Vancouver History

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

Thirty years ago today, I was the lucky Vancouver Sun reporter sent out to Surrey to ride the Skytrain downtown at the end of the Stanley Cup final. It didn’t matter who won (we lost 3-2 to the New York Rangers) everyone it seems except police, knew that there was going to be a riot.… Continue reading The Stanley Cup Riot (1994)

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

It’s Heritage Week (February 19 – 25) and if you’re looking for something to do Sunday, drop by Heritage Hall on Main Street and check out the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s community fair. This year’s theme is Layer by Layer. It’s a great opportunity to meet a host of different community groups and take in Brian… Continue reading Granville and Georgia Streets: 150 Years in Virtual Reality

Multiplexes will soon replace single family homes all over Vancouver. How many stories will be erased from our history? I was reading an article in the Vancouver Sun yesterday called “Multiplexes may be coming to your neighbourhood soon.” It’s City Hall’s way of densifying our neighbourhoods, replacing those entitled single family homes with up to… Continue reading The House that Joe Built

I was riding my bike along Point Grey Road this week and snapped a few photos of the Peace House. It’s an interesting looking place, and as it turns out, has quite the past. 3148 Point Grey Road: It was built in 1908 by R.D. Rorison who was an early real estate agent and developer.… Continue reading Vancouver’s Peace House and the Grateful Dead

I first came across the O Canada house when I was writing At Home with History around 2005. In those days, there were only hard copies of the city directories at Vancouver Archives and Google Maps was still in the future. Research meant walking neighbourhoods, standing in the hedgerows and staring up at gorgeous old… Continue reading Vancouver’s O Canada House

Frits Jacobsen arrived in Vancouver in 1968. He was a prolific artist and  captured some of Vancouver’s iconic and long-gone buildings such as Birks, the Englesea Lodge, and the Orillia on Robson Street. He also drew some that have survived. Two that I’ve seen are the Manhattan Apartments on Thurlow and Main Street’s Heritage Hall.… Continue reading Frits Jacobsen: Anatomy of an East Van House

I put up a post on April 28 to mark the day that Trans-Canada Air Lines flight 3 took off from Lethbridge on a routine flight to Vancouver. The Lockheed Lodestar never made it, and 47 years would pass until there would be any answers. See: Remembering TCA Flight 3 Dale Brandon wrote to tell… Continue reading Trans-Canada Air Lines

Just before noon on March 6, 1945, the SS Greenhill Park blew up, killing six longshoremen and two seamen. Twenty-six others, including seven firefighters were injured in the explosion. For a more detailed version of this story, see my column in the North Shore News: 80 Years Ago Today a Ship Blew up On March… Continue reading SS Greenhill Park: A Vancouver Tragedy

It took more than a week to fix a large pothole in the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge last month. But in 1944, the Royal Canadian Engineers threw up a Bailey Bridge in just 10 hours. The bridge was designed by Donald Coleman Bailey, a civil engineer from Southbourne, England. When the Germans blew up bridges in… Continue reading Vancouver’s Bailey Bridge

The Arthur Laing Bridge photo essay is the last in a three-part series by Angus McIntyre on Fraser River crossings. The photos were taken on Angus’s Konica Autoreflex T Camera. The Arthur Laing Bridge opened to traffic on 27 August 1975.  December 31, 1972 was an unseasonably warm Sunday and Angus McIntyre jumped on his… Continue reading Crossing the Fraser River – Part 3

I’d heard of the Hope Slide of 1965, but it wasn’t until we stopped at the viewpoint this past July, that I could see how massive it really was. On Saturday January 9, 1965, about 20 km east of Hope, half an unnamed mountain plunged down the highway. It brought 46 million cubic metres of… Continue reading The Hope Slide of 1965

This was supposed to be a short and happy seasonal post about a cabin and a Christmas log, but then I stumbled across a murder. Like everyone else, I’m familiar with Shaw’s fire log, but I’d never given any thought to its origins. Then Kyla and Grant Stuart Gardiner’s monthly newsletter came in the mail… Continue reading A Cabin, a Fireplace and a Murder

The Knight Street Bridge photo essay is the second in a three-part series by Angus McIntyre. The photos were taken on Angus’s Konica Autoreflex T Camera. December 31, 1972 was an unseasonably warm Sunday and Angus McIntyre jumped on his bike and headed to the Fraser River. He spent the day documenting the construction of… Continue reading The Knight Street Bridge: Part 2

December 7 is International Civil Aviation Day. It’s a great excuse to write about Margaret (Fane) Rutledge (1914-2004), founder of the Flying Seven and one of the country’s first female pilots.   Edmonton: Margaret Fane was born to an Edmonton family who were obsessed with making things move. Her father, William Fane, began by repairing… Continue reading Margaret Fane, Western Canada’s First Commercial Aviatrix

Do the tiled pile of bricks and cedar planks at UBC’s Gage Tower hold human remains, or are they leftovers from a six-decade-old childhood prank? Last week I wrote about the two graves near UBC’s Gage Towers. Gregg Doughty first heard about the graves when he started with the university in 1991. Various UBC officials… Continue reading The Mysterious Graves at UBC’s Gage Towers – Part 2

Gregg Doughty has worked at UBC as horticulturist and arborist since 1991. For the last few decades, he has tried to find out the names of the people buried in two unmarked graves. The university prefers not to talk about it. They’re worried that the graves may be vandalized or frighten students living in the… Continue reading The mysterious graves at UBC’s Gage Towers

The Fraser Street Swing Span Bridge was built in 1894 and linked what’s now Fraser Street with No. 5 Road, Richmond. It was demolished in 1974 after completion of the Knight Street Bridge. This is part one of a three-part series about crossing the Fraser River in 1972 by Angus McIntyre On December 31, 1972,… Continue reading The Fraser Street Swing Span Bridge

On June 3, 2005, 82-year-old Gim Foon Wong set off on his Ride for Redress. Starting at Mile Zero in Victoria, he planned to arrive in Ottawa July 1 on his Honda Goldwing motorbike, accompanied by his son Jeffrey. He planned to have a few words with Prime Minister Paul Martin about the brutal Chinese… Continue reading Gim Wong: Kick-ass Dragon Man