This is a photograph of a sunlit sandy beach with driftwood, ocean in the background.
Flash animation content: British Columbia is shaped and given life by water. Yellow-headed Blackbirds nest in colonies in rich marshes. First Peoples: First Nations canoe styles and materials are highly specialized for use on rivers, lakes and ocean. Gitxsan model ocean-going canoe with figures, Skeena River. note Gitxsan needs to have that line under the x. History: Waterways once acted as the main link among many of British Columbia's isolated communities. Paddlewheeler SS Kaslo on Kootenay Lake in September 1900. Photo credits Waters background image. Robert Cannings. Yellow-headed Blackbird. Stephen Cannings. Gitxsan canoe. RBCM 12010. SS Kaslo on Kootenay Lake. BC Archives B-09774.
This is a link to a map of the waters of British Columbia with optional close-ups of the Southeastern Valleys and Vancouver Island's West Coast.

The fresh waters of streams,

lakes, ponds and marshes, and the salt waters of the sea teem with astonishing life. They are sources of food and energy, and have been transportation routes for millennia. Polluted, over-fished, blocked by dams and diverted from their natural channels, British Columbia's waters are now threatened on many fronts.