Talk:Lower Mainland/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Sunshine Coast not part of Lower Mainland

By definition, that is. I don't even consider Squamish or Whistler to be in the Lower Mainland. But the Sunshine Coast is definitely not part of the Lower Mainland, even if its part of "Southwestern B.C." which is the best Tourism BC could come up with for the overall region (apparently Lower Mainland didn't sound happy enough for them). I won't revise the article at present as I'm doing electoral districts; I just happened to stumble across this. I'll return later to fix the "fuzzy geography".

Lions Bay is at the fringe of the Lower Mainland; near as I can tell it includes Hope but runs out somewhere between there and Yale.Skookum1 06:16, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree with you, even though the boundaries are dangerously a matter of opinion. That said, I think the general consensus of people familiar with the area would be that the "Lower Mainland" stretches from Hope to Lions Bay. Anything north of Lions Bay would be no more part of the Lower Mainland than Kamloops is a part of the Okanagan. Fluit 00:08, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Kamloops->Okanagan is sometimes portrayed that way in the media, actually, although the fault is usually with transplanted broadcasters brought in by CBC/CTV or whomever who are new to the place. Lately it's been even more confused with the whole swathe of territory from Adams Lake and Little Shuswap Lake over to Mabel Lake and Sugar Lake now being rebranded (apparently by the government) as "Lake Country". Hell I just always called it "the Shuswap" ('xcepting the Shuswap River/Mabel Lake, that is).
As for government boundaries, these are so mutable and politically-tweaked all the time as to be useless; except maybe for the earliest divisions of the province (see earlier List of British Columbia general elections, or to a lesser degree the old Land Districts, i.e. the Kootenay (E/W), the Boundary Country, the Okanagan, the Cariboo, the Canyon, the Omineca, the Peace, the North Coast etc. I don't particularly like that the Fraser Canyon (one of my home turfs) is always lumped in with "Thompson-Oksanagan" weather forecasts and other stats; and otherwise with the Cariboo. Come to think of it Kamloops has sometimes been dubbed part of the Cariboo; which it certainly is more than it is part of the Okanagan; but to me it's part of "the Thompson", even if that also includes areas traditionally part of the Cariboo (Lillooet and Cache Creek, maybe Savona).
And I agree with Hope to Lions Bay; I don't even think Yale is in the Lower Mainland, even though it's only JUST at the entrance to the Fraser Canyon; but Hope has always been the boundary with "the Interior"; Squamish's old ties, pre-99, were with Lillooet and the Cariboo; the Sunshine Coast being a world/region in its own right and (at one time formerly) its own tourism region with the gov; the traditional Lillooet Country is now split between the Cariboo (which uses Lillooet scenery to advertise itself but doesn't promote the town/locality one bit) and the "Sea-to-Sky Corridor" (a latter-day epithet from the post-literate era of marketing language).Skookum1 00:19, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I lean towards the "Lions Bay to Hope" definition, although I could easily accept Squamish and Whistler since they are becoming more and more a "part" of the urban region, what with commuters, the new highway, and so on. However, the Ministry of the Environment seems to side with the "bigger picture"; that is to say, the Sunshine Coast etc. MotE - Lower Mainland Region --Ckatz 02:34, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand this discussion. It really doesn't matter what any of us think the boundaries of the Lower Mainland are. The article quotes a source that specifies the boundaries. The policy on use of sources is pretty clear. Anything else is original research. Sunray 07:39, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but Sunray, y'see there's a lot of people who "think" a lot of things about BC that are WRONG; and this includes a lot of people who recently moved here who picked up some fake nostrum about this or that from someone ELSE who just moved here. I've heard all kinds of nonsense. It's not what people THINK the boundaries of the Lower Mainland are; there are long-standing cultural/social norms about this and it's only latecomers to the province that are in any confusion or, in some cases, find the name repugnant (as if it were derogatory, and there's all kinds of poeple around here obsesseed with status/face/prestige now). There may have not been an "official" definition because one was never needed; it was a geographic statement - the upper mainland, and the lower mainland. The upper mainland being somewhere where, literally, you had to go "up" to, to climb something to get there; either the Canyon, the Coquihalla Pass (when it was the CPR line to Kelowna/Rock Creek/Grand Forks), the Allison Pass/Dewdney Trail etc). And all the rest of the mainland, other than upcoast, was known to be plateau and mountains, and it was known that ONLY the Fraser delta-Burrard Inlet had any amount of bottom land worth speaking of between Anchorage and southern Puget Sound. The problem with a "source that quotes boundaries" here is that the relevant sources involved are accrued inferences in local papers and other publications, and in conversation. As with local English dialects/variation, that this turn of speech never NEEDED formal definition, and because it is a folk-language term (very much so), academic/government citations/defintions ARE IRRELEVANT (and if Wiki policy disagrees, it's Wiki policy that's wrong about this). The Lower Mainland cannot have a legal or constitutional definition because it is not a legal entity nor does it have a legal or constitutional purpose; and historians of the province, including the politically-correct (ideologically-pretentious, more like), are among those body of users of the term whose collective inferences add up to a "definition" by default. Citing them all? Wow. The credential-crazy nature of our age probably means that there won't be a Wiki-style acceptable definition until someone does a Ph.D. thesis whose purpose is to define the boundary, so that it can be cited. Apparently you have to have credentials before you can be a cite, too, which is one of the vanities of academia in re matters of "original research"; all very incestuous, isn't it?

That's my morning tirade and I'll need more coffee to be any more concise or to the point; my complaints about this cite/no original research line of thinking I'll put aside. For defintions of the Lower Mainland I DO know that such definitions even exist in Bowering's and Barman's overblowwn but AWFUL recent histories of the province, and I'm pretty sure they're in my Vancouver: A Visual History and also Morley's Vancouver: From Milltown to Metropolis. Not even Barman, who screws up BC geography, history and society right and left (lots of credentials, gets lots of books published, but that's because her editors and publishers don't know the history any better than she does), gets the Lower Mainland wrong. As someone overleaf did by including the Sunshine Coast and even Powell River (! - might as well include Prince Rupert, too!!!). But on the whole I don't think this name NEEDS a cited definition to validate it as it's so well-known (to people raised here); an actual quotation of a boundary/region description from one of the books I've mentioned or similar would do and do exist, but at the moment I myself don't have the time to re-read those books to find them.

Howe Sound no farther north than Lions Bay (actually, when I was young, no further than Horseshoe Bay, where the roads ended). Georgia Strait. The 49th Parallel. Hope. The mountains. That's it. It's pretty darned simple and maybe that's why the politicians/lawyers never sat down to define it.Skookum1 17:10, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

While the term has been recorded from the earliest period of European settlement in British Columbia, it has never been officially defined in legal terms. However, it is the name of an ecoregion—

And the reason is it's the name of that ecoregion is because the ecoregion was named after the geographic/sociocultural region. The article from this point on keeps on speaking about the region as an ecoregion and speaking mostly in eco-terms; the ecoregion is an incidental meaning, even a secondary usage, but someone's treating it like it's the important aspect; in the context where the historical region is being dismissed (for lack of a citation) and an ecoregion is being cited (because a cite exists which quotes the historic tradition for its name) is just inane/insane/absurd.Skookum1 17:10, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Re CKatz's passage: However, the Ministry of the Environment seems to side with the "bigger picture"; that is to say, the Sunshine Coast etc. MotE - Lower Mainland Region

postscript to following, after seeing the gov.bc.ca link above: Well, that map says it all if you knoew the history of BC's regions. I feel like I'm looking at a federal riding map c.1900, there's so few divisions/regions shown here. Note that this is a Ministry of Environment administrative region, not a "region" in the cultural-social-geographic sense; but an administrative region which borrows' the name of the Lower Mainland, as that is the largest and most important component of the area. But an MoE region is not the same thing as an MoF region or for that matter a region for a lot of other ministries (check 'em out; I'd name some more but they get renamed/shuffled so much I can't keep 'em straight). Check out the Tourism region boundaries, for instance, and compare, and Health.
Other than the eponymous "Lower Mainland" (better described in historico-cultural terms as the "Lower Coast" and also including the Pemberton country, formerly part of the Lillooet Country and historically part of the Interior, until the opening of the Sea to Sky), the regions I see are Okanagan (by whatever name, but it looks like the new federal Southern Interior riding, albeit not including Trail-Nelson; this is actually Okanagan-Similkameen-Boundary, historically three very identifiably different regions), Kootenay (identical to the Kootenay Land District and also the old federal Kootenay riding, c.1880s), Skeena (six regions: Haida Gwaii, Skeena(-Bulkley), the Nass, the Stikine, the Cassiar and the Atlin), Thompson (includes the Shuswap and, here, the Bridge River-Lillooet which historically was part of the Cariboo, or nominally so anyway with the Bridge River once called the West Cariboo (and now atrocified as the South Chilcotin, so-called); I'd describe the Thompson MoE region as a combination of the Shuswap, the North Thompson, Kamloops and the South Cariboo (sans 100 Mile and whatever else the boundary cuts off between there and Cache Creek), Cariboo (Cariboo + the Central Coast,by whatever name; stunning resemblance to the old Coast-Chilcotin federal riding except for the absence of Squamish, Sechelt and the Sunshine Coast; and nobody can tell me that Bella Coola. Bella Bella, Ocean Falls and that Hartley Bay place are in the Cariboo, even if that's what the MoE calls their region), Omineca (here including not the southern half of the historical Omineca, here assigned to Cariboo, and including the Robson Valley and also the Mackenzie-Parsnip/Lk Williston region, and the Peace (it and Kootenay are the only real regions on the map, and the Kootenay is really three regions, maybe four - East and West Kootenay, the Columbia (Golden-Big Bend-Revelstoke-Nakusp and the Slocan). Oh, and of course Vancouver Island, which can also be seen as having regions. So there you have it: other MoE boundaries that are not accurate in terms of being a name-sake/source for an article like what we're trying to do; simplified names for government adminstrative consolidations are, as I said before, highly suspect as valid sources.Skookum1 03:33, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


Government boundary-fudging has nothing to do with it. They've included Squamish in Cariboo electoral districts, too, and they fudge regional district boundaries without any regard for the historic cultures/societies that gave the components name; so now "the Shuswap" is now "the Lake Country" with different boundaries from the Shuswap, the Upper Fraser Valley is "Rainbow Country" (= rain country) and Chilliwack (they tell us) is some kind of exciting holiday and cultural destination (aaaaaaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!), Whistler isn't in the Squamish-Lillooet district but in some magically invented highway-world mall called "Sea to Sky Country", and what was the Bridge River-Lillooet District is now carved up between the Cariboo and the Thompson-Okanagan; i.e. it doesn't exist because the government says it doesn't (electorally it's Fraser Canyon-Chilliwack, despite being on the other side of the mountains and a world away from the Upper Fraser Valley).

Government definitions are latter-day reworkings and NOT TO BE TRUSTED; only historical gov citations have any usefulness; anything since about 1975 or even 1952 is suspect.Skookum1 17:15, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


Skookum1: I've reverted your changes not because I disagree with them, but because I think there should be some discussion about this before we make such a change. You've made quite an argument for your case here on the talk page, but you don't seem to have given any sort of verification other than "what people think it should be". Let's try and sort this out and then align the article, what say? --Ckatz 22:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
meant to comment on "what people think it should be"; it's more like "what people know it is". I'm sure I'll be able to find a demonstrative phrase in one of the books I mentioned, or in passing from current media. And we're distinguishing between "people" here (the hoi polloi) and the cadre of government officials who stretch the terms to meet their political/budgetary aims. And also "people" doesn't include those whose only knowledge of BC is framed by latter-day divisions of the province, not the traditional ones. That there is a "traditional BC" is a somewhat testy issue; we're not supposed to have had a culture, or cultures, until we were conferred a few because, poor dears, we didn't have any culture of our own (supposedly) other than what the Brits stubbornly insisted on retaining (their own social institutions, newspapers, language - how dare they, huh? but that's the tone of a lot of modern historiography that underlays a lot of the government bumpf; irrespective of the boundaries thing, that is, just as an aside).
I'll get back on this thing about popular attestion/folk knowledge and maybe it's a case in point that a new Wiki convention needs to be evolved in regions/provinces which involve popular conception but do not have a literature expressing that specifically - as does, say, Quebec or the South or California. Oh, OK, someone will carp that "but we have a literature" = but not in the sense that I mean. Anyway "what people think it should be" - was that my choice of phrase; whatever- your selection/use of it made me pause; because it's not what people think; it's what those raised in the community know. If the law doesn't speak the same language, or academia wants to study other aspects of life (and most academics move in here without knowing much about the place, i.e. if they're not from here and - say in the case of Jean Barman - imposing her misconceptions through a Toronto publisher and, because she's a prof (of sociology, not history) her book is now used for teaching BC; jaundiced, inaccurate, dull, and off the point. What is to the point is that this whole item/discussion is one reason why we need a WikiProject British Columbia, to coordinate such discussion and work out the particular/special circumstances of odd things like how popular consciousness here was (and in many ways remains) primarily geographical; and, also, A WikiProject talkpage would be the arena to discuss this stuff about sources/cites and popular mythology/folk knowledge. Citing yourself is original research, unless you're some high pooh-bah I suppose; but with a lot of stuff in BC's history and culture there just isn't a paper trail, but rather folk memory, often translated into what I call "kitchen histories" - storehouses of local lore typically assembled by a store wife or farm wife, accompanied by iambic verses of varying quality and recipes; the paper trail in terms of "real historical writing" is largely institutional, biographical, urban, and industrial/economic in origin, and especially with the newspapers (in any era, but worst in the earliest) they exist for the primary reason of influence the public mind, not for accurate reporting of it. Still, language is language; Lower Mainland is a British-style description of the narrow sliver of lowland, so much in contrast to the rest of the province, which is now the GVRD and FVRD, in combination, and no more than that and I think not including part of the FVRD (whatever's between Hope and the TNRD boundary up the Canyon). Sorry for the ramble; more elsewhere.....Skookum1 07:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
With regards to "'what people think it should be' - was that my choice of phrase; whatever- your selection/use of it made me pause", please don't take it as a criticism (and if I've offended, my apologies). It's more indicative of the problem we face with this sort of an article; there's no question about the term's validity, or its existence. I was born here, and as such I've always known of the "Lower Mainland". From where? No clue. What is it exactly? No idea - more just a feeling of "what fits"... Cheers. --Ckatz 07:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I have another reply to this same page which talks about legal definitions and the system of Land Districts in process which I'll have to cut-paste into a later edit; and a reply to something else below, your comment at the bottom, which I'll make on the next edit.Skookum1 07:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the article could well say that there are government ministry regions which use the name of the region in their name, and descriptions of those regions could even be included; but with the caveat, once I can find/demonsrate a good cite, that as with the ecoregion they are not the same thing as what was meant by "Lower Mainland" when the term was coined, or how people ordinarily use it (people raised with it, as opposed to people who only know it from government and media mis-use; actually the media never mis-use it; I've never heard Global misrefer to Sechelt as being anywhere but the Sunshine Coast, for instance. The RD names are a completely different ballgame, and they also get shuffled (I grew up in the Dewdney-Alouette Regional District, for instance, which doesn't exist anymore).Skookum1 03:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Boundary/territory thing AGAIN

I can't believe the amount I had to put back in order here. Let's look at it logically folks: why should POWELL RIVER be in the Lower Mainland if Brittania, Whistler and Squamish aren't (though there's many Whistlerites new to the province who assume it's in the Lower Mainland, it's not - and no one in Squamish would ever claim this). Sechelters and Powell River - ites don't consider themselves to be living in the Lower Mainland, but on the Sunshine Coast; if Victoria's current bureacratic overlords have decided to amalgamate administrative boundaries and abuse the public's use of language, that should have no bearing on the historical/cultural reality. In other words, the government is not a valid source/cite here because their definition of the Lower Mainland would appear (to me) to have to do with the (semi-covertly) planned transformation of all the Lower Coast into a realty-speculation-driven megacity and also the gov's desire to cut costs and centralize decision making overall. Latter-day arrivals in British Columbia might think the Sunshine Coast is "lower" mainland because it's coastal; no, the term refers to the Fraser-Burrard bottomland and adjoining hillsides, period. In the old days, the Sunshine Coast was "upcoast", as was also Squamish (paradigm being Island(s), Interior, Lower Mainland, Upcoast and The North. Latecomers to BC screw with that last one, too; I've heard Kamloops, Lillooet and even Whistler and Squamish referred to by newcomers to Vancouver as "up north" (a term we traditionally reserve for points from Prince George north) Gag. Just goes to serve my point that just because other Canadians haven't studied British Columbian culture/geography/identity doesn't mean they have a right to play fast and loose with it, and all the more reason someone's Dept of BC Studies (there isn't one at UBC, SFU, UVic or UNBC) should elaborate on all this. Except it's too late - our academia is colonized to the point where any such studies would be in the terms of those "from away", as has become the case here in Wikipedia with things like this Lower Mainland business.Skookum1 17:29, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ckatz that we should try to sort this out here and then align the article accordingly. You have said a great deal, Skookum1. I am thinking about your various points and will reply within the next few hours, but have to go out for awhile first. Sunray 23:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion: for geographic regions, we might consider the definitions and perspectives laid down in S. Holland's Landforms of British Columbia; edition 1976 and it's cited on Tuya, which I wrote today. The copy I was using was an SFU item and went through the landforms; not quite the same thing as the historic/cultural regions but the descriptions he uses make use of the older sense/contexts of the province's old pre-modern regions (by pre-modern here I mean pre-1980s, or somewhere in there; things were pretty solid geoculturally up until the NDP/Miniwac governments), I'm not sure why; tradition dies pretty hard even with political radicals like WAC, but it's also true that physical isolation from each other is what made BC's regions so mutually distinct from each other.Skookum1 03:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the article with fresh eyes, I have to say this: it's a bit of a mess. No offense intended to the people who have put in a lot of hard work on it, but the nebulous nature of the LM term certainly doesn't help. Skookum1 makes some good points, and sounds like he knows his BC geography and history. How to fix this article, then? In a sense, it appears to contravene several WP conventions, most notably the need to cite sources. (How do you source what may well be a popular concept rather than a strictly defined region?) Maybe, the thing to do is to run with that other Wiki maxim, that is, to be bold. Rewrite the article with the attitude that the Lower Mainland is a "state of mind". As mentioned already, it doesn't seem to be legally defined - so present the idea that it is changing. What did it originally mean? What does it mean now? How does it get twisted and manipulated? The ecoregion material could be spun off into a different page, if it helps for clarity, although it might be worth a mention here as part of the confusion factor. (I'm more than familiar with this sort of mix-up, being from one of the North Vancouvers, and living on the "North Shore", which also gets stretched/shrunk to fit whatever's convenient to the user.) --Ckatz 05:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Skookum 1 says a great deal about the boundaries of the Lower Mainland. I will try to highlight some things I think we need to deal with:

Problems with definition

  • There are long-standing cultural/social norms about this.
  • As with local English dialects/variation, that this turn of speech never NEEDED formal definition.
  • It's only latecomers to the province that are in any confusion.
  • Academic/government citations/defintions are irrelevant.
  • The Lower Mainland cannot have a legal or constitutional definition because it is not a legal entity.
  • There may have not been an "official" definition because one was never needed; it was a geographic statement - the upper mainland, and the lower mainland.
  • The relevant sources involved are accrued inferences in local papers and other publications, and in conversation.

Nevertheless, definitions do exist

  • For defintions of the Lower Mainland I DO know that such definitions even exist… but at the moment I myself don't have the time to re-read those books to find them.
  • Historians of the province… are among those body of users of the term whose collective inferences add up to a "definition" by default. Citing them all? Wow.

The article overstresses the ecoregion aspect

  • It's the name of that ecoregion... because the ecoregion was named after the geographic/sociocultural region. The article from this point on keeps on speaking about the region as an ecoregion.

I've now had a look at hundreds of Google entries for "Lower Mainland," and dozens of maps. I agree that there are serious problems of definition. I would add that it is not only latecomers to the province who are confused. There are some maps that agree with the boundaries quoted by Skookum (Vancouver to Hope along the northshore of the Fraser and back along the international boundary). Several others only extend as far as Mission/Abbotsford. The only ones I saw that include the Sunshine Coast are Environment Canada and the BC Environment Ministry. There are even some (newcomers no doubt) who think that the Lower Mainland is coterminous with the GVRD :-)

So I think we do need a definition from one or two reliable sources, or, failing that, we need to discuss the problems of definition in the article and provide some examples. I like the former approach. Skookum says that definitions exist. Let's find one or two that we like and cite them.

As far as the ecoregion thing. I plead guilty for that. I did it because someone in an earlier version had defined the Lower Mainland as essentially the same as Vancouver (as if one sailed off the edge of the earth if one went beyone the GVRD boundary). I looked for a source and liked the ecoregion approach since it picked up on the lowland vs highland aspect that I knew was part of the folk meaning. Nevertheless, I agree with Ckatz's suggestion that we summarize the ecoregion in this article and create a new main article for Lower Mainland Ecoregion.

My final comment is that we cannot overlook Wikipedia policies. They help to hold us together. If we think that they are insufficient, we need to modify them. Can we agree? Sunray 06:55, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes; more on this in a further edit; I'll have to examine the Wiki policies, but some consensual format for dealing with or finding folk-knowledge attestations if academia doesn't ever look at them or also subconsciously uses/incorporates them - as they're ALL OVER THE PLACE in nearly all BC-related articles (cities, regions, whatever); this that bit about the WikiProject BC thing again, if you noticed that over in Talk:British Columbia; some way to review and coordinate getting all that needs citation cited, or a discussion opened and, if needed, a search for suitable cites in likely places; the tables on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America will give you an idea what I mean; what needs fixing/work, what has what in it or needs what, who reviewed it, if it's any good, and so on.Skookum1 07:15, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


did a quick check after reading some of the above and since I have a copy of the Canadian Encyclopedia (effective doorstop, but not much use otherwise) - "Complete" and "Unabridged" - it goes from Lower Canada to Pat Lowther; not that I expected to find something but you never know; I'll browse what histories of BC I have here to see if I can find something (indexes are handy that way).Skookum1 07:10, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be hard to get at the folk aspect. WP:CITE and WP:RS outline the use of sources. Good that you have some to check. I agree that histories might yield something. Failing that, I think we would likely come up with something in the Van Central Library, UBC or SFU (UBC has a public documents division). Is anyone near any of these? The question put to a knowledgeable reference librarian might just bear fruit. Sunray 07:57, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


legal terminology vs popular language

While the term has been recorded from the earliest period of non-native settlement in British Columbia, it has never been officially defined in legal terms.

Legal definitions in British Columbia are given by the system of Land Districts, which I've been meaning to write a short article on as they underlay the land tenure and title system in the province to this day, and their boundaries are what is cited in electoral district and also in ministerial boundaries, as well as in title and leasing of land. As these have also served as the underlay to the machineries of government and constitutional process (electoral districts and the definitions of municipalities and RDs) and public land law and so on - because of all this there's been no need to make a legal description of a permanent boundary for any of the traditional regions, which were not in accord with the land system except in the case of their subdivisions; roughly, anyway. Other boundaries used for all these, as needed or defined, were shorelines, rivers and range-summits, so even these were necessarily geographical because of the nature of the "sea of mountains". The 49th Parallel was a case in point - why survey a straight line over mountain ranges if you don't have to. Still, there's a few, including the northern and eastern boundary of that system's version of the Lower Mainland, the New Westminster Land District (and of course its southern boundary, the US border).

The area covered by the Lower Mainland, sans everything from Rosedale to Hope, was the New Westminster Land District (and still is); its northern boundary doesn't run up the "summit of the Cascades as you'll defined for administrative purposes" (as you'll find on govt topos and archaic maps of the Lillooet Ranges, which are the mountain spine between Harrison Lake/the Lillooet River and the Fraser Canyon) as does the MoE's boundary as cite-mapped above . The New Westminster Land District boundary follows a straight line, which if I recall correctly coincides with the eastern boundary of the municipality of Chilliwack. Somewhere in the lower third of the Lillooet Ranges it starts following a line of latitude due west, intercepting Howe Sound below Britannia (the SLRD-GVRD boundary) and then somehow northwest, a straight line I think, across the lower slopes of the Coast Ranges northwest to include the Sunshine Coast, but then down Georgia Strait to the border, including/excluding this or that island or channel. I can't remember how the land district on the coast worked; the NWLD might go all the way to the Skeena; the north was originally in the Cariboo Land District and then the ... Stikine? I'm not sure. Atlin? The Peace is its own Land District, I think. Vancouver Island has the Alberni, Comox, Nanaimo, Cowichan, Esquimalt and Capital Regional Districts (the CapRD used to have a different mame). I'll find the map that finally clued me in on the boundaries as I worked on the Canadian election wikiproject, creating riding entries and tabulating their returns over the various elections; hard to chart riding changes if you don't know where this is "to the northeast corner of the Lillooet Land District, thence along that district's southern boundary to the northern boundary of the aforeaid Yale Land District herein described, thence westwards to a point in Howe Sound north of Gambier Island etc." (that by memory, but typical; that's Coast Chilcotin, which I was researching a map for (in rough draft currently; need a good cartographic artist to make it look good).

Around to my point of discussing the Land Districts: the Land Districts are the terms of the legal, and hence the constitutional and administrative language, built into all successive legislation involving territorial units; core to the code, as it were. They have nothing to do with the popular language, although it's true the RDs have become in some ways in modern terms what people think of themselves as being in, if they're not aware of the older local ties-that-bind, but the Land Districts were formal abstractions, needed for the laying out of municipalities and land allotments/surveys (othewise known as alienation, and known to the First Nations as appropriation-cum-theft). They were likely among the first pieces of paper passed by the nascent colony/ies when they were created - and I'm reasonably certain they're colonial-era in creation - and were drawn in an age when there was only the roughest knowledge of what lay in the mountains of the gold colony - as the big blank spots on old maps from show, and farther north still later, although the outlines had been traced by George Black and J. (? John? James?) Campbell much earlier. The Stikine Territory and Peace District were additions to the early colony prior to provincification (to coin a really ugly neologism) and that's reflected in some of those boundaries; all the Vancouver Island Land Districts in the MoE's system are just one region; so there's two government departments with conflicting uses; or one with an absence of use, and another including a well-known region that's its own thing: the Sunshine Coast, which was implicitly not part of the Lower Mainland (which, once you took either a ferry, the PGE or drove the Allison Pass or Fraser Canyon )to go "upcountry"), you were outside of it; and the Sunshine Coast you still have to take a ferry too. Might as well be the damned Island; and Nanaimo's way more part of the eco-urban/megalopolis than the Sunshine Coast has so perilously evaded (e.g. Nanaimo's urbanization - or anywhere along the Island Highway, for that matter - vs. Sechelt-Gibsons and beyond). Stepping outside my discussion of the traditional bo9undaries, I'd say the Sunshine Coast is more like the Gulf Islands and maybe Comox-Courtenay to Campbell River than it is like the Fraser Valley or Burnaby or the North Shore or Point Grey; despite the old close business and personal/family ties to the nearby city. Back then it was "the coast", or "upcoast", and one of those places that was its own world, by necessity, like so may places in BC.

Points of the whole Land Discussion above:

  • 1. the New Westminster Land District is not an adequate description of the Lower Mainland;
  • 2. there is no legal description of the Lower Mainland because the legal system was not devised for that purpose
  • 3. all other boundaries of all kinds of things are overlain over the system of Land Districts (the Loewr Mainland MoE roughly coincides with the New Westminster Land District, by the way)
    • It may be that the term was not in common usage when the Land Districts were chartered (I'll wager by the Royal Engineers on their arrival, in setting up the colony's land system before they could even draw up the surveys for their new capital, which they named the land district after); and that it evolved irrespective of the language on people's property deeds and all that other paper government produces. What I'm getting at is the Royal Engineers were new on the spot - there were no settlers in either the Lower Mainland OR the Sunshine Coast at that time, come to think of it, other than scattered priests and missionaries; the term would seem to have evolved rather than been coined as a capitalized, defined thing. Same as "the Interior", with its "Central Interior" and "Southern Interior" and so on, which we instinctively know where they are; and know to capitalize that word )in your mind if nowhere else; Barmans' book doesn't; one of its many editorial horrors), or when I say "the Canyon" with a capital-C, I instinctively know I mean the Fraser Canyon and that it also means the Thompson Canyon up to Ashcroft-Cache Creek in the way most people use it and think of it, because of the main travel route from the ..... from the Lower Mainland to the Cariboo (granted today we might more easily say "from the Coast to the Cariboo".

At the time of the colony's foundation, and still when the province was formed, Yale was an important centre, one of the largest on the Mainland; Lillooet was the other pole of the Gold Rush, and so the Lillooet Land District (in old documents and diaries, you have to be aware that mention of a ranch in "the Lillooet District" might be anything over almost to the north Thompson, from Lac Des Roches south to the Ashcroft Subdivion of the Yale Land District etc (I'm working from memory so might hav fudged that) - but "the Lillooet Country", to anyone who uses that phrase knowingly (so to speak), starts somewhere around Hat Creek Junction on Hwy 99, ends somewhere around Duffey Lake in the other direction on that highway - in the old days somewhere below Alta Lake, and including the head of Harrison Lake. And somewhere down between Lillooet and Lytton, almost at the Lytton bridge itself; and maybe at about Big Bar up the Canyon, and then against the Coast Mountains. So there's a big difference between a usage of "the Lillooet District", "the Lillooet Country", and "the Lillooet Land District", the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (which corresponds more closely to the historic/folk-cultural Lillooet District/Country than the Lillooet Land District and the accompanying sense of Lillooet District; I'm speaking as a "source" here (my home counry: http://www.cayoosh.net). The Lillooet District had two subdivisions - Kamloops and Ashcroft.

Yale's other subdivisions were the "Nicola/Okanagan Subdivisions(s) of Yale Land District"; Kootenay Land Districts was I think originally part of Yale, a subdivision of it, but was made its own Land District (for political reasons, what I did see written about it, but I'm not sure of the details). The Cariboo Land District's administrative centre was, I think, Quesnel (the others were all obvious, by name). So y'see, yeah, we do have a problem with common usage here; I'm trying to think if this kind of discussion is on either of the talk pages at Canadian English or Canadian slang or the like; but I'll do that tomorrow; I'm tired an so's my back. G'night.

Great stuff. I think we could summarize some of the information about administrative districts. I think it is more than passably interesting that the New Westminster Land District is similar to the MoE region in its boundaries (historical boundary, current administrative district). It also makes sense that Lilooet was part of the interior. Sunray 15:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

First Nations in the area

It is interesting to look at First Nations languages and how they relate to the various regions. The eco-regional relationships were in most cases clear to see. Halkomelem was spoken throughout what we are calling the lower mainland (which roughly corresponds with where the upriver and downriver variants of the language were spoken). The coast variant of Halkomelem extends the linguistic region to roughly what is called the "Georgia Depression," which is closely related ecologically.

I think that we could do quite a nice piece on the original first nations linguistic and ecological boundaries compared to the later settlers historical and administrative boundaries. That would strongly support our section on Regional Districts and First Nations Territories. We could also bring in some of the folklore about the Lower Mainland. This could become a great article. Sunray 15:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Wish it was that simple, but if you've ever seen a map even of the Greater Vancouver area, the claims of the Musqueam, Tsleil-waututh, Squamish and Tsawwassen people wildly overlap; and I think the Kwayquihtlums too, and possibly even the Shishalh, with the Kwantlens and Katzies overlapping with the Burrard and Musqueam turf in Burnab (Sto:lo includes Kwantlen, Katzie, Musqueam, Kwayhquitlum and I think Tsawwassen). The Sto:lo boundary-claim extends halfway up the Lower Lillooet River, but the St'at'imc claim extends halfway down Harrison Lake, and the Chehalis Nation, at the south end of the lake, isn't included. So any such map is going to have to take all this into account.

As for geolinguistics and all this, that's only true - where it is - for the same reason that the historical/traditional regions were terrain-defined. Actually, the First Nations regions are NOT so geographically delimited as are the "old" regions I've been describing; the St'at'imc/Lillooet region extends over the mountains to the head of Toba Inlet and into the upper valleys of the Stein and Cheakamus Rivers, for instance. In a map of "compromise" boundaries of native languages, which would resemble one you might see of languages before contact, it would APPEAR that the native languages are geographically contained; and they are, for the most part; but the spillovers like the Toba Inlet thing are common enough; and as you go up the Coast the boundaries between the all the flavours of the Wakashan-language peoples and the Nuxalk are all really jumbled - and also overlapping, although not as badly as in the Interior (historically territory was pretty well-defined on the Coast because of the warfare/chieftaincy near-legal system to title and turf). Lotsa work to be done over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, that's for sure.

But about the folklore: you mean like people's instinct about which bridge not to take during rush hour, or why it is that Surrey girls need nightlights?Skookum1 17:09, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking more of archeological evidence than current land claims, especially those that have not yet been settled. As you note the picture changed at time of contact. And no, I don't mean traffic patterns or nightlights. Sunray 19:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Ah, I thought you meant non-aboriginal folklore. OK, well it's not just the time of Contact that's at issue here. The Capilano Squamish, and presumably the Burrards (though I don't know their provenance exactly) are considered by the Musqueam to be intruders on their territory. The Squamish were originally an offshoot of the Shishalh (Sechelt), whose legends indicate they were in situ at the end of the Ice Age (as I interpreted their legends, at any rate), and at first they moved to the head of Howe Sound; once established there they expanded into Burrard Inlet, pushing aside the villages and camps there, or outright absorbing them; the Squamish were no Euclataws or Haida, but they were still more aggressive and warlike than the Musqueam or other Sto:lo (except maybe the Chehalis, who are fiercely independent although Halqemeylem-speaking). So the Musqueam claim still takes in the North Shore, the North Shore Mountains and all of Burrard Inlet and much of Howe Sound; the Squamish counterclaim over Musqueam territory doesn't quite take in Musqueam and Mahlie (Musqueam's lesser twin) themselves. This all happened BEFORE contact. Similarly, the St'at'imc were not on the east side of the Fraser at the time of the gold rush (contact being 50 years prior) and only established themselves on what had been Shuswap territory once the white presence gave them some protection (on the east side of the Fraser they were also more vulnerable to attack from the Thompsons). Similarly the "boundary" between Chilcotin and Lillooet/St'at'imc turf used to be the Bridge River until a horrific war between those peoples early in the 19th Century; now the area between the Bridge River and the Chilcotin passes is a shared hunting territory but acknowledged by the Chilcotin to NOT be part of their claim (er, maybe the Xeni Gwet'in do make such a claim, I'll have to check; but it's not one the Lillooets would like, that's for sure).
Of course, we're talking about the Lower Mainland here, but the same principles apply. Archaeological evidence isn't much help, because it's so ancient (the Fraser Midden, Xa:ytem/Hatzic Rock, the Scowlitz Mounds) and indicates nothing about the time of Contact or the era previous. What's to be known there is in the oral history of the local peoples; e.g. where I was raised in the Stave River basin, that in Sto:lo maps shows a people-designation called "Skayuks", but there are no Skayuks - the name means "everyone died" - so it's a bit of a blank spot, nominally under Whonnock Band turf (as the reserves on the lower Stave are connected administratively to the Whonnock Reserve; the Whonnocks are now absorbed into the Kwantlens of MacMillan Island in Fort Langley). Speaking of MacMillan Island, the Kwantlens there moved there only when Fort Langley was established, partly for ease of trade but also for security because of the ongoing risk of Euclataws attack from the river; not quite sure where that bunch was before Contact, somewhere just downriver I think, maybe Derby Reach.Skookum1 19:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
It seems we have strayed somewhat from our original topic. I plead guilty for introducing this thread. Now where were we? Sunray 06:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Further thoughts

Oh, I'm really good at finding tangents; but yes, this one was your fault. Archaeological stuff will have nothing to do with it; and the boundaries aren't exact, and they all overlap (tricky map to create; might be able to find a public-domain one - but it's not central to the article). But thought I'd give you a rundown on local native history to give you an idea why it's not a simple thing to put into one map/paragraph.

Our immediate discussion has to do with the Lower Mainland's definition/boundaries, and whether or not we can make it cite-able. I just wanted to add re all this that this "region" idea, without being connected to any government agency that defines their own regions according to whatever mysterious-mandarin motives they may have, is something that should be looked at BC-wide, as with all the local unofficial but traditional regions I've mentioned in this discussion. Regional District boundaries change too much, as do ministerial/government regional boundaries, to be of any utility in writing about "BC's regions". There's no equivalent here to the county system in the US - counties are immutable, permanent, and cannot be changed by bureaucratic/executive whim, only by vote of constituents; and while they may not be very natural/bioregional in origin/character (straightline boundaries rarely do that), they have a tendency to become strong focusses of community identity and personality. That doesn't happen here, and as said we don't have an equivalent. So I suggest that in this Wikiproject BC I keep on mumbling about we try and establish a "pattern" of BC regions that reflects the province's history and current reality, without slavishly trying to apply government/institutional divisions as though they were valid "cites"/references; they're not, partly because they're so changeable, but also because they're to do with government administration goals, not how things actually are.Skookum1 17:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

You make some valid points, but still, I have not seen a better reference than the definition of the ecoregion by Environment Canada. That is based on ecology and is fairly consistent with your lowland vs upland definition. It, in essence, says that the lower coast on the mainland is one coherent ecoregion. Whether the BC Ministry based its administrative region on the ecoregion or on administrative fiat, I have no idea (however, it is significant that both the feds and the province agree on something -- a rare occurrence in these parts). I remain convinced that it should be possible to find a reference for the historical "Lower Mainland" you have described. Could we agree to find one? Sunray 06:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I haven't had time to go through the books I have here, but I know there'll be a reference that does NOT include the Sunshine Coast, as I gather the feds also do - again administrative centralization overriding actual on-the-ground eco-historical reality. The Sunshine Coast is a different region, period. Even ecologically it resembles eastern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands more than it does Vancouver or the Fraser Valley. "Eco-historical regions" maybe is an operative term here, but that's reaching. The Lower Mainland is the Lower Mainland, and it's a terrain/geography v. culture thingie, not a biome/environment thingie. A separate page for the ecoregion carrying the name, by all means; but by no means should any usage that pre-empts the traditional meaning - be it a government interpretation/application or an ecoregion page - should take priority over the REAL meaning. And yeah, I'll find the quote. But tomorrow I gotta work at this ornamental sculpture place I just got hired as a grunt at and won't have time for book-perusing until at least the weekend. Trust me, there's a definition somewhere - more than one - that won't include the Sunshine Coast. And as per my other comments about valid history, journalists, bureaucrats and politicians should never be trusted as primary sources. You can quote me on that.Skookum1 06:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Had to take out SCRD and PRRD; can't stand it

The Sunshine Coast RDs being in the MoE's "Lower Mainland" administrative region is not a valid cite for this term, which predates even the province iteself (and hence the MoE, which has no right to redefine it, and their administrative region isn't meant to be a redefinition anyway). I've been hunting through my BC histories for a usable quote/cite, but they rarely index "Lower Mainland" despite using it willy-nilly. There is no historical vagueness to this term, other than the year of its provenance; but its meaning has always been totally clear: The Lower Mainland; below Howe Sound, below the mountains, below the Canyon, below the Interior. Period. Seeing the Sunshine Coast RDs and towns listed on this page was like seeing Osoyoos and Kelowna listed as being in the Cariboo....Skookumwun dret wawa (Skookum-one speaks straight, i.e. "has spoken")Skookum1 16:06, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I thought that we agreed that we would find a cite. Right now the article is accurate and backed up by citations. Any changes should be based on fact, not opinion. Sunray 16:15, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
The MoE citation is NOT an accurate citation, and is entirely post-modern in origin. I'm searching for quotes for this as mentioned, but there's never been a need for a definition of it - especially a legal definition - in all the days of this place since the Colony, because we all used it without thinking about it needing to be anything but what it was; it's not an official region, it's a term of parlance that's in speech and journalism and so on;
The citation is actually from Environment Canada rather than the MoE. It records a consensus of ecologists concerning the boundaries of the ecoregion. That includes not only academic ecologists, but also hands-on people like the BC Field Naturalists. The MoE was a part of this consensus. MoE also has an administrative region with similar boundaries (not sure which came first). I don’t think that the MoE has ever stated that their boundaries must conform to ecoregions. However, they do accept the ecoregion, as defined, for the development of programs (e.g., Naturescape, BC). The citation doesn’t pertain to historical notions of the boundaries, but it is accurate ecologically. Sunray 21:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
That's fine for the Lower Mainland Bioregion article, which should be separate and clearly so; but as you note "the citation doesn't pertain to historical notions of the boundaries", and it's the historical notions that count here, not ecology. For ecology, that's the bioregion article/section and not to be confused with regional identity, which is clearly a "historical notion"; and the term is much older than the word "bioregion", to boot.Skookum1 22:18, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


I've reverted to pre-discussion version. I would suggest that we work out any changes to the wording here before making major changes. Sunray 16:32, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
But the inclusion of the SCRD and PRRD were major changes to the article which were not appropriate. Even if we went through all the ministries for their "Lower Mainland" "definitions", they're all irrelevant as they're administrative names, and while they may use traditional regional names like Cariboo and Okanagan they're not accurate; the Okanagan MoE district includes the Boundary Country, for example, which is NOT in the Okanagan; it also includes the Similkameen, which is NOT in the Okanagan. What of other ministries: MoF, MoH (health) etc? I think you'll find all THEIR boundaries are different from the MoEs, and considerably so.
The changes were made over a year ago and have remained in place since then with many editors accepting them. As I said before, MoE’s administrative regions do not necessarily conform to ecoregions. Sunray
I'll email reporters at the Sun/Province/Colonist as well as a few of my personal acquaintance to see what's in their stylebooks, which is as close to an authoritative definition-source for this as anything because those stylebooks are derived from 100 years of English usage here. And I STRESS, we're talking about part of popular culture, which is not part administrative law. I've taken out the "legally defined" as there is no LAW definining the MoE's administrative divisions, and that's not a legal definition; only a bureaucratic edict/fiat. THERE IS NO "LEGALLY DEFINED" here; you may even find "must remain in the Lower Mainland" in a sentencing order, but I wonder if the judge in such a case even stops to consider where that is exactly; but I submit that if the RCMP found such a person, who'd had that in his/her sentence, on the ferry to Langdale, they'd be getting arrested, because they're leaving the Lower Mainland. Period.
As long as the source is authoritative, it will work fine. Sunray
I'm sorry to be BC-chauvinist about this, Sunray, but I gather while you live in BC, or have visited here, you're not from here. It's painfully obvious to someone raised here what the problems with your reverted text are; but it's like trying to explain what "skookum" means, or Surrey girl; you just have to know. I'll write my reporter friends and solicit stylebook cites from the papers and TV station newsdesks; and I repeat: There is no "legally-defined" Lower Mainland.Skookum1 17:22, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Playing the pur laine card, eh? Well, you’ve got me there. I wasn’t born here, like you. However, I have lived in BC since 1976, have a degree from UBC and generally pass as a BC’er. But is that actually relevant? Sunray 21:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
If you were a recent arrival, it would be. It's not. I was checking because quite often people new here look for face-value terms, or make them up on the fly. Hearing Lillooet, Kamloops, Whistler or Squamish referred to as "up north", for example, is very jarring to the ear.
Here's a copy-paste from an email reply sent to me this morning by Terry Glavin, journalist/historian and one of my buddies:
Yes. Interesting problem.
The "Lower Mainland" in a British Columbian context can be seen to include everything from Hope to the Sunshine Coast, but in common useage, which is what counts, I'd suggest, the Lower Mainland is almost a subset of the region encompassed by the Fraser Valley and Howe Sound (i.e. Hope to Squamish, say). I remember from my days as a journalist that this is how the term was used.
What's interesting is how that subset has increased in its range. For instance, it was not uncommon to include Delta, South Surrey and even Pitt Meadows as part of the "Fraser Valley," but today that's a bit dissonant. Nowadays, "Lower Mainland" is almost synonymous with the GVRD, or at least the North Shore and the more urbanized parts of the Fraser Valley. Might be fun to call the Vancouver Sun city desk, as to speak with a copy editor, and ask the copy editor what "Sun style" is for the term these days.

So he's different from the Sun reporter; problem is again there's never been an exact definition and the definition has shifted over time due to official abuse and the impact of that on public language/confusion. Hence the Township of Langley's map of the LM which is identical to the GVRD.

Sto:lo traditional territory, which I'll dig you out a map of somewhere, is nearly the same as my preferred version, which ends at Horseshoe Bay and Hope. That's just coincidence but it points to a "human culture/identity" zone built into the topography.Skookum1 22:16, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

According to the Sto:lo-Coast Salish Historical Atlas the area of the Upriver and Downriver Halkomelem speakers is exactly coterminous with your preferred boundaries. I think that this is significant and that we should include it in the article. Sunray 23:11, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


That's the book I was looking at. The one place on that map that's sort of at issue is Port Douglas, at the head of Harrison Lake; the In-SHUCK-ch (a breakaway group of St'at'imc); the geographic/geological "doorway" at Yale has always struck me as the true "Gates of the Canyon" (never by that name in any literature), rather than down by Mount Cheam or Hope itself), which though narrow were assigned in my thinking to Upper Fraser Valley; but at the foot of the Canyon. I suppose everyone's appreciation of it may be different, i.e. the Fraser Canyon, as I won't refer to Lytton-Ashcroft as being that, as most people will (but I'm from Lillooet, sort of)

Land District map

BTW useful map: http://www.cayoosh.net/british_columbia_1896.png which I'm going to use in various articles, and also because boundary descriptions of things like RDs use the LD boundaries and they're not on another map in any useful fashion. Have to think about where I got this (online) before I can add it to a page, because of citability and GFDL ad all that.Skookum1 16:40, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

whoops that jpg shrinkage/fuzz was too much; here's some (larger) files in PNG format, including zoom-ins on Vancouver Island, SW BC (incl Okanagan and Thompson), and the Yale Land District (because of its subdivisions: Yale, Kamloops, Nicola and Okanagan).

Skookum1 18:13, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I note that the one described as "SW Mainland" includes the Sechelt Peninsula :-) Sunray 21:45, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
That was because I cropped it from the main image http://www.cayoosh.net/british_columbia_1896.png and a rectangle necessarily includes the Sunshine Coast; the reason I enlarged on that area was for people to be able to see the placenames, some of which are archaic ("Cisco" for Siska, for example); the SW Mainland map also includes the Fraser Canyon towns of Lillooet and Lytton, which are not in the Lower Mainland - nor, according to the Vancouver Sun, is Hope, which they assign to the Fraser Canyon (see other note farther below).Skookum1 21:49, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Barman's definitions (nixed/useless)

Jean Barman, The West Beyond The West, p.7: "Hope to the Sechelt Peninsula" (i.e. the lower Sunshine Coast, but not including the Malaspina Peninsula/PRRD). She makes no mention of Howe Sound and can't even bring herself to capitalize the term ("lower mainland" - although she capitalizes Sunshine Coast quite gladly, and Lower Fraser Valley; similarly "interior" and "central interior"; the latter she describes as a "transportation corridor", which points in the direction of my review of this book: unadulterated garbage backed up by a few degrees and a Toronto publisher; hopelessly out of her depth and despite 30 years residence in BC she still finds a need to rewrite our geography for us, as recently with "Kanaka Ranch" vs. the proper "Kanaka Rancherie". Point is with her definition of the "lower mainland" (which she does not cite) she's not an authority; she's an Ontarian and has spent most of her time on Point Grey, well insulated from the rough-and-tumble of how ordinary people actually think and talk; the book is full of gaffes and misperceptions and bad cites for faulty analysis; to me it's proof that a doctorate sometimes isn't worth the paper it's printed on. The book is not worth buying, by the way; you'd do better buying Ormsby, the Akriggs or Bancroft; Bowering sucks - glib and trite, and full of the usual politically-correct cliches and really nothing new in his analysis, such as it is; haven't read Woodcock; didn't like that "Pacific Province" thing either (McLennan? no, that was the publisher; Hugh something I think; more of a collection of essays than a history per se). I had a look in Morley's Vancouver: Milltown to Metropolis and Bruce McDonald's Vancouver: A Visual History this morning but can't find anything in the way of a definition; lots of usages, though.

Barman sucks, and although I found a quote she's no more reliable than the MoE. She's also very vague at times, without specifying something after bringing it up, as on p. 8 where she avers that the "lower mainland" is one of the province's ten regions, but she doesn't name the others. Editorial excess perhaps, but that editor would do better to have paid attention to capitalization than cutting out what he/she saw as irrelevant descriptions of BC regions (which, after all, aren't important to Toronto readers, so why stop to define them?). That's just my guess at why, if she'd had ten regions listed in her MS., the publisher/editor cut them out; unless she was just slack, which is more my view of it, given the similar vaguenesses and gaffes elsewhere in the book (much worse). It may even be that she shied away from defining them, not being sure what they are (please note it wouldnt' be bioregions, in which case there would be a lot more than ten). On a separate topic, she admits to writing the whole chapter from newspaper coverage for lack opf academic writing; she should have criticized academia for being too ideological/irrelevant during this period, and since she's been living here for 30 years she should be woken up already to the fact the newspapers here are in the business of inventing and manipulating news, not trying to provide a meaningful record of society or history; especially for stuff like BCRIC, the MoF, Solidarity, Oka/Seton Portage/Gustasfen Lake, Expo and so on, they're not reliable at all; not that they ever were in BC, that isSkookum1 18:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Lower Mainland Municipal Association

Found this by googling: http://www.lmma.bc.ca/pdf/04_20_05.pdf It's the minutes of one of their meetings, listing representatives by muni/RD; the SLRD is represented, but no sign of Sunshine Coast/Powell River. And I also noted in searching the government directory that no other ministry has a Lower Mainland region; none that have maps anyway; other terms are used Skookum1 20:55, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello BC map of Lower Mainland

Here's a map that backs up the definition I've been advancing (HelloBC is the Ministry of Tourism site):

http://www.hellobc.com/NR/rdonlyres/94212952-34DC-4D05-B2FC-74A0F93A18CF/0/LowerMain.pdf

But again, no specific definitions available; the area of the MoE cite is described by HelloBC as "Vancouver, Coast and Mountains"; the realty Multiple Listing Service map http://www.mls.ca/map.aspx?AreaID=6242 shows a Lower Mainland that conforms to the MoE, but realtors have bad habits about rearranging geography to suit themselves (they include Pemberton, for instance, which definitely is NOT in the Lower Mainland). Another map from an airphoto co. website http://www.globalairphotos.com/lower_mainland.html ends at Abbotsford and Horseshoe Bay.

One thing I do know for certain is if you were to say in Sechelt or Gibsons "I'm going over to the Lower Mainland today", no one would bat an eye; but if you said that same thing in Surrey or Abby, they'd look at you funny. Similarly people in Pemberton and Whistler do not consider themselves the Lower Mainland, and I doubt you'd get a majority of respondents in Squamish who would differ from their up-corridor cousins. Ask someone in Powell River or Lund if they were in the Lower Mainland and you'd get laughed out of the bar.Skookum1 21:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

However, they are on the mainland and it is the "lower" part of BC. "Hello BC" is not what I would consider an authoritative source. Sunray 21:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
It's the Ministry of Tourism. Why is the Ministry of Environment a valid source, and the Ministry of Tourism is not?????Skookum1 22:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Ah, good. I think that both are authoritative in their own way (with appropriate qualifications, such as we have discussed at length). I'm proposing (see below) that we go with the Ministry of Tourism boundaries and get a map drawn similar to the "Hello BC" map. I think I know someone who could do that. Sunray 22:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Consider this: the MoT is only intending to be descriptive, to give a close-up map of the Lower Mainland, same as on the BC Highways maps (the ones you get in truck stops, or used to); closeups were either "Lower Mainland and Sunshine Coast" or "Lower Mainland" (without the SC, like the MoT map linked). But the MoE is defining its OWN administrative region, and taking the name of the Lower Mainland, its largest component, and applying it to the administrative region built around it. So while the MoE's Lower Mainland Region includes the Sunshine Coast, the Lower Mainland as a geocultural abstraction/concept does not (traditionally). There's come to be flex in the meaning because of the abuse/misuse of the term by media and/or newcomers, but the distinction has to be drawn between a ministerial region using the name, and the place the name was coined for in the first place. There is a difference (nb as before also the Okanagan Region of the MoE, which is a lot more than the Okanagan; ditto Cariboo).Skookum1 14:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

More map refs

I could keep on with such examples but they just serve to prove the vagueness of the term, especially in organizational arrangements which do not really relate to geography but, as the reporter at the Sun I was just speaking to said, they have to do with money (budgets). And according to that reporter (Randy Shore at the Vancouver Sun) there's NO WAY that the Sunshine Coast, Squamish, Whistler or Pemberton are in the Lower Mainland. Although their style guide does not define the Lower Mainland, he says that they use that term ONLY for the start of the Sea to Sky Highway (Horseshoe Bay, not Lions Bay) out to Chilliwack-Agassiz, and no farther. i.e. NOT Hope, which they ascribe to the Fraser Canyon.

The above maps were the same ones I saw when I googled "Lower Mainland." As you note, these sources have conflicting notions as to the boundaries of the "Lower Mainland." We seem to be going in circles here. Did we not agree that we would look for an authoritative source, (preferably an historical one) that defined the Lower Mainland? Sunray 21:55, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
My implication with the Vancouver Sun reporter was that the newspaper's usage of the term, which is consistent over time (unlike administrative boundaries, whether corporate or public), stands as a cite; actual specific phrases from specific issues, though, would be too much to ask the guy to dig out. I don't accept the MoE boundary as a cite, period, because as you'll note the MoE Okanagan boundary includes places not in the Okanagan, ditto with the Cariboo district. The Tourism Ministry, on the other hand, while not defining it in text, gives a map that is under no illusions about including Sechelt or Squamish when it easily could. Same with that Nat'l Research Council image. I know you want a text-cite, though, so I'll have to keep on digging. But I repeat - I do not consider budget/temporary administrative boundaries to be valid cites; the next shuffle of ministries and regions could well see the Sunshine Coast moved to another region, say Georgia Strait North or South Coast (if they were created, which South Coast already is in another ministry) and the current Lower Mainland Region name itself might be done away with in an administrative rearrangement. The newspaper stylebook idea is the best in terms of reflecting both popular context and also long-term usage; and the reporter was, like myself and others, aware of the problem that we've never had to define it because we all knew what it meant......Skookum1 22:11, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Please do not ignore my comments (above) about the ecoregion. That will need to be summarized in this article with a reference to a main article on that topic. I think we should also include information about the New Westminster Land District and administrative districts (such as the MoE) which include the Sunshine Coast. We could note (if we have a source) that this did not necessarily square with usage. But take a look at my comments below. Sunray
Didn't mean to ignore your comments; hadn't seen them as I've been replying section by section and admittedly writing-on-the-fly. I'll have a further look/consideration after I've played some music and gone to the gym (http://www.isound.com/tamanassman and http://www.myspace.com/tamanasstyee and also myspaceusernames tamanassman, skookumtamanass, hyastamanass, tamanasshiyu and stonetamanass, for your amusement; kinda twangy and offkey but also kinda fun).Skookum1 22:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Found somthing!

The Historical Atlas of Canada has a map called "Lower Mainland 1881" which shows the boundaries as extending from Lions Bay to Boundary Bay and eastward between the north shore of the Fraser and the U.S. boundary. Unfortunately it ends at about Abbotsford/Mission area. However, what it does show is just about a lock with the "Hello BC" map. (I'm starting to like the latter more now). We should get someone who can draw maps to reproduce that map for the article. Sunray 22:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Revisions to article

I've had a go at reformating the article based on the above. See what you think. I will see if I can get someone to produce a map based on the Ministry of Tourism (Hello BC) map. Sunray 15:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Looks a lot better

Whew. Glad we got that sorted out. Now you can add carefully written wordings about how some administrative divisions, government and organizational/corporate, may include adjoining regions - the Sunshine Coast, Fraser Canyon, and Sea-To-Sky Corridor/Pemberton Valley - in their use of terms such as "Lower Mainland Region", but such should not to be confused with the Lower Mainland proper. Gotta go; late for leaving for work.Skookum1 15:35, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Sun usage

Just wondering how to add/cite the Sun's standard on this; i.e. "from Horseshoe Bay to Chilliwack"; the eastern boundary therefore coinciding with the eastern boundary of the New Westminster Land District. But it was an oral cite from Randy Shore at the Sun's City Desk, not anything in print per se; not sure if that's Wiki-able.Skookum1 15:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I think that we could state in the article that Vancouver Sun editors recognize those boundaries. If we add a Notes and References section, you could add a note such as:
(ref. no.) "Randy Shore of the Vancouver Sun City Desk stated (May 28, 2006) that the Sun recognizes the Lower Mainland as being "from Horseshoe Bay to Chilliwack."
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