Actual European contact with the native people of the Vancouver region was infrequent and isolated up until 1792, when Captain George Vancouver (for whom the city is named) returned to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and spent the next two years exploring the area with the aim of finding the western end of the elusive "Northwest Passage". Vancouver had explored the Pacific Ocean extensively with Captain James Cook through the late 1700s and his voyage inland from Vancouver Island to chart the mainland coast of North America is considered his single largest contribution to history.

By 1793, Alexander Mackenzie, working for the fur-trading Northwest Company, managed to reach the Pacific from the eastern side of the Rockies. He first traveled up the Peace River and then down 400 kilometers of the Fraser River, portaging, and used the lower stretch of the Bella Coola River to arrive at saltwater about halfway between Vancouver and the southern tip of Alaska. Following on in 1808, Simon Fraser, also with the Northwest Company, navigated 35 days down the mighty river which bears his name to the Pacific. His Northwest Company ally, David Thompson, managed to navigate the entire length of the Columbia River soon after, and fur trading posts were established along all of these rivers. These outposts of Europeans, their goods and habits, began a period of white settlement in the interior of BC. When the Northwest and Hudson's Bay companies merged in 1821, the province already had significant agricultural interests centered around the forts, supplying the travelers, traders and the Royal Navy.