COAT OF ARMS AND PROVINCIAL FLAG

British Columbia’s first crest was intended to immortalize the importance and power of the British Empire. The sun, with the ocean in the background, was a reminder that the sun never set on the British Empire. It was designed by Canon Arthur Beanlands, a Victoria resident, in 1895. The motto on the modern version of the coat of arms, Splendor Sine Occasu, means splendor without diminishment. The crest is bordered by an elk and a bighorn sheep, with the elk representing Vancouver Island.

The coat of arms served as the basis for a B.C. flag — known as an armorial banner and featuring the sun and Union flag — that was first used in London, likely around the time of King George V’s coronation in 1911. But there is no evidence that it was ever used by officials within the province, says Alistair B. Fraser, a retired professor who has written extensively about B.C.’s flag. The official flag was not adopted by the province until 1960, though some mistakenly believe it’s been around a lot longer.

“That flag quickly became woven indelibly into the fabric of the province,” Fraser writes in a B.C. Historical Federation paper about the B.C. flag.

He points to the 1985 Genie-award-winning movie My American Cousin, which does a good job of capturing the Okanagan in the late 1950s, including fashion, technology, music and attitudes.

“What this careful reconstruction of an era did not get right though, was the flag,” Fraser writes. “Set in the summer of 1959, the movie shows the flag of British Columbia flying in Penticton. Not only was this a year before it was approved, it was well before anyone thought this might be the form it would take. While no more than a peccadillo, this cinematic error hints at the extent to which the flag had become a part of the provincial fabric only a quarter century after its adoption.”

(Coat of arms adopted 1895, provincial flag 1960)