Every Place Has a Story

The 1972 Dollarton Pleasure Faire

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Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

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.

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Danny Clemens (right of frame) at the canteen. Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

At least as far back as the 1940s, squatters were part of a long tradition of settlements such as Crabtown in North Burnaby and Finn Slough in Steveston. On the North Shore, the squatter community stretched from what’s now called Cates Park to the Maplewood mudflats, about a click or two east of the Ironworkers Memorial bridge.

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Bruce Stewart photo, 1972
Under Threat:

By 1971, their lifestyle was under threat. The District of North Vancouver was determined to rid the land of squatters and replace their homes with a development that would rival Lonsdale Quay. The first round of evictions and burnings occurred in 1971.

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

The two-week long Dollarton Faire in August 1972 was a show of support—the mudflat squatter community versus the District.

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

Bruce Stewart had recently returned from art school in Los Angeles and was living in Kitsilano when he heard about the Faire. Bruce had met Danny Clemens and Ian Ridgway at the Mission Faire the previous summer and asked them for permission to document the event.

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Al Davis and Ian Ridgway. Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

Clemens and Ian Ridgway also had serious carpentry skills and both worked on the set of Robert Altman’s movie McCabe & Mrs. Miller through most of 1970.

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Bruce Stewart photo, 1972
Artist Colony:

Bruce found an artist colony living in houses made from recycled materials—old pieces of boats that had washed up on the mudflats and timber and windows and bits and pieces collected from heritage homes being demolished in other parts of the city.

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Pirate Ship house. Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

There was the Pirate Ship house created from the abandoned hulk of a boat that was resting on a log. And there was the Glass House, an A-frame construction with assorted bric-a-brac and salvaged windows.

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
The glass house. Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

McCartney Creek was dammed up to create a swimming hole where people could cool off during the Faire.

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Swimming hole. Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

Bruce has taken several hundred photos of a moment in time using fast film, a wide-angle lens and a Nikon FTN. He’s photographed the very young and the very old who happily co-existed with those in their prime. You can see them dancing, swimming, making art and just hanging out.

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Bruce Stewart photo, 1972
Nature Sanctuary:

I’m not sure what happened to the hotel and shopping mall, but in the end, capitalism trumped the rights of people to occupy public land. Most of the homes were burned down later that year, and nearly all traces of the mudflat shacks were gone by 1973.

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
The aftermath. Bruce Stewart photo, 1973

Bruce’s photos, taken that year, show little evidence of the squatter community—just a few charred skids where houses once stood. “Perhaps the saddest image is the old torn off refrigerator door, paint peeling from the intense heat of the fire, like a third-degree burn on scorched skin,” says Bruce. “The end of an experiment in ‘off-the-grid’ living which was decades ahead of its time.”

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
The Aftermath. Bruce Stewart photo, 1973

Fortunately, developers also got the boot, and the land has been a nature sanctuary for decades.

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

Source: West of Eden: Presentation House Gallery

Related:

Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

Water’s Edge at Presentation House

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Next time you’re in the Lower Lonsdale area, drop by Presentation House and check out Water’s Edge. It’s a new interactive exhibit developed by the North Vancouver Museum that shows how the waterfront has changed over the last couple of hundred years. I did the research and wrote the stories, archivist Janet Turner sourced hundreds of photos and maps, and Juan Tanus and his team at Kei Space added the magic. The result is a really interesting look at how industry, infrastructure and development have changed the coastline all the way from Indian Arm to Ambleside.

Water's Edge at Presentation House
Flotsam and Jetsam wall for making your own art assemblage on set-up day.

The sound effects add to the whole experience, as does a floor to ceiling slide show of the blue cabin and accompanying video, as well as a wall of flotsam and jetsam. One of my favourite touches is the two benches from the old ferry building at the bottom of Lonsdale.

Water's Edge at Presentation House
Carole Itter outside the blue cabin where she lived with Artist Al Neil for nearly 50 years. Photo courtesy North Shore News

North Van has so many stories that it wasn’t hard to come up with close to 100.

Water's Edge at Presentation House
In 1906, Joe Capilano headed up a delegation and sailed off to England to meet the King. They are at the North Vancouver ferry dock. CVA In P41.1

One of my favourite stories is the streetcar that hurtled down Lonsdale in 1909 dumping all of its passengers, including the mayor’s wife, into the water.

Several stories came out of Maplewood, which has seen its coastline change from mudflats to a sand and gravel quarry to squatter shacks. Public protest saved the area from becoming another shopping centre, and it’s now a wild bird reserve that’s home to 246 different bird species.

Water's Edge at Presentation House
Early morning at the Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972. Bruce Stewart photo

Indian Arm has a plethora of stories. There’s the Wigwam Inn built by Alvo von Alvensleben in 1909. Canada’s only floating post office operated from 1908 to 1970 up and down Burrard Inlet, as did a floating grocery store which visited 25 different wharves five days a week in summer and three in winter. In 1891 Sarah Bernhardt took some time off from her performances at the long defunct Vancouver Opera House and went duck shooting at Indian Arm.

Water's Edge
Wigwam Inn, 1910. Built by Alvo Alvensleben the Inn attracted people like John Rockefeller and John Jacob Astor. CVA OUT P991.2

There’s stories from what was once Moodyville, named after Sewell P. Moody who went down on a ship in 1875, but not before leaving a message on some driftwood that said “S.P. Moody all lost.” And there’s the fire at the grain elevators 100 years later that claimed five lives.

Water's Edge
Moodyville in 1890. CVA 1376-75.10

Many stories come from the Mission Reserve. Their lacrosse team won the 1932 BC Championship. Emily Carr visited several times, painted and wrote about the area, and there are the very unpleasant stories that came out of the Residential School that sat near St. Paul’s Church until its demolition in 1959.

Some of the really amazing stories were the ones that didn’t happen—the aborted plans such as the Capilano Airfield, and if that had gone ahead, would have turned North Van into a very different place than it is today.

Water's Edge at Presentation House
Do you know this strange cement structure in Little Cates Park? That’s the remains of a waste burner from a mill that closed in 1929.