Diocese of British Columbia Diocese of British Columbia The Diocese of British Columbia is a diocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of British Columbia and Yukon of the Anglican Church of Canada. Despite the name, the diocese comprises only the 32,630 square kilometres of Vancouver Island and the adjacent Gulf Islands in the civil Province of British Columbia. Its see city is Victoria, and it presently maintains fifty-five parishes serving nearly 13,000 Anglicans. The diocese was established in 1859, and is the oldest in the ecclesiastical province, once extending over the entire civil province of British Columbia, hence the origin of its name. Its first
History of British Columbia Columbia from departing Canada. In fulfillment of the promise, the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven in Craigellachie on 7 November 1885. (No good road yet existed between British Columbia and other provinces; until the completion of the Trans-Canada Highway automobiles had to enter the United States to travel to eastern Canada.) The mining frontier in B.C. led to the creation of many mines and smelters, mostly through American investment. One of the world's largest smelters still exists today in Trail. The capital and work to be found in B.C. during the turn of the 19th century