Vancouver History

The 2400 Motel on Kingsway opened in 1946. It still has an old fashioned, retro feel and its huge red and blue neon sign.  I fell in love with the 2400 Motel on Kingsway 20 years ago when I was writing  Frommer’s With Kids Vancouver. Loved the old fashioned, retro feel of the place and… Continue reading A short history of the 2400 Motel

The Orillia on Robson: The Orillia on Robson and Seymour Streets, was just a memory by the time I moved to Vancouver in the mid-1980s, but from time to time I see a mention or a photo of this early mixed-use structure at Robson and Seymour. One particularly poignant photo was taken before its destruction… Continue reading The Orillia (1903-1985)

Before the Vancouver Art Gallery moved into the old courthouse on West Georgia, its home was a gorgeous art deco building a few blocks away.  If you live in Vancouver, you know that the Vancouver Art Gallery is housed in the old law courts, an imposing neo-classical building designed by celebrity architect Francis Rattenbury in… Continue reading The First Vancouver Art Gallery

Michael Kluckner’s latest BC bestseller Here & Gone: Artwork of Vancouver & Beyond is gorgeous. One half is filled with his paintings of disappearing Vancouver (Here) and the other of his travels in countries such as Australia, Cuba, Mexico and Japan (Gone). Missing Heritage: In the introduction to Here, he writes: “I see myself as… Continue reading Here & Gone: Vancouver’s Corner Stores

The Dunsmuir Tunnel opened in July 1932. It started at Waterfront Station, passed under Thurlow, crossed to Burrard and came out by the Georgia Viaduct. While you’re stuck for an hour on the Lions Gate Bridge or crawling through the George Massey Tunnel, it may be comforting to know that traffic problems, just like the… Continue reading The Dunsmuir Tunnel

The rocket ship at the southwest end of the Cambie Street Bridge is a replica of one built in 1938 for the annual PNE parade. Story from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History Cambie Street Bridge: Have you ever wondered why there is a snazzy-looking rocket ship at the southwest end of the… Continue reading The Cambie Street Rocket Ship

On January 1, 2020 the Polar Bear Swim celebrated its 100th anniversary. It was by far the biggest year ever, with about 7,000 people hitting the water of English Bay. Being an Aussie, I really don’t get the appeal of plunging into frigid salty water, but I do love the history behind this crazy local… Continue reading Peter Pantages and the Polar Bear Swim

The Canada Post tunnel opened in March 1959 and carried mail from the West Georgia Street building to Waterfront Station. By the mid-1960s it was obsolete. By 2013 it was gone. When the main Post Office was built on West Georgia Street in the 1950s, it was the largest welded steel structure in the world.… Continue reading The Canada Post Tunnel

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

In 2014, the Centennial fountain that sat outside the former Vancouver courthouse was removed after nearly half a century. It had been turned off the year before after a leak was found in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s storage area. While the new, sterile looking plaza hasn’t been wholeheartedly embraced, neither was the fountain when it… Continue reading Our Missing Heritage: The Centennial Fountain

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

Sam Wiebe is the award-winning author of the Wakeland novels, a detective series set in Vancouver that includes Invisible Dead and Hell and Gone. “When poet-turned-screenwriter Paul Ling goes missing, his teenage daughter hires Vancouver P.I. Dave Wakeland to track him down. To the shock of his family and colleagues, Ling’s body is found within days… Continue reading When Fact Meets Fiction: Sam Wiebe’s Vancouver

In this week’s blog, we’re doing some myth busting while telling the real story behind the Lost Lagoon Fountain in Stanley Park. A couple of weeks ago, Chris Stiles sent me a photo of Vancouver that her husband’s grandparents had purchased from Frank Gowen in 1913. I wanted to see other photos by Gowen, who… Continue reading The Real Story Behind the Lost Lagoon Fountain

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

Margaret Cadwaladr has written a memoir Food Floor: My Woodward’s Days, a nostalgic walk through the area, filled with black and white and colour photos. When I first came to Canada in the mid-1980s the Woodward’s Food Floor saved my life. It was literally the only place in Vancouver that sold jars of vegemite. And… Continue reading Woodward’s: Store #1

My friend Richard Berrow designed this quiz for his colleagues in the legal profession, and kindly sent me a copy. I thought that my friends and colleagues in the local history community would also enjoy it, and give these esteemed lawyers a run for their retainers. If you’ve read Sensational Vancouver, you’ll easily answer three… Continue reading Richard Berrow’s Law/History Quiz:

George Norris was born in Victoria in 1928. He studied at the Vancouver School of Art. His sculptures are spread around Vancouver, Victoria and Calgary, but his most famous is probably The Crab (1967) that sits outside the Museum of Vancouver.  Last week I had the pleasure of writing about Svend-Erik Eriksen and showcasing some… Continue reading The Art of George Norris

I’m a big fan of Svend-Erik Eriksen’s photography of Vancouver in the ’70s. Last week I called him up and asked how he got started. Erik, is an animator by trade, but his interest in photography goes back to the 1950s when he was a kid in Namu, BC. His parents had immigrated from Denmark… Continue reading The Photography of Svend-Erik Eriksen

At the Barnet Marine Park you can check out the  remnants of a once thriving village, sawmills, and Burnaby’s top secret submarine base. For more stories like this one, check out Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History Took the dog for a walk at the Barnet Marine Park in Burnaby last week and… Continue reading Burnaby’s Top Secret Submarine Base