Abbotsford is a city located in British Columbia, next to the Canada–United States border, Greater Vancouver and the Fraser River. With a census population of 153,524 people (2021), it is the largest municipality in the province outside metropolitan Vancouver. Abbotsford–Mission has the third-highest proportion of visible minorities among census metropolitan areas in Canada, after the Greater Toronto Area and the Greater Vancouver CMA. It is home to Tradex, the University of the Fraser Valley, and Abbotsford International Airport.
As of the 2021 census, it is the largest municipality of the Fraser Valley Regional District and the fifth-largest municipality of British Columbia. The Abbotsford–Mission metropolitan area of around 195,726 inhabitants as of the 2021 census is the 23rd largest census metropolitan area in Canada. It has also been named by Statistics Canada as Canada's most generous city in terms of charitable donations for nine straight years.
The community of is the largest city by area in British Columbia. The municipality's southern boundary is the Canada–United States border. In Canada, it is bordered by the Township of Langley to the west, the City of Mission to the north, and the City of Chilliwack to the east. Abbotsford borders the town of Sumas, Washington, to the south. Much of Abbotsford has views of Mount Baker (to the southeast, in Washington) and the Coast Mountains (to the north).
History
Settlement
The first residents of the area are the Stó:lō Nation. The Upper Sumas 6 Indian reserve of the Sumas First Nation is located at Kilgard within Abbotsford city limits.
European settlement began when the Royal Engineers surveyed the area in response to the gold rush along the Fraser River in 1858. This led to the building of Yale Road (today Old Yale Road), the first transportation route to link the Fraser Valley. The settlement grew and the production of butter, milk and tobacco began by the late 1860s. In 1889, former Royal Engineer John Cunningham Maclure applied for a Crown grant to obtain the that would become Abbotsford.
The Gur Sikh Temple, located on 33089 South Fraser Way, is the oldest Sikh temple in North America. Built in 1908 and opened in 1911, it is now over 110 years old, outlasting the now demolished 2nd Avenue temple in Vancouver (opened in 1908), and the Golden temple (opened in 1905) which was destroyed by fire.
There is some controversy over the origin of the Abbotsford name. The most commonly cited origin is that Maclure named the land "Abbotsford" after family friend Henry Braithwaite Abbott, the western superintendent of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Maclure's sons later stated that the property had actually been named for Sir Walter Scott's home, Abbotsford House, and pronounced it with the accent on ford, In his later years Maclure himself claimed that the naming had been "a combination of two ideas". The Akriggs say that Maclure in an 1844 letter said that when the town was laid out in 1844, the town was named for Henry Abbott, general superintendent of the CPR and brother of Sir John Abbott, prime minister.
Contemporary period
The title passed hands to Robert Ward, who filed a townsite subdivision on July 9, 1891. Also in 1891, the CPR built a railway line through the area that connected Mission with the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway at Sumas, Washington. This route was the only rail connection between Vancouver and Seattle until 1904. The Village of Abbotsford was incorporated in 1892. At that time Robert Ward sold many of the lots to private investors, but also sold off a significant portion to the Great Northern Railway's subsidiary company the Vancouver, Victoria and Eastern Railway. The British Columbia Electric Railway (BCER) arrived in 1910. The Interurban, as the BCER tram linking Abbotsford with Vancouver and Chilliwack was called, was discontinued in 1950, but BCER's successor BC Hydro retains the right to re-introduce passenger rail service. Service to Vancouver runs from neighbouring Mission by way of the West Coast Express.
The most notable natural disaster to hit Abbotsford was a major flood of the Fraser River in 1948.
In September 1984, Pope John Paul II held an open-air Mass for over 200,000 people at Abbotsford International Airport.
The amalgamation of the Village of Abbotsford and the District of Sumas into the District of Abbotsford occurred in 1972. The District of Abbotsford amalgamated with the District of Matsqui in 1995 to become the City of Abbotsford, raising the population significantly.