British Columbia
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50 free British Columbia trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
British Columbia is Canada's westernmost province, a place where rainforest, dry interior valleys and glaciated ranges sit within a day's drive of each other. Its story runs from ancient Indigenous cultures through fur traders, gold seekers and colonial governors to a modern hub for film, outdoor sport and technology. This quiz covers the province the way a good road trip would: the capital and the big cities, rivers, peaks and islands, wildlife and official symbols, explorers and early politicians, well-known landmarks, local legends, and the actors, athletes and musicians who grew up here. The opening questions are the most approachable, and later ones reward people who know their provincial history. It suits anyone planning a visit, students of Canadian geography and history, pub quiz teams, and British Columbians who want to test how well they know their home. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up a story or two even on the ones you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which city, founded as a Hudson's Bay Company fort in 1843, is the capital of British Columbia?
Victoria
Victoria sits on the southern tip of Vancouver Island rather than the mainland, and it is far smaller than Vancouver, the province's largest city.
Q 02Which sci-fi series shot its first five seasons in Vancouver before moving production to Los Angeles?
The X-Files
The X-Files left after season five, reportedly to suit star David Duchovny's schedule, though its second feature film came back to shoot in Vancouver.
Q 03Which name for a hairy forest giant did British Columbia teacher J.W. Burns coin in 1929 from a Halkomelem word?
Sasquatch
Sasquatch reached the public through a Maclean's magazine article in which Burns retold stories from the Sts'ailes Nation, with whom he lived and worked.
Q 04Which environmental group began in Vancouver with a 1971 boat voyage to protest a US nuclear test at Amchitka?
Greenpeace
Greenpeace never reached the test site, because a US Coast Guard ship forced the chartered boat to turn back, but news of the voyage won wide sympathy.
Q 05Which Vancouver Island city gave its name to a no-bake dessert bar layered with custard icing and chocolate?
Nanaimo
Nanaimo bars earned a Canada Post stamp in 2019, and critics promptly complained that the picture got the proportions of the three layers wrong.
Q 06Which runner raised in Port Coquitlam began the Marathon of Hope across Canada in 1980 on an artificial leg?
Terry Fox
Terry Fox ran for 143 days before cancer forced him to stop outside Thunder Bay, and the annual run in his name became the world's largest one-day cancer fundraiser.
Q 07Which British Columbia ski resort, first mapped as London Mountain, co-hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics with Vancouver?
Whistler
Whistler got its lasting name from the shrill call of the hoary marmots on its slopes, which replaced the surveyors' label inspired by the fog.
Q 08Which legendary serpent-like creature is said to inhabit Okanagan Lake in the interior of British Columbia?
Ogopogo
Ogopogo is the settlers' name for a water being the Syilx people called Naitaka, and sceptics say many sightings are simply floating logs.
Q 09Which Vancouver park, about a fifth larger than New York's Central Park, is named after a governor general of Canada?
Stanley
Stanley Park honours the same Lord Stanley who donated hockey's most famous trophy, and he dedicated it in person as the first governor general to visit Vancouver.
Q 10Which Vancouver-born actor began acting on television at thirteen and later starred as the superhero Deadpool?
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds earned a Golden Globe nomination for the part, in a film that had sat in development since about 2000.
Q 11Which Canadian province is British Columbia's only provincial neighbour, lying along its eastern border?
Alberta
Alberta is the one province that touches British Columbia, whose other neighbours are two northern territories and four American states.
Q 12Which northeastern British Columbia town, a wartime railhead, is the starting point of the Alaska Highway?
Dawson Creek
Dawson Creek marks the start of a road the US Army pushed through in 1942, running by way of Whitehorse to Delta Junction.
Q 13Which archipelago off British Columbia's north coast officially dropped the name Queen Charlotte Islands in 2010?
Haida Gwaii
Q 21Which project did Canada promise British Columbia in 1871 as the price of joining Confederation, delivering it in 1885?
A transcontinental railway
A transcontinental railway was finished at Craigellachie, where the company director driving the last spike bent his first one and needed a replacement.
Q 22Which gift-giving feast of Northwest Coast First Nations did Canadian law criminalize from 1885 until 1951?
Potlatch
Potlatch hosts gained standing by giving wealth away, which missionaries and officials called wasteful, yet the feasts carried on underground despite jail terms.
Q 23Which driverless rapid transit system opened in Vancouver in time for the Expo 86 world's fair?
SkyTrain
Haida Gwaii means islands of the Haida people, whereas the old name came from a fur trader's ship named for the wife of King George III.
Q 14Which rare white-furred animal of British Columbia's coastal rainforest is the province's official mammal?
Spirit bear
Spirit bear cubs can be born to two black parents, because the pale coat comes from a recessive gene and is not albinism.
Q 15Which show garden on Vancouver Island's Saanich Peninsula was created from an exhausted limestone quarry?
Butchart Gardens
Butchart Gardens began in 1909, when Jennie Butchart set about turning her cement-making husband's worked-out pit into the Sunken Garden.
Q 16Which preserved Cariboo gold-rush town is named after an English prospector who struck gold there in 1862?
Barkerville
Barkerville grew up around the claim of Billy Barker, a Cambridgeshire man whose diggings eventually yielded about 37,500 ounces of gold.
Q 17Which athletic clothing brand, known for its yoga pants, did Chip Wilson found in Vancouver in 1998?
Lululemon
Lululemon began as a retailer of yoga wear and opened its first standalone store in November 2000, two years after it was founded.
Q 18Which politician born in Port Alberni became Canada's first female prime minister in 1993?
Kim Campbell
Kim Campbell had already been Canada's first woman justice minister and the first woman to serve as defence minister of any NATO country.
Q 19Which Burnaby-born crooner spent six teenage summers working as a commercial fisherman alongside his father?
Michael Bublé
Michael Bublé got his first nightclub slots at 16 because his grandfather, a plumber, traded free plumbing work for his grandson's stage time.
Q 20Which river, the longest within British Columbia, reaches the sea just south of the city of Vancouver?
Fraser
The Fraser River is named after Simon Fraser, who led a North West Company expedition down it in 1808, almost to its mouth.
SkyTrain got its name during the fair because the first line runs mostly on elevated guideways, giving riders wide views over the city.
Q 24Which historic Vancouver neighbourhood grew around the saloon that steamboat captain John Deighton opened in 1867?
Gastown
Gastown takes its name from Deighton's nickname, Gassy Jack, which he earned through his habit of talking at great length.
Q 25Which Royal Navy captain landed in Nootka Sound in March 1778 and named the inlet King George's Sound?
James Cook
James Cook stepped ashore on what is now Bligh Island, named for his sailing master, the man who later lost the Bounty to mutineers.
Q 26Which Vancouver suspension bridge did the Guinness brewing family build to open up its land on the North Shore?
Lions Gate
Lions Gate opened in 1938 and was sold to the province in 1955 for exactly what it had cost to build, though drivers kept paying the toll until 1963.
Q 27Which fur trader reached the Pacific at Bella Coola in 1793, twelve years ahead of Lewis and Clark?
Alexander Mackenzie
Alexander Mackenzie had made the first recorded crossing of North America north of Mexico, and he missed meeting George Vancouver on the coast by just 48 days.
Q 28Which mainland city, officially nicknamed the Royal City, was founded as capital of the Colony of British Columbia?
New Westminster
New Westminster owes both its name and its nickname to the Queen, who chose the name herself after London turned down Queensborough.
Q 29Which chartered steamship carrying 376 passengers from Punjab was refused entry at Vancouver and sent back in 1914?
Komagata Maru
Komagata Maru passengers were British subjects, yet only 24 were allowed ashore before the ship was escorted out by the navy after two months at anchor.
Q 30Which fossil bed in Yoho National Park is famous for preserving the soft parts of Cambrian sea animals?
Burgess Shale
The Burgess Shale was found in 1909 by Charles Walcott, who kept returning to quarry it for years, and most of his classifications were later rejected.