southernmost part of Vancouver Island, where almost 75 percent of British Columbia’s population live. This is also the most seismically active, or earthquake-prone, area of the country.

The ocean has a tremendously moderating influence on the Pacific Maritime region. Summers are cool, winters mild, with mean annual summer temperatures ranging from 10°C in the north to 15.5°C in the south, and a winter mean from -0.5°C to 3.5°C. Vancouver has the fewest days below freezing – and Victoria the lowest annual average snowfall – of any city in Canada. At the same time, the moisture-laden winds of the Pacific bring lots of rain, more of it than anywhere else in the