Former name for interior of British Columbia
Earliest known reference to this name is 1808 (Simon Fraser)
Not currently an official name.
Map of New Caledonia. Morice 1904
Internet Archive
New Caledonia, the country to which we wish to introduce the kind reader, was the nucleus out of which the present province of British Columbia was evolved. Authors disagree as to its boundaries. Thus, while Alexander Begg, to whom we owe a “History of the North-West,” assigns to that district rather too modest dimensions when he states [1] that it extended only from 52° to 55° latitude north thereby excluding part of the Chilcotin region- his namesake, Alexander Begg, the author of the latest “History of British Columbia,” sins the other way by stretching its southern limits as far as Colville, in the present State of Washington. Although it included at one time Kamloops and the adjoining territory, it might suffice for the ethnographer to call it simply the region peopled by the Western Déné Indians; but as this statement would not probably add much to the knowledge of most readers, we will describe it as that immense tract of land lying between the Coast Range and the Rocky Mountains, from 51°30′ to 57° of latitude north.
This region is mostly mountainous, especially in the north, where lines of snow-capped peaks intersect the whole country between the two main ranges. Endless forests, mostly of coniferous trees, and deep lakes, whose length generally exceeds considerably their breadth, cover such spaces as are not taken up by mountains. The only level or meadow lands of any extent within that district lie on either side of the Chilcotin River, where excellent bunch grass affords lasting pasturage to large herds of cattle and horses.
Mackenzie was the discoverer of New Caledonia and, therefore, of the interior of British Columbia,” wrote Adrien-Gabriel Morice. “Nay, as the skippers who visited the North Pacific coast never ventured inland, he might with reason be put down as the discoverer of the whole country.
— Morice 1904 (1)
Alexander Mackenzie [1764–1820] of the North West Company [1779–1821] and his party of nine French Canadians and two Native guides crossed the Continental Divide from the Parsnip River to a tributary of the Fraser River on June 12, 1793.
In 1805 NWC fur trader Simon Fraser [1776–1862] was sent into the interior of British Columbia. Reminded of his mother’s descriptions of the Scottish Highlands, he called the area New Caledonia, or New Scotland. (Scotland was called Caledonia by the Romans.) The New Caledonia fur trade district was established between 1805 and 1808 in an effort to find a short supply route from the Pacific Ocean for the North West Company’s far interior posts. Fraser failed to establish a route inland from the Pacific but did establish five posts in north central British Columbia.
For the Hudson’s Bay Company [founded 1670], which moved into the area in 1818 and merged with the North West Company in 1821, New Caledonia was that portion of British Columbia between fifty-one degrees and fifty-seven degrees latitude, and between the summits of the Rocky Mountains and of the Coast Range. New Caledonia was part of the Northern Department of Rupert’s Land until 1825, when it became part of the Columbia Department. The headquarters of New Caledonia was at Fort St. James, the first permanent white settlement on the British Columbia mainland.
In 1858, legislation was introduced to make the area a crown colony under British law. Since the French already had a colony called New Caledonia in the South Pacific, New Caledonia’s name was changed to British Columbia on August 2, 1858.
- 1. Morice, Adrien-Gabriel [1859–1939]. The history of the Northern Interior of British Columbia (formerly New Caledonia). Toronto: William Briggs, 1904, p. 35. Internet Archive
