Navvy Jack

Aborted Plans: Deadman’s Island

by Eve Lazarus on March 8, 2019

Members of the Town Planning Commission passed a resolution stating that they were not in favour of Deadman’s Island as a site for a proposed museum of Vancouver art, historical and scientific society. It was declared the Coal Harbour site was too inaccessible—Province: April 9, 1932

It continues to amaze me that Stanley Park has survived, despite all the attempts to develop it over the years.

In 1912, there was a push to “transform” Lost Lagoon into Grand Round Pond, with a surrounding museum, stadium and amusement park. There would be ornamental gardens, fountains a children’s playground, library and Georgia Street would be the “Champs-Elysees.”

*Plans for Lost Lagoon in the* Vancouver Sun, *December 28, 2018*

Fortunately, commonsense prevailed. Said Mayor James Findlay: “Thomas Mawson may be the finest architect in the world, but he cannot put Stanley Park back for us once it is destroyed.”

In the 1960s and ‘70s there were three attempts to turn Seasons Park—the 14 acres at the entrance—into a massive hotel and condo complex.

Sharp and Thompson Architects drawing of a proposed museum at Deadman’s Island in 1930. Courtesy VPL #7899

And in the early ‘30s there were plans to plop a castle-like museum building complete with citadel, on Deadman’s Island.

Sharp and Thompson Architects drawing of the Pacific Museum for Deadman’s Island. Courtesy VPL #7898

Measuring just 3.8 hectares, and attached to Stanley Park by a short causeway, Deadman’s Island, or Skwtsa7s (meaning island), has an amazing history. It was a battle site. It was an indigenous burial ground, where the dead were placed in wooden coffins and buried both in the ground and up in the trees. When small pox hit, it was used to quarantine the victims, and later bury those who didn’t make it. The land has also claimed British Merchant seaman, people from Moodyville, victims from the Great, and workers killed while extending the CPR line from Port Moody to Coal Harbour. One article says West Vancouver’s Navvy Jack is buried there.

Deadman’s Island seen just behind the second CPR station at the foot of Granville Street in the early 1900s. Courtesy VPL #9834

In 1930, the federal government leased the island to the city. Shortly after, the city commissioned Sharp and Thompson Architects to draw up designs for Pacific Museum. It didn’t get very far, and in 1944, became the site of HMCS Discovery Naval Reserve.

When the 99-year lease came up for renewal in 2007, Mayor Sam Sullivan tried to make it publicly accessible. He told the Globe and Mail he wanted a ferry service from downtown and a museum that could preserve and display the maritime heritage of native people.

Vancouver in 1933 with Deadman’s Island in the background. Courtesy VPL 4368

The Musqueam just wanted it back.

Except for an open house once or twice a year, which I always seem to miss it, the site remains off limits.

Sources:

Jason Vanderhill’s Illustrated Vancouver
Vancouver Public Library’s Special Collections
Globe and Mail, April 27, 2006
Vancouver Sun, December 28, 2018
Vancouver Courier, March 30, 2010

Tags Deadman's Island, HMCS Discovery Naval Reserve, James Findlay, Navvy Jack, Sharp and Thompson Architects, Skwtsa7s, Stanley Park

Riding the Spirit Trail to West Vancouver Part 7

by Eve Lazarus on November 17, 2018

Lots of history to cover on this last leg of the Spirit Trail. We’re starting at Park Royal, which when it opened in 1950, was the first covered mall in Canada.

Prior to 1965, most of the land you’re riding on was swamp. Ambleside Beach is the product of 85,000 cubic metres of sand and gravel hauled from the sandbanks west of Navvy Jack Point. The pitch-and-putt is built on sawdust, bark and wood waste from a North Vancouver sawmill, and the duck lagoon used to be part of a slough.

If you look to the right, you’ll see the Ambleside Youth Centre*. Before that it was the West Vancouver Rod and Gun Club, and before that it was one of 18 huts built by the Department of National Defence with four gun emplacements and anti-aircraft guns to defend the harbour entrance below the Lions Gate Bridge during World War 11. After the war, the District of West Vancouver bought the huts and converted them into housing for war vets and their families.

Ambleside Pool opened in 1954 and was gone by 1977. Courtesy WVA 1954

The huts were built on low land that flooded several times a year, and at those times, food and supplies were brought in by rowboat. By 1961, three were moved to the high school for classrooms and the others were destroyed.

Ferry Building, courtesy District of West Vancouver

You’ll come out onto Argyle Avenue and soon see the Ferry Building. Before it was a quaint little art gallery, it was the headquarters of West Vancouver’s ferries which operated until 1947 from a dock at the foot of 14^th Street. On a good day, the ferry trip to Vancouver took 25 minutes. Too bad we don’t still have service.

You’ll pass the imposing 16-foot high Welcome Figure that faces Stanley Park—a gift from the Squamish Nation to the people of West Vancouver in 2001.

Silk Purse. Courtesy District of West Vancouver

And then you’ll see the Silk Purse—one of the last examples of the summer cottages that used to dot the area before the Lions Gate Bridge opened in 1938. Built in 1925, former Vancouver Mayor Tom Campbell inherited the cottage from his father, and in 1969, sold it to John Rowland. Rowland’s son him he was trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The name stuck and he rented out the Silk Purse as a ‘honeymoon cottage’ for $12 a night, including breakfast and champagne. The District of West Vancouver has owned the Silk Purse since 1991 and it is operated by the West Vancouver Community Arts Council.

NavvyJack/John Lawson house in 1957. Courtesy WVA

You’ll soon be at John Lawson Park, named for the man known as the “father of West Vancouver.” John was a mover and shaker in the West Vancouver business community. In the early 1900s, he bought Navvy Jack’s former house (1768 Argyle) and lived there until 1928. The house—the oldest on the North Shore—is unrecognizable from old photographs. Another victim of demolition by neglect.

Navvy Jack/John Lawson House 2018. Eve Lazarus photo

*The building was demolished in March 2019

Top photo: Park Royal Shopping Centre in 1949

With thanks and gratitude to North Vancouver Museum and Archives.

If you’ve missed any of the rides, please see:

The North Shore’s Spirit Trail – Moodyville (part 1)

Moodyville to Lonsdale Quay (part 2)

Lonsdale Quay (part 3)

Mosquito Creek (part 4)

Harbourside (part 5)

Pemberton to Capilano River (part 6)

Tags Ambleside Beach, Ferry Building, Homulcheson, John Lawson, John Rowland, Navvy Jack, Park Royal, Silk Purse, Spirit Trail, Tom Campbell

The Navvy Jack House: Past, Present and Future

by Eve Lazarus on July 29, 2017

The Navvy Jack house was built in the late 1860s or early ’70s which makes it one of the oldest houses in Metro Vancouver. Lloyd and Bette Williams took care of it for nearly 50 years, now it’s in the hands of the District of West Vancouver

1768 Argyle Avenue, West Vancouver — Navvy Jack House, 1957. Photo courtesy West Vancouver Archives

Jane Williams kindly gave me a tour of her parent’s house at 1768 Argyle Avenue last week. Her father, Lloyd Williams died in April at the age of 96, and she was getting ready to hand the keys over to the District of West Vancouver. Lloyd and Jane’s mother Bette paid $50,000 for the house in 1971, before the seawall was installed and when the next-door John Lawson Park was still a field with a few scattered houses.

History:

The District has owned the Navvy Jack house since 1990 when the Williams’ made a deal in exchange for life tenancy. It’s the last one following a council decision in 1975 to buy up the 32 houses along the Ambleside waterfront between 13^th and 18^th either through land sales or expropriation. With the exception of the Silk Purse, the Ferry Building, and the Navvy Jack house, the others have been bulldozed back to nature.

The Hollyburn General Store, post office and Navvy Jack’s house at 17th and Marine Drive in 1914. Photo courtesy Vancouver Archives

Depending on the source, the Navvy Jack house was built between 1868 and 1873. It was shifted from its original location at 17^th in 1921 to allow for the opening of Argyle Avenue. While it’s not the oldest house in Metro Vancouver, it’s pretty darn close.

Originally from Wales, Navvy Jack (John Thomas) came to Canada to seek his fortune in the gold fields. Instead, he operated an unscheduled ferry service in 1866. The following year he bought 32 hectares of waterfront land from 16^th to 22^nd Street and founded a gravel hauling business on the Capilano River (a sand and gravel mix is named for him).

Navvy Jack’s house on the wedding day of John Lawson’s daughter in 1914. The house was white with a veranda that ran the entire width held up by Victorian brackets on turned columns. The exterior is moulded cedar siding. Courtesy West Vancouver Archives

Navvy Jack married Rowia, granddaughter of Chief Kiepilano and raised four children in the house. By the 1890s he was broke and lost the house in a tax sale.

John Lawson, who was known as the “Father of West Vancouver,” and namesake of the John Lawson Park, bought the house in the early 1900s. It changed hands a few more times until the Williams’ moved in.

Lloyd and Bette Williams:

Lloyd was born in Kitsilano in 1921. He met Bette at Kitsilano High School, and later became a salesman for Simonds saws. Jane says her father’s passion was the garden that faced the ocean and overflowed with sweet peas, roses and vegetables.

According to the Statement of Significance, Lloyd’s uncle Alfred lived in West Vancouver in 1891. He was rescued from drowning at the mouth of the Capilano by Navvy Jack’s son.

How fitting that a couple of Vancouver pioneers would buy a house filled with so much history and then become its caretakers for over half a century.

Present Day:

The house is in rough shape. Over the last 140+ years it has been renovated, changed, and neglected. While it’s on the heritage inventory, it is not on the very small list of designated properties, which means that it has no protection. Hopefully that will soon change.

The District’s Jeff McDonald tells me that while nothing is confirmed, the plan is to turn the house over to the West Vancouver Streamkeepers Society to be run it as a nature house.

Tags 1768 Argyle Avenue West Vancouver, Bette Williams, Chief Kiepilano, Ferry Building, Jane Williams, John Lawson, Lloyd Williams, Navvy Jack, Navvy Jack House, Rowia, Silk Purse

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