A census is intended to count a country’s population at a single point in time. The information gathered shows population growth, demographic trends, occupations, and so forth. The data is then used by governments to plan infrastructure and budget for health services.
The official Government of Canada census returns are an important resource for historians and genealogists. The first census of Canada that includes British Columbia is 1881, after British Columbia joined Confederation. A census has taken place every ten years after that. However, due to privacy restrictions, the records are not made available to the public and are not transferred from Statistics Canada to Library and Archives Canada until 92 calendar years after the taking of a census. Thus far, the publicly available census records for British Columbia are 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911, and 1921.
While the census is a bureaucratic creation, it is also a very human endeavour and reflects the attitudes of the census takers and, sometimes, the fears of the people being enumerated. Census takers were provided with clear instructions for how to gather the information. They travelled by horseback, canoe, or on foot and were paid by the name. Some remote areas were simply missed or they relied on the information of
