B.C. coast could have been ice age highway for first migrants

VANCOUVER The B.C. coast may have been an ice age highway for ancient peoples migrating south from northeast Russia to the Americas, according to new research involving a University of the Fraser Valley scientist.

At the end of the last ice age, the thick ice sheets that covered much of what is now British Columbia began to retreat, opening up routes that allowed the first peoples to enter the Americas, explained UFV professor Olav Lian. But while it has long been thought that people migrated via an interior corridor near the Rocky Mountains, new research suggests the central coast was icefree about 17,700 years ago — much earlier than previously suggested.

“When the ice sheet peeled back, it would have opened a route from the north around the coast, and it would have been a very viable route, possibly a better route than the interior route,” said Lian.

The first peoples would have been hunter-gatherers, meaning they moved in search of food and safety, not necessarily out of a desire to explore new lands.

But the idea of a coastal route also has its problems. Take a cruise to Alaska and you’ll witness glaciers calving into the frigid ocean. It’s likely that as the ice along the coast receded, large chunks broke off as sea levels rose, making the route risky and unpredictable.

Lian hypothesized that people may have remained on ice-free islands, which would have been “relatively stable,” on their gradual journey south. “It might have been a good place to live and wait out the crazy adjustment of the landscape that followed the ice age.”