Becoming British Columbia is an accessible and provocative investigation of critical moments in the demographic record of British Columbia, including catastrophic epidemics, immigrant rushes, forced migrations, the fertility transition, and the baby boom.

Becoming British Columbia is the first comprehensive, demographic history of British Columbia. Investigating critical moments in the demographic record and linking demographic patterns to larger social and political questions, it shows how biology, politics, and history conspired with sex, death, and migration to create a particular kind of society. John Belshaw overturns the widespread tendency to associate population growth with progress. He reveals that the province has a long tradition of thinking and acting vigorously in ways meant to control and shape biological communities of humans, and suggests that imperialism, race, class, and gender have historically situated population issues at the centre of public consciousness in British Columbia.

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The evidence presented…forces us to consider the important conclusion that British Columbia throughout its history has been “at the extremes of western world demographic trends.” Becoming British Columbia deserves a wide readership.