Canada Place

SS Greenhill Park: A Vancouver Tragedy

by Eve Lazarus on March 4, 2023

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). They were loading a mixed cargo of mostly lumber, newsprint, and tin plate. But there were also pickles, sunglasses, lightbulbs, books and knitting needles. What would prove most problematic though, was the 94 tonnes of explosive sodium chlorate (for bleaching wood pulp), seven-and-a-half tonnes of signal flares and several barrels of overproof whisky.

Greenhill Park Pier B C — Pier B-C became the Canadian government’s pavilion during Expo ’86, and now it’s our Canada Place and cruise terminal which was constructed on some of the original pilings. 1930s Photo: CVA 260-1815

The whisky was hard to resist, and some of the workers were filling up bottles of the stuff to take home in their lunch boxes. It was dark in the hold, and at a minute before noon, one of the men lit a match.

And, boom.

Explosions rock Vancouver:

Flames shot up more than 30 metres in the air, and the ensuing explosions took out most of the large plate glass windows along automobile row on West Georgia. Thousands of windows in downtown office buildings smashed, and the blasts blew out 10 heavy corrugated iron doors inside of Pier B.

Greenhill Park explosion — The Province. VPL 45866, March 6, 1945

Many on the ground thought the Japanese were attacking, and tried to reach air-raid shelters.

Frank Wright, the 25-year-old captain of an army supply ship called the Sutherland Brown was docked at the foot of Cardero. He and his skeleton crew were the first to reach the 10,000 ton freighter and managed to get a tow line onto the ship. With the help of an army tug they tried to beach the ship on the North Shore, but the tide was too strong and it drifted out the first narrows and went aground near Siwash Rock.

In memory of those who were killed:

Donald Bell, 34

Joseph Brooks, 51

Julius Kern, 41

William Lewis, 46

Merton McGrath, 46

Donald Munn, 54

Montague Munn, 57

Walter Peterson, 56

Sources: The Greenhill Park Disaster by the BC Labour Heritage Centre; The Montreal Gazette, March 7, 1945; Vancouver Sun November 29, 2008.

Tags Canada Place, Donald Bell, Donald Munn, Frank Wright, Joseph Brooks, Julius Kern, Merton McGrath, Montague Munn, Pier B-C, SS Greenhill Park, Sutherland Brown, Walter Peterson, William Lewis

The Woodward’s Christmas Windows

by Eve Lazarus on December 21, 2019

When David Rowland heard that Woodward’s was closing in 1993, he phoned up the manager and put in an offer for the department store’s historic Christmas windows. They agreed on a price, and David became the proud owner of six semi-trailer loads of animated teddy bears, elves, geese, children, a horse and cart and various storefronts.

Story from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Woodward’s ca.1907. Courtesy Vancouver Archives 677-611

Robsonstrasse:

In the late 1960s, 14-year-old David rode the bus into Vancouver carrying three samples of puppets and marionettes that he had made. He walked up and down what was then Robsonstrasse trying to interest toy store owners into buying his merchandise.

“They said ‘they are nice little toys, and you are a nice little boy, but come back when you have sold them somewhere else’,” says David. “I was about to give up and I thought well there’s always The Bay.”

David found the manager of Toyland and put his marionettes through their paces.

David Rowland putting together a former Woodward’s Christmas window in 2010 for Canada Place.

Orders from the Bay:

“A lot of people gathered and shoppers started picking up the boxes looking for prices.”

The manager ordered 50 and had David come in and demonstrate them every Saturday. Later he invented a coin-operated puppet theatre where you put 25 cents in and the lights turned on and music played and the puppets danced across the stage. He sold three dozen of them to shopping centres in B.C. As requests came in to build Santa’s castles and other seasonal structures, Rowland’s business took off.

Original figures made by David Rowland for Woodward’s in the ’70s. Courtesy David Rowland

Woodward’s started getting serious about their Christmas windows in the 1960s, and sent buyers off to New York to bring back different figures. The department store hired David in the ‘70s to create mechanical figures for their Toyland and display work for their windows.

Canada Place:

When David unpacked his newly acquired Christmas windows in the ‘90s, he found at least a dozen different scenes. He looked around for a venue big enough to display them and found himself at Canada Place. David wanted to rent them, but Canada Place offered to buy them outright. “That wasn’t my initial plan, but at the time I had a banker from hell and I needed some capital and so I sold a lot of it to them,” he says.

Christmas window display at the Grosvenor Building, 2018. Courtesy David Rowland

David couldn’t bear to part with all of them though, and every other year he sets up a few in buildings around Vancouver.

Woodwards Christmas windows — The nativity scene at Christ Church Cathedral was once part of Woodward’s Christmas windows. The Christmas Creche was carved in Italy from olive wood, hand-painted and sold to Woodward’s in 1955. The Hudson’s Bay bought the Creche when Woodward’s closed in 1993, and displayed it inside the Seymour Street entrance until 2013 when they donated it to the Cathedral. Eve Lazarus photo, 2018

Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck by Eve Lazarus, coming April 2025. Preorder through Arsenal Pulp Press, online retailers or your your favourite indie bookstore

Tags Canada Place, Christ Church Cathedral, David Rowland, Woodwards, Woodwards Christmas windows

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