The Dollarton Pleasure Faire held in the summer of ’72, was meant as a celebration of alternative living, timed to clash with the PNE held across the inlet.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
I was at the North Vancouver Archives trying to hunt down some information from the city directories. On the way out I noticed a black and white photo exhibition by Bruce Stewart. Called West of Eden, these photos were all taken over a two-week period in 1972 at what’s now the Maplewood Conservation Area on Dollarton Highway.
Maplewood:
Since I’m used to seeing wood ducks, chickadees and the odd deer at Maplewood, it was kind of cool to see a bunch of naked hippies frolicking around down there. They seemed completely oblivious to Stewart’s camera.
Back in the ‘70s squatters used to live above the tidal mudflats in a row of shacks. It sounds kind of romantic today, but I’m guessing raising a family among salvaged materials, with no electricity or running water would not have been much fun, especially in winter.
The Dollarton Faire:
The Dollarton Faire was one of many held across North America in the 1960s and ’70s. Ours was also a show of support—the mudflat squatter community versus the District of North Vancouver who were determined to burn it down for a shopping mall.
I’m not sure what happened to the shopping mall, but in the end capitalism trumped the rights of people to occupy public land, and all traces of the Mudflat shacks are long gone.
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12 comments on “The Dollarton Pleasure Faire of 1972”
I’ve seen these photos before. They are wonderful documents.
Transport this scene to the Kootenays, just five years later, and you have a picture of the life I lived in for a couple of years, high in the Purcell Mountains (pun intended).
A lot of us hippies fled the edges of the cities for more remote redoubts, where we could “do our thing” without continual harassment by the establishment, though the RCMP paid us a couple of unwelcome visits … one time on horseback, though these were no experienced horsemen!
These were formative times, learning from old trappers and prospectors — trying to live free and sustainably. We were poor, but rich in experience and adventure.
It’s quite dismaying the lack of accurate knowledge about the Mudflats, where I spent many formative years in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Many mistakenely claim that Malcolm Lowry lived there, or Al Neil, both of whom were a mile or two down the inlet.
I met the ‘Mudflats’ founder, Peter Choquette in 1965 and he was already living there in the furthest out (in more ways than one) cabin, which was up on stilts or pilings.
Then Helen Simpson moved into the next cabin a little later. Some of the original squatters including old Mike were still living there and Peter got along fine with them. Whale expert Dr. Paul Spong also lived in Peter’s cabin while the latter was away in Morocco.
Later the cabins on the shore were occupied by the Deluxe gang including Dan and Wendy Clements, Michael Deacon and others. They were a big part of putting on the Pleasure Fair. Artist Tom Burrows also built a cabin there.
But UBC Professor, Ken Lum’s reconstruction of a Mudflats cabin is, unlike Mr. Stevenson’s photographic study, an example of attempts by our local conceptual art elite to appropriate this history without ever talking to those of us who spent a lot of time there and know what happened in those days. This work is an unfortunate and exploitative piece of public art which I wish had never been approved, or moved there.
[…] Bruce Stewart has been documenting Vancouver ever since his father gave him a reflex camera for his eleventh birthday. A few years later, he started an after-school job at the Department of Biomedical Communications at UBC working with legendary photographer Fred Herzog. He already had a love of photography, Fred just helped it along. Their friendship spanned half-a-century and much of it involved photos. […]
[…] Bruce Stewart and the Dollarton Pleasure Faire […]
I grew up in Dollarton. I did visit the Maplewood mudflats squatters community once not long before everyone was evicted and the shacks were torched to make way for the shopping centre that never happened. I also attended their pleasure faire where to my surprise many of the attendees were running around stark naked and this only a short walk away from middle class suburbia. I always figured that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Don’t forget, there was also the “Village Faire” in Dollarton at Cates Park, back in 1970 or 1971 which I also attended, still a bit too young but aspiring to one day live the hippie way of life. There was no nudity at that one but it was mainly held right in the forest. Also, there was a short documentary made of it which I discovered quite by accident while watching TV a year or so later. To my surprise, I was in it! A few years ago I tried to see if I could track it down but I was not able to.
I was also at the Pleasure Faire in the woods at Cates Park. So magical. I was about 19. Hitched there. I was living on Vancouver Island, but grew up in Vancouver. I met people there and after we left there, I stayed overnight in a big house east of Kits below the Fairmont building. Such good memories of sharing simple pleasures, and trust.
I think that the Cates Park Village Faire was 1971. I was there and hitchhiked to it. I grew up in Van but was living on Vancouver Island and 18 or 19 at the time. The fairs of that era time were huge influences in my life. I have been involved in music festivals ever since!
Yes Cates Park Faire was definitely 1971. I had a busted leg that year and remember being plunked down in front of a bunch of drums where I spent the whole night in a percussion trance, Only to come to the next morning exactly where I planted my broken body down the night before.
Yes. I believe it was probably 1971, in Cates Park. I was in high school in West Van and I remember riding my bike over to Cates Park. My brother was selling handmade candles and leather belts there. Great memories.
Thank you for posting…Such wonderful memories.
You mentioned Helen Simpson , I knew and worked with Her back in the 60’s Also had the occasion to visit Her on the flats …
Well Howdy – Michael Deakin of said crew the Deluxe Brothers writing this from Orcalab on Hanson Island where good old Dr Paul Spong has been studying the Orcas since 1970 . . . I now live in Petaluma CA but i came to Salmo BC to pick up my daughter and visit family and friends on our way to Hanson and back – loved the mudflats and all we got to do!