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

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Dollarton Pleasure Faire, 1972
Bruce Stewart photo, 1972

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

Steveston’s Finn Slough

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Steveston’s Finn Slough. Shanty slum or quaint fishing village?Finn Slough, a 100-year old fishing village near Steveston

Finn Slough:

We biked to Finn Slough last Thursday. It’s located at the end of No. 4 Road about six clicks from Steveston. Depending on what you read or who you talk to, it’s either a quaint little fishing village or a bunch of degenerates squatting on a Richmond waterway. Personally, I think it’s quite charming–a collection of eccentric looking stilted houses, beached boats, ancient fishnet shacks and house boats that move up and down with the tide.

Finn Slough bridge

The rickety wooden bridge that leads to a dozen or so homes on the Gilmour Island side of the water has a cross at your own risk warning and a bulletin board with some history of the area as well as a petition to keep it.

The settlement has existed there for the past 100 plus years, peaked at 70 households in the 1940s and ‘50s and now has about 30 people living there. Three are descendants from the founding Finns, immigrant fishermen and women who settled here in the 1880s. Some still fish, but most are an assortment of actors, artists and musicians who live in homes that range from around 400 square feet to just under a thousand.

Finn Slough - Eve Lazarus photo

Finn Slough claims to be the last of what were once dozens of fishing shantytowns that dotted the shore of the Fraser River, and it has a great back story that’s been going on for about two decades. There’s the history of the area, the back-to-the-landers, the evil property developer from back east who wants to pave over the shanty town with condos and a park, and a few levels of government that would rather fill pot holes than be caught up in this drama. Ironically it’s the red tape that seems to be the saviour in this story.

Finn Slough Eve Lazarus Photo

There is the feel of a movie set, and obviously Hollywood thought so to, because last June they filmed a few scenes from Godzilla: “A giant radioactive monster called Godzilla awakens from its slumber to wreak destruction on its creators.” Really it wasn’t Godzilla that wreaked destruction on Finn Slough, just time.

Finn Slough - Eve Lazarus photo

Britannia Shipyards

 

If you haven’t been out here, it’s a great bike ride from Steveston village along the South Dyke trail. You bike through the Britannia Shipyards, past the 1890s London Heritage Farm and if you keep going past Finn Slough you wind up along the trails of Horseshoe Slough where London Drugs have its headquarters.

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