Eve Lazarus
Janet Stewart was going through her mother Edna’s things after she passed away recently and came across four sketches by Frits Jacobsen. They showed various Vancouver buildings in the late 1960s. Janet googled his name, came across a story by Jason Vanderhill on my blog, and kindly sent me photos.
Hornby and Nelson:
I posted Jacobsen’s drawing of the corner of Hornby and Nelson Streets from 1969 on my Facebook page Every Place has a Story.
Beatrice Lennie created a mural for the Hotel Vancouver’s lobby in 1939. It’s been hidden behind a wall since 1967. This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History.
Beatrice Lennie:
When Beatrice Lennie graduated from the first class at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (now Emily Carr University of Art + Design) in 1929, it took four piano movers to shift her diploma piece.
Doug Bennett, lead singer of Doug and the Slugs and his wife Nancy bought an old house on Semlin Drive in 1987. The house received heritage designation last month.
This story is from my book Sensational Vancouver
2146 Semlin Drive:
Current owners Adrienne Tanner and Mike Walker now have a Heritage Revitalization Agreement with the City of Vancouver.
There is a fake house in Burnaby that has fooled even some of its closest neighbours since 1967. Rumours have spread that it’s everything from a government safe house to an animal crematorium, but the truth is far more interesting.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
The Fake House:
The house is actually a huge ventilation shaft that’s hidden in plain sight.
Earlier this month, St. John Alexander invited me to hang out at Overlynn, a Burnaby mansion for a CTV news Halloween segment. I spent an amazing Saturday with St. John, Greg Mansfield and Amanda Quill—two experienced ghost hunters.
Listen to Cold Case Canada podcast Episode 34
Charles Peter:
As the history geek in the group, I discovered that Overlynn, which is in Vancouver Heights, is part of North Burnaby.
As Chef Jean-Francois Dube discovered in 1999, North Vancouver’s Pacific Starlight Dinner train was haunted
In 1997, I was the Vancouver Correspondent for Marketing Magazine and one of a few dozen media invited along to launch BC Rail’s Pacific Starlight Dinner Train. It was a fantastic night, beginning with a musical send-off from the old North Vancouver station, great food, a stop at Porteau Cove and free booze all the way up and back.
Halloween is my favourite unofficial holiday of the year, so it was especially rewarding to end Season 2 of Cold Case Canada with a Halloween Special. I reached out to five fabulous story tellers to tell me their favourite ghost stories—stories that take place in some of Metro Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods.
October is women’s history month, and I can’t think of anyone more inspirational than Ivy Granstrom: Queen of the Polar Bears
This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Meet Ivy Granstrom:
Ivy Granstrom participated in 76 consecutive polar bear swims.
