Photography

North Vancouver’s Maplewood Flats is a wildlife sanctuary about one-third the size of Stanley Park. In the 1970s, it was home to a group of artists and environmentalists, and for a couple of weeks, it hosted the Dollarton Pleasure Faire.
Warning: some of Bruce Stewart’s photos contain nudity (and maybe your grandparents)

Bruce Stewart sent me an email a couple of weeks ago, saying that he had come across some photos of store windows that he’d taken in the 1970s, was I interested in seeing them. Of course I was, and I think you’ll love them as well. Where most of us will see a jumbled store… Continue reading Vancouver’s Store Windows – an Essay in Photos

Story by Eve Lazarus, photos by Bruce Stewart A half a century has gone by since Bruce Stewart took these photos of False Creek. By the time I arrived in Vancouver in the mid-1980s, the city was in the midst of final preparations for Expo ’86 and had already undergone massive change. False Creek was… Continue reading False Creek in the ’70s

Before it was a housing development and golf course, Westwood Plateau was a 1,400 acre-odd parcel of land that included a racetrack. All photos by Bruce Stewart in 1970. Two of the streets in the development – Deer’s Leap Place and Carousel Court – were named for the track’s most challenging sections. According to a… Continue reading The Westwood Racing Circuit (1959-1990)

The Dewdney Trunk Road Pleasure Faire was held over three days in September 1971, on land that was designated to become a federal penitentiary in Mission, BC. All photos by Bruce Stewart The Deluxe group—Alan Clapp, Dan Clemens, Ian Ridgway and Ray Clark—applied for the permit, and Clemens and Ridgway spent the summer deconstructing barns… Continue reading The Mission Pleasure Faire of 1971

I went to the PNE last week, the first time in more than 15 years. I’m not going to lie, it was pretty underwhelming. For this post, I thought I’d draw from comments left on my August 17 blog and on my Facebook page Every Place has a Story. The general consensus from fairgoers seems… Continue reading The PNE: Then and Now

The Dollarton Pleasure Faire was held in the summer of ’72 at the Maplewood Mudflats in North Vancouver. It was a celebration of alternative living, an acknowledgement that its days were numbered, and it was timed to clash with the annual PNE.

The PNE kicks off today (Saturday August 17) and runs until September 2. In 1992, I worked at the Vancouver Sun and that year I spent most of my August shifts at the PNE. One day I’d write about the rodeo clown who had broken every bone in his body at least once. The next… Continue reading The PNE in the ’70s: A photo essay by Bruce Stewart

Last week’s blog on Kitsilano featuring Bruce Stewart’s photos, brought back memories and a healthy does of nostalgia from those of you who were lucky to have known Kits in the ‘70s. In this week’s blog I’m delighted to bring you photos from Angus McIntyre, Gord McCaw, Peter Dobo and a couple more from Bruce,… Continue reading More Photos of Kitsilano in the 1970s and ’80s

I lived at three different addresses along West 3rd in Kitsilano between 1984 and 1995. And, while I loved the beach, the restaurants, West 4th Avenue, and Granville Island, I would have liked to have known Kits in the 1970s. An essay in photos by Bruce Stewart Kits Pool: Fortunately, Bruce Stewart spent half of… Continue reading Kitsilano in the ’70s: a photo essay

The Nanaimo to Vancouver bathtub race ran from 1967 to 1996  When I moved to Vancouver in the mid 1980s, I lived in an apartment at Third and Cypress in Kitsilano. Over the next 12 years, I moved two more times up Third Avenue, and one of my summer highlights was heading down to the… Continue reading The Nanaimo to Vancouver Bathtub Race

June is Italian heritage month, and this year Italian Days was held on Sunday June 9, 2024 I hate crowds, so I can’t give you a first-hand account of Italian Days this year. Having watched a couple of YouTube videos though, I can tell you that it was a gorgeous day that drew thousands of… Continue reading Italian Days 1977: a photo essay by Bruce Stewart

1967: It’s been 57 years since the first Stanley Park Easter Be-In. A local take on the be-in that had taken place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park two months before and set the tone for the Summer of Love. Vancouver’s event was much smaller, but about a thousand hippies, and three times as many… Continue reading The Stanley Park Be-Ins

The friendship between Bruce Stewart and Fred Herzog began because of a mutual love of photography and went onto span half-a-century. 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… Continue reading Walks with Fred Herzog

Howard Fry spent three decades as a commercial photographer in Vancouver. In 1998 he retired to Salt Spring and became embroiled in a battle to save part of the island from development. Salt Spring Island: In 1999, Salt Spring Island was under threat. A German millionaire sold his holdings—roughly a tenth of the island—to Texada… Continue reading Howard Fry and the Salt Spring Island Calendar’s 20th Anniversary

I had the pleasure of visiting Griffin Art Projects with Tom Carter last Saturday. It’s a gallery of sorts hidden in an industrial building on Welch Street in North Vancouver. The exhibit features stories, photos, videos and paintings about Chinatowns in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, many from private collections. Some of Tom’s personal collection is… Continue reading Whose Chinatown?

At 2:00 pm on Sunday March 24, 1974, a group of about a 100 people, many of them students and professors from the UBC School of Architecture, came together in a mock funeral for the Birks Building, an eleven storey Edwardian masterpiece at Georgia and Granville with a terracotta façade and a curved front corner.… Continue reading We held a funeral for the Birks Building

November 5 is the 60th Anniversary of Vancouver’s last manual telephone exchange. Angus McIntyre writes about its history and the changeover. By Angus McIntyre If you grew up in the City of Vancouver in the 1950s you may well remember your telephone number looked like this: KErrisdale 3457-M. Or ALma 0609-L. These numbers indicated a… Continue reading The Missing Telephone Operators of BC

An Interview with Jazmin Welch, book designer about working on Vancouver Exposed I’m excited to tell you that Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History is now in bookstores. And, while the saying goes “don’t judge a book by its cover,” I have to disagree. A great cover not only helps to sell the… Continue reading An Interview with Vancouver Exposed Book Designer Jazmin Welch

Frank Gowen was born in England in 1877. He moved to Vancouver in 1913 and worked as a photographer until his death in 1946. Chris Stiles kindly sent me this fabulous panoramic photo that she and husband Alan found when they were going through some personal effects of Alan’s father recently. “My husband’s dad, Roy… Continue reading Frank Gowen’s Vancouver