North Shore

It’s hard to fathom how anyone could think that a belly flop competition was a good idea, but Tom Butler did back in the ‘70s, and as it happens, it was. From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History   Stunts: Former Sun reporter, turned PR guy, Butler was the master of the photo… Continue reading Tom Butler, The Coach House Inn, and the Belly Flop that Soared

When Tom Butler talked the prime minister’s wife, Margaret Trudeau, into turning up at the opening night of the Daddy Long Legs Disco at the International Plaza Hotel in North Vancouver on July 31, 1979, her appearance scored national attention for the nightclub. From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History North Vancouver Disco:… Continue reading Margaret Trudeau and the Daddy Long Legs Disco

The Switzer house of West Vancouver was designed one Sunday, painted pink, and received attention from all over the world. 840 Mathers: In 1960, the Taylor Way interchange on the Upper Levels Highway looked radically different than it does today. That year, local builder Henry Switzer placed his shocking pink house at 840 Mathers Avenue… Continue reading Switzer House (1960-1971)

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… Continue reading The Grinch who Stole Lynn Valley

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… Continue reading The Wigwam Inn at Indian Arm

The Second Narrows Bridge Collapsed on June 17, 1958, tossing 79 workers into Burrard Inlet and killing 18 of them. Sounded like an explosion: Some described the noise of the bridge collapsing into the Second Narrows as gunfire or an explosion, others as a rumble or a loud snapping sound. On June 17, 1958 at… Continue reading The Second Narrows Bridge Collapse

When Foncie Pulice was 21 in 1934, he quit house painting and went to work for Joe Iaci and his street photography company Kandid Kamera. Foncie, to my knowledge, never crossed the bridge or took the ferry to North Vancouver—at least not for his work. He did capture many of our most colourful citizens. A… Continue reading Foncie’s North Vancouver Connection

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History I’ve lived in Lynn Valley for 20 years and while I’ve heard rumours of a nudist camp at the top of Mountain Highway, I always thought that it was an urban myth. After reading an article this week, I found their website, fired off an email,… Continue reading Van Tan–North Vancouver’s Nudist Camp

Next time you’re in the Lower Lonsdale area, drop by Presentation House and check out Water’s Edge. It’s a new interactive exhibit developed by the North Vancouver Museum that shows how the waterfront has changed over the last couple of hundred years. I did the research and wrote the stories, archivist Janet Turner sourced hundreds… Continue reading Water’s Edge at Presentation House

  I went to the District of North Vancouver offices to pick up some money owed and was promptly redirected to the City of North Vancouver offices five minutes down the road. It made me wonder yet again why we are running two completely separate bureaucracies for a relatively small population. It also made me… Continue reading A Tale of Two Vancouvers

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History A few people that I know have sold their large houses and downsized to Norgate, one of the few flat areas of North Vancouver just to the east of the Lions Gate Bridge. Norgate is also one of the few areas that hasn’t seen massive change to… Continue reading The Capilano Air Park

I spent the last three months of 2015 working on an interactive project called Water’s Edge for the North Vancouver Museum and Archives. We started at Indian Arm and went a little west of Ambleside to find the stories that would show the massive changes that have happened to the shoreline and to Burrard Inlet.… Continue reading Aborted Plans: A Third Crossing for the North Shore

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History If you read my blog regularly, you know that I’m a huge fan of West Coast Modern, and especially of Fred Hollingsworth, an amazing North Vancouver architect who died this year at age 98 after changing the face of architecture. But it wasn’t until I was… Continue reading Fred Hollingsworth’s Sky Bungalow

A little before 10:00 am on October 3, 1975, David Samson, an inspector with the Canadian Grain Commission, was walking down the tracks to the Burrard Terminals when he saw a few of the workers he knew moving quickly away from the grain elevators. The full story is in Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s… Continue reading The Grain Elevators, a Fire and a Ghost Story:

This is an excerpt from Sensational Vancouver: A reporter once asked Phyllis Munday if she’d ever been really frightened during all her years of climbing mountains. “Thunderstorms,” she told him. “I hated thunderstorms.” What she didn’t mention was the time she saved husband Don Munday’s life from a grizzly bear by charging at it with… Continue reading Phyllis James Munday (1894-1990)

Look for the full story of Jennie Eldon Conroy in Cold Case Vancouver: the city’s most baffling unsolved murders A couple of weeks ago, Daien Ide, reference historian at the North Vancouver Museum and Archives came into the possession of a photo album. At first she thought it was just a nice family photo album… Continue reading The unsolved murder of North Vancouver’s Jennie Eldon Conroy

There is a chapter on West Coast Modern Artists and Architects in Sensational Vancouver. If you love West Coast modern like I do, check out the art and architecture exhibit at the West Vancouver Museum this summer. Work from all the greats is there—Fred Hollingsworth, Arthur Erickson, B.C. Binning, Ned Pratt, Ron Thom, Gordon Smith,… Continue reading West Coast Modern on Display

Back in September 2013 I blogged about a Fred Hollingsworth designed house in North Vancouver that was sold, torn down and soon after flipped for land value that was more than the original house. Chris left a comment asking me if I could find a photo of another North Shore landmark, a futuristic-looking house that… Continue reading The Switzer House of West Vancouver (1960-1971)

Happy Halloween. And, in honour of my favourite non-holiday, here’s a completely true ghost story from the pages of Sensational Vancouver. When Jennifer, Patrick, Graham, 6 and Angus, 3 moved into their home, they didn’t realize they’d be sharing it with strangers. But to Jennifer, an interior designer, it soon because obvious they were not… Continue reading The North Vancouver Ghost

Barry Downs architect designed his gorgeous West Coast Modern house in West Vancouver in 1979. He lived there until his death in July 2022 at 92. From Sensational Vancouver Barry Downs house sits on top of a cliff 120 feet above West Vancouver’s Garrow Bay. The house is almost invisible from the busy street and… Continue reading West Coast Modern and Architect Barry Downs