Originally Posted by Fohur2

It was a joke to see how many Americans would believe him.

Anyways,about the BC question

<skip to bottum for paraphrase>

From 1818 to 1846, British Columbia south of 54°40′ and west of the Rocky Mountains was part of the Oregon Country. The land was under the control of the Hudson's Bay Company, and was divided into the departments of Columbia (south of the Columbia River) and New Caledonia (north of the river).

In 1846, the Oregon Treaty divided the territory along the 49th parallel to Georgia Strait, with the area north of this boundary (and all of Vancouver Island) becoming exclusively British territory. Vancouver Island became a Crown colony in 1849

<taken from Wikiquote>

So,the mainland territory was the Columbian River territory,Vancouver island was a British territory.They merged because of debt.