PROVINCE OF BRITISH) COLUMBIA

CHAPTER ONE
Early Historical Background

N the portrayal of an historical account of any
I country, there is, as one might say, a twilight just
before the dawn, where fact and fiction are inter-
twined, where fiction may masquerade as fact, and
fact appear as fiction. This realm of thought is inter-
esting, especially when reconstructing a background
of British Columbia, as it is difficult to determine what
part lies within the domain of history.

It has been suggested, and even claimed, that in
the latter part of the fifth century, a monk of the Bud-
dist faith, Hoei-Shin, journeyed from China to a land
where a strange tree grew—Fusang. Upon his
return he embellished his narrative with a descrip-
tion of a people living in idyllic peace and of men
clad in skins. This region, whether it be fact or
fiction, has been identified as the Pacific Coast of
America. It is upon this assumption of Hoei-Shin’'s
discovery, that the claim is based of the Chinese
being the first to discover this continent.

However, it was not until 1579 that the first gleam

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