Tourism in Canada the rest of Canada. British Columbia is divided into 6 regions: British Columbia (BC) is Canada's most mountainous province and has some of the most spectacular mountain scenery in the world. Alpine skiing is a major draw for the province. The province has about 33 large ski resorts spread out from Vancouver Island to the Alberta border. Whistler, British Columbia, nestled in the rugged Coast Mountains, is consistently ranked as the #1 ski resort destination in North America and co-hosted the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Vancouver, the largest Canadian metropolitan area west of Toronto, is one of Canada's most multi-cultural
Whistler Blackcomb is located from Vancouver International Airport. Microsoft Windows XP is codenamed "Whistler" after this ski resort, as many Microsoft employees skied at this resort during its development. Also, Windows Vista is codenamed Longhorn after the valley that runs in between the two mountains and Windows 7 is codenamed Vienna or Blackcomb The valley area between Whistler and Blackcomb was first surveyed and documented in 1858 by Hudson's Bay men looking for an alternate route into the Cariboo area further north. Although little-used at the time, the route would later become one of the many paths used during the Gold Rush