inlet to the south, and it sprawls in an east-west direction across the mountain slopes, and is characterized by rugged terrain and steep and winding roadways. While there is no true urban core within the District, there are a number of separate commercial neighbourhood centres and these include, Edgemont Village, Upper Lonsdale, Lynn Valley, Main Street, Parkgate, and Deep Cove. The District has a lot in common with West Vancouver and the City of North Vancouver, together these three municipalities are commonly referred to as the North Shore. Most of the residents of the District live in single-family dwellings, except for a few more historical areas, much of the development of the District has occurred since the 1950s. The City of North Vancouver has considerably higher commercial and residential density, however, the differences between the two North Vans are most apparent to their respective residents. For the most part, other Lower Mainland residents rarely distinguish between the District and the City, referring to both collectively as North Vancouver. For thousands of years, the Indigenous Squamish and their kin Tsleil-Waututh, of the Coast Salish, slightly over 200 years ago, the people of the Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh living on the North Shore had their first glimpse of Europeans. First the Spanish arrived, giving their name to Vancouver’s Spanish Banks and, in 1792, Captain George Vancouver explored the local shores. But it was not until 1862 that the first attempt was made to harvest the North Shore’s rich stands of timber, the first industry on the North Shore was Pioneer Mills, founded in 1862 to log the huge trees of the coastal rainforest. After twice changing hands, the operation was bought by Sewell Prescott Moody in 1865, near where the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool grain elevators now stand, the town of Moodyville grew up and stood as the main centre of activity on the North Shore until the mill closed in 1901. The first school was established in Moodyville, in 1891, the first municipality on the North Shore was formed as the District of North Vancouver. It stretched across the North Shore from Horseshoe Bay to Deep Cove, in the early years of this century, a real estate boom took place, with speculators – including the British poet Rudyard Kipling – eager to turn a quick dollar
7.
West Vancouver
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West Vancouver is a district municipality in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Together with the District of North Vancouver and City of North Vancouver, it is part of a regional grouping referred to as the North Shore municipalities. West Vancouver has a population of 42,694, Cypress Provincial Park, mostly located within the municipal boundaries, was one of the venues for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Municipality of West Vancouver was incorporated on March 15,1912, the first municipal election was held on April 6,1912. In November 1938, the Lions Gate Bridge was opened to traffic, allowing extensive growth of the semi-populated community, previously only accessible by ferry. Some homes in West Vancouver date back to the 1920s and 30s, though most of the existing dwellings were built in the 1970s and 80s. 1792 Captain George Vancouver names Point Atkinson 1872 James Blake preempted the first 65 hectares of land 1875 First lighthouse at Point Atkinson 1898 Mr and their house still stands today at Ambleside and there is a Navvy Jack Point. 1912 Population was approximately 1,500 people 1912 First Municipal election 1912 Council appointed John Teare as the first police constable on May 17, the bridge cost a total of $6 million to build. It was financed by the Guinness family, in conjunction with the development,1947 Ferry service stopped due to lack of demand after bridge constructed 1950 West Vancouver Memorial Library opened on November 11. The library lends more books per capita than any other library in Canada 1950 Park Royal Shopping Centre, the Police Department remained in the Public 1973 Clyde McRae completes a world record walk across Canada on Ambleside Beach. 2013 Park Royal Shopping Center sees first major expansion since 1978 Safety building West Vancouver has no manufacturing industry by law, West Vancouver is mainly a residential district as many residents are retired, work at home, or take the short commute to downtown Vancouver. A 25-block strip of Marine Drive serves as a district, featuring shops, small offices, garages and gas stations, restaurants, banks. This area is known as Ambleside, with a one-block section separated from that area known as Dundarave. West Vancouver is also home to Park Royal Shopping Centre, Canadas first mall. Opened in the 1950s, it now consumes 2 km of both sides of Marine Drive near North Vancouver, and is home to department stores and large retailers. Park Royal is also the largest mall on the North Shore, Ambleside Park and the 15 block long West Vancouver Seawall are popular spots for families and outdoor enthusiasts. Whytecliff Park is regarded as one of the best scuba diving spots in Western Canada, West Vancouver has several public recreation facilities including an 18-hole par 3 golf course, a pool, an ice rink, basketball and tennis courts, skateboard parks and numerous public parks. The new West Vancouver Community Centre has been rebuilt and opened Spring 2009, West Vancouver is also home to Cypress Provincial Park with mountain biking trails and a large ski and snowboard facility, which served as one of the venues for the 2010 Winter Olympics
8.
Washington (state)
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It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State or the State of Washington to distinguish it from Washington, Washington is the 18th largest state with an area of 71,362 square miles, and the 13th most populous state with over 7 million people. Washington is the second most populous state on the West Coast and in the Western United States, Mount Rainier, an active stratovolcano, is the states highest elevation at almost 14,411 feet and is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States. Washington is a leading lumber producer and its rugged surface is rich in stands of Douglas fir, hemlock, ponderosa pine, white pine, spruce, larch, and cedar. Manufacturing industries in Washington include aircraft and missiles, shipbuilding and other equipment, lumber, food processing, metals and metal products, chemicals. Washington has over 1,000 dams, including the Grand Coulee Dam, built for a variety of purposes including irrigation, power, flood control, the Washington Territory was named after George Washington, the first President of the United States. The area was part of a region called the Columbia District after the Columbia River. The area was renamed Washington in order to avoid confusion with the District of Columbia, Washington is the only U. S. state named after a president. To distinguish it from the U. S. capital, which is named for George Washington, Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State, or, in more formal contexts. Washingtonians and other residents of the Pacific Northwest refer to the state simply as Washington, calling the nations capital Washington, D. C. or, often, Washington is the northwestern-most state of the contiguous United States. Washington is bordered by Oregon to the south, with the Columbia River forming the western part, to the west of Washington lies the Pacific Ocean. The high mountains of the Cascade Range run north-south, bisecting the state, from the Cascade Mountains westward, Western Washington has a mostly marine west coast climate, with mild temperatures and wet winters, autumns and springs, and relatively dry summers. The Cascade Range contains several volcanoes, which reach altitudes significantly higher than the rest of the mountains, from the north to the south, these major volcanoes are Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Adams. Mount Rainier, the tallest mountain in the state, is 50 miles south of the city of Seattle and it is also covered with more glacial ice than any other peak in the contiguous 48 states. Western Washington also is home of the Olympic Mountains, far west on the Olympic Peninsula and these deep forests, such as the Hoh Rainforest, are among the only temperate rainforests in the continental United States. Eastern Washington – the part of the state east of the Cascades – has a dry climate. It includes large areas of steppe and a few truly arid deserts lying in the rain shadow of the Cascades. Farther east, the climate becomes less arid, with annual rainfall increasing as one goes east to 21.2 inches in Pullman, the Okanogan Highlands and the rugged Kettle River Range and Selkirk Mountains cover much of the northeastern quadrant of the state
9.
Franz Boas
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Franz Uri Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the Father of American Anthropology. His work is associated with the movement of anthropological historicism, studying in Germany, Boas was awarded a doctorate in 1881 in physics while also studying geography. He then participated in an expedition to northern Canada where he became fascinated with the culture. He went on to do work with the indigenous cultures and languages of the Pacific Northwest. Through his students, many of whom went on to found anthropology departments and research programmes inspired by their mentor, Boas profoundly influenced the development of American anthropology. Among his most significant students were Manuel Gamio, A. L. Kroeber, Ruth Benedict, Edward Sapir, Margaret Mead, Melville Herskovits, and Zora Neale Hurston. In this way, Boas introduced culture as the concept for describing differences in behavior between human groups, and as the central analytical concept of anthropology. Franz Boas was born in Minden, Westphalia, although his grandparents were observant Jews, his parents embraced Enlightenment values, including their assimilation into modern German society. Boass parents were educated, well-to-do, and liberal, they did not like dogma of any kind, due to this, Boas was granted the independence to think for himself and pursue his own interests. Early in life he displayed a penchant for both nature and natural sciences, Boas vocally opposed anti-Semitism and refused to convert to Christianity, but he did not identify himself as a Jew. This is disputed however by Ruth Bunzel, a protégée of Boas, according to his biographer, He was an ethnic German, preserving and promoting German culture and values in America. In an autobiographical sketch, Boas wrote, The background of my early thinking was a German home in which the ideals of the revolution of 1848 were a living force. My father, liberal, but not active in affairs, my mother, idealistic, with a lively interest in public matters. My parents had broken through the shackles of dogma and my father had retained an emotional affection for the ceremonial of his parental home, without allowing it to influence his intellectual freedom. From kindergarten on, Boas was educated in history, a subject he enjoyed. In gymnasium, he was most proud of his research on the distribution of plants. In 1879, he hoped to transfer to Berlin University to study physics under Hermann von Helmholtz, the combination of physics and geography also may have been accomplished through a major in physics and a minor in geography. Boas, due to deafness, encountered difficulties studying tonal languages such as Laguna
10.
International Phonetic Alphabet
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The International Phonetic Alphabet is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association as a representation of the sounds of spoken language. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign students and teachers, linguists, speech-language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators. The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are part of language, phones, phonemes, intonation. IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two types, letters and diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter ⟨t⟩ may be transcribed in IPA with a letter, or with a letter plus diacritics. Often, slashes are used to signal broad or phonemic transcription, thus, /t/ is less specific than, occasionally letters or diacritics are added, removed, or modified by the International Phonetic Association. As of the most recent change in 2005, there are 107 letters,52 diacritics and these are shown in the current IPA chart, posted below in this article and at the website of the IPA. In 1886, a group of French and British language teachers, led by the French linguist Paul Passy, for example, the sound was originally represented with the letter ⟨c⟩ in English, but with the digraph ⟨ch⟩ in French. However, in 1888, the alphabet was revised so as to be uniform across languages, the idea of making the IPA was first suggested by Otto Jespersen in a letter to Paul Passy. It was developed by Alexander John Ellis, Henry Sweet, Daniel Jones, since its creation, the IPA has undergone a number of revisions. After major revisions and expansions in 1900 and 1932, the IPA remained unchanged until the International Phonetic Association Kiel Convention in 1989, a minor revision took place in 1993 with the addition of four letters for mid central vowels and the removal of letters for voiceless implosives. The alphabet was last revised in May 2005 with the addition of a letter for a labiodental flap, apart from the addition and removal of symbols, changes to the IPA have consisted largely in renaming symbols and categories and in modifying typefaces. Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for speech pathology were created in 1990, the general principle of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound, although this practice is not followed if the sound itself is complex. There are no letters that have context-dependent sound values, as do hard, finally, the IPA does not usually have separate letters for two sounds if no known language makes a distinction between them, a property known as selectiveness. These are organized into a chart, the chart displayed here is the chart as posted at the website of the IPA. The letters chosen for the IPA are meant to harmonize with the Latin alphabet, for this reason, most letters are either Latin or Greek, or modifications thereof. Some letters are neither, for example, the letter denoting the glottal stop, ⟨ʔ⟩, has the form of a question mark
Languages of British Columbia