Port Moody

Port Moody is a city in Metro Vancouver, enveloping the east end of Burrard Inlet in British Columbia, Canada. Port Moody is the smallest of the Tri-Cities, bordered by Coquitlam on the east and south, and Burnaby on the west. The villages of Belcarra and Anmore, along with the rugged Coast Mountains, lie to the northwest and north respectively. It is named for Richard Clement Moody, the first Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of British Columbia.

The Coast Salish people were the first to live in this area, and archaeology confirms continuous occupation of the territory for at least 9,000 years. Port Moody sits on the unceded, occupied, ancestral and traditional lands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Port Moody is named for Colonel Richard Clement Moody, Royal Engineers.[1]:212 It was established at the end of a trail that connected New Westminster with Burrard Inlet to defend New Westminster from potential attack from the US. After 1859, the town grew rapidly following land grants to Moody’s Royal Engineers after the sapper detachment was disbanded in 1863.[2]

The construction of a transcontinental railroad was the condition that prompted British Columbia to enter into confederation in 1871. The small town received little attention until it was declared the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1879.