For my last post of the year, I’ve chosen the top 10 Facebook group pages. This list is highly subjective and based on a loose criteria—they have to deal with some aspect of the history of Greater Vancouver or Victoria, and you have to be able to see the posts without having to join (I’m intrigued by East Vancouver Selfies and Lululemon Barter Wars, but fear either rejection or disappointment).
Confused by the new parking restrictions and hostile signage at Lynn Valley? Creeped out by the guy in blue that follows you around the parking lot? Not sure where LV shopping Centre starts and where LV Village takes over? Wondering why they can’t just enforce a one or two-hour parking limit and let customers park where they want?
I finally got to motor up Indian Arm and see the Wigwam Inn–well from the outside. You can’t get inside unless you’re a member of the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
It seems crazy to me that it’s still fairly inaccessible (unless you own a boat), yet in 1910 there were four different sternwheelers taking guests up and down the Arm from Vancouver—the year the Wigwam Inn opened.
I was so sad to hear of Jim Munro’s death last Monday. Jim was a huge promoter and lover of books, heritage buildings, art and authors, including of course, his first wife the Nobel prize winner Alice Munro.
He was also a lovely man. I had the pleasure of meeting Jim a few years back when I was researching Sensational Victoria.
Fans of Michael Kluckner’s history books—Vanishing Vancouver, Vancouver the Way it Was, and several others of his beautifully illustrated history books, might find his latest release a big departure. 2050, A Post-apocalyptic Murder Mystery is a graphic novel, a fictional account of a Vancouver that has been ravished by disease, climate change and a benevolent dictator who keeps the population poor to reduce their carbon footprint and ultimately save the planet.
This is an ongoing series that asks people who love history and heritage to tell us their favourite existing building and the one that never should have been torn down.
Bill Allman is a “recovering lawyer” and instructor of Entertainment Law at UBC. Bill has been a theatre manager (the Vogue), president of Theatre Under the Stars, and a concert promoter through his company, Famous Artists Limited.
Last year, Constable Graham Walker of the Metro Vancouver Transit Police was asked to research the history for their 10-year anniversary. Graham promptly fell down the rabbit hole and his journey has taken him to UBC Special Collections, City of Vancouver Archives, BC Hydro Archives, and the Vancouver Police Museum. Graham’s first surprise was that the history of transit police goes back far longer than 2005 when a recommendation by the BC Association of Chiefs of Police led to the creation of the Transit Police.
Kiyoko Tanaka-Goto may not be the first person who springs to mind for women’s history month, but she was brave and entrepreneurial and succeeded at a time when there were few opportunities for women, especially ones who weren’t white.
Kiyoko Tanaka-Goto was an enterprising Japanese woman who was born in Tokyo and came to Canada in 1916 as a 19-year-old picture bride.