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 heritage houses.
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.
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.
Dale Brandon wrote to tell me that her mother Audrey (Tavender) Brandon was supposed to be one of three crew members on that flight.
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.
On March 6, 1945, nearly 100 men were either loading or getting the SS Greenhill Park ready for its voyage to Australia from CPR’s Pier B-C (now Canada Place).
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 Europe, the good guys could quickly replace them with Bailey’s invention.
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 bike and headed to the Fraser River.
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 rock, earth, snow and trees.
Michael Bradley Smith, 17 missing since December 30, 1967. Last seen at his North Vancouver home. Canada’s Missing website (National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains) Case Reference 2014003272
I put up a post about Michael on my Cold Case BC Facebook page yesterday—55 years after he disappeared.