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Ice, Mammoths and Hunters
Fifteen thousand years ago much of Canada lay buried under a crushing mass of ice. In parts of British Columbia the ice was three kilometres thick. With so much water locked up in massive ice sheets, sea levels dropped exposing huge areas of land which today are underwater. Asia was linked to North America by a broad plain called the Bering Land Bridge (now the Bering Sea, between Alaska and Siberia). Between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago these huge ice sheets melted away creating torrential rivers and huge ice-dammed lakes. Today we see physical evidence of these ancient lakes in the Peace River country and in the Thompson River valley near Kamloops. Disappearance of the ice created new habitable landscapes for plants, animals and, later, people. At first, steppe vegetation - grasses, herbs and sage plants - grew in the interior. Later this was replaced by stands of aspen. Pine woodlands stretched along the coast.
Some of the large mammals associated with the Ice Age survived for a time in this new environment. Mammoths, mastodons, huge-horned bison and ancient horses roamed western North America. Some were adapted to the harsh glacial climate of the steppe. Mammoths, for example, had thick fur and skin to protect them from the cold, and large, flattened teeth specially suited to their diet of rough grasses. Mastodons, in contrast, had cusped teeth which allowed them to browse on the shrubs and trees formed south of the ice sheets.
About 10,500 years ago, the weather suddenly turned much warmer and drier. The ice dams broke and many lakes drained; others dried up. Sage brush and grasslands replaced woodlands in the British Columbia interior. Douglas-firs replaced other conifers along much of the coast. The marvellous beasts of the Ice Age, unable to adapt to this rapid and drastic change in climate and vegetation, were reduced to a few in number. Their eventual disappearance may have been due to one other factor: hunting by people.
Who are these people? Where did they come from? Did they all come at one time? Scientists believe that the first people came to North America from Asia across the Bering Land Bridge. Travelling in small groups, they spread rapidly across the new landscape. These early immigrants lived in caves or small tent camps and hunted the big game animals using spears armed with bone and stone points. Other foods may have included fish, birds, small mammals such as rabbits, roots and berries.
When they came is still unclear. Many believe that there was more than one migration, perhaps beginning as early as 30,000 years ago. In British Columbia the first evidence is from almost 11,000 years ago when they reached the Peace River country. Shortly after, people were living in the Fraser River Canyon, on the Queen Charlotte Islands, on the central coast and on the north end of Vancouver Island.
Five thousand years ago the land was much as it is today. The human population had increased dramatically; people lived throughout what is now British Columbia. These were the ancestors of today's Aboriginal peoples.
Richard Hebda, Head Botany
Royal British Columbia Museum
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