Vancouver Aquarium Archives

The Vancouver Aquarium opened on June 15, 1976. Before that there were two other locations at English Bay and Hastings Park.

Hastings Park:

The first Vancouver Aquarium opened in Hastings Park around 1913. I stumbled over this while on Murray Maisey’s excellent blog Vancouver as it Was. According to a Vancouver Daily World article from 1910 that Murray found, it would not be: “a dinky little pool with some tame goldfish swimming leisurely around, but a real concrete aquarium with a glass front and all the fixings big enough to keep sharks.” By 1941, the aquarium was gone, its former digs renamed the museum building, and it became the first home of the Edward and Mary Lipsett collection. The collection was part of a display at the PNE that year and has been with the Museum of Vancouver at Vanier Park since 1971.

English Bay:

The second aquarium opened in the English Bay Bathhouse in 1939. This was totally confusing to me until I found the Vancouver Archives photo (above) that showed the two early bathhouses together—the concrete one left of frame, housed the Aquarium just east of Gilford Street and was demolished in 1964. Our current art deco one is up the beach right of frame.

This lovely wooden bathhouse opened in 1906 and was demolished in 1931 when it was replaced by our current one. CVA 447-18, 1919

A guy called Ivar Haglund, who already operated an aquarium in Seattle, applied and received permission to open a Vancouver version in 6,000 square feet of bathhouse, down the stone stairs and just below the sidewalk. The deal was it would be a 10-year lease and the Parks Board would get 7 percent of the gross takings in the first year and 10 percent after that. Must have seemed like money from heaven in 1939.

English Bay Bathhouse that would eventually house the second aquarium is shown near the Sylvia Hotel ca.1914 CVA Be P144.2

Oscar and Oliver:

Ivar moved in “over 100 varieties of sea life” including minnows, smelts, skate, clams and crabs.” The star attraction were some seals and a couple of octopus named Oscar and Oliver (that were quietly replaced with other lookalikes after they repeatedly failed to survive in captivity). In 1966, a former aquarium cashier told a Vancouver Sun reporter that “the problem wasn’t obtaining the aquatic life, but simply keeping it alive.”

Nope, this was our second. Plaque just below Morton Park in 1986. CVA 775.175

Ivar’s Aquarium closed in 1956, when our current one opened. I found this Vancouver Archives photo of the plaque taken in 1986 and situated just across from Morton Park. Have no idea if it’s still there.

With special thanks to Murray Maisey and Neil Whaley

Missing heritage

In 1954 the Sylvia Hotel had the first licensed lounge in Vancouver — The Sylvia Hotel, built in 1913 and owned by the same family since 1960

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

Every year Ross Dyck, general manager of the Sylvia Hotel opens about 600 handwritten letters from fans of Mister Got to Go, mostly kids in Grades one and two. And every year he personally answers every one of them.

Dyck has worked in the hotel industry for the past 25 years, before that he taught drama and stage craft to high school kids.

The two Mr. Got to Go books about a cat that moved into the Sylvia Hotel, are so popular he says, that it’s not uncommon to stumble across a bus load of little tykes in the hotel lobby enroute to the Vancouver Aquarium.

“They force the bus driver to stop here so they can come in and find the cat,” he says. “Course the cat hasn’t been around for about 12 years, but we love the fact they still come.”

The first book, Mister Got to Go: the cat that wouldn't leave was published in 1995 — A third book in the Mr. Got to Go series is due out in the fall

Dyck is likely the only hotel boss who would say that—but the Sylvia Hotel that celebrates its 100^th anniversary this year is a special kind of hotel.

“When I first got here I was horrified. I’d walk into the lobby at 5:30 am and I’d see people walking around in their housecoats and slippers,” he says. “But I can’t think of any other hotel in Vancouver that can say that.”

Last year the Sylvia hosted a fifth generation wedding. The first family member was married there in 1913.

A woman in her 90s came to stay at the hotel for a night. Her mother had stayed at the Sylvia years ago and she showed Dyck the invoice. In those days, two nights accommodation, two breakfasts, and seven phone calls came to $7.14. When the woman checked out the next morning, Dyck charged her $7.14.

The same family has booked room 801, the same room that once housed the Dine in the Sky restaurant–for a month in the summer every year since 1990.

Over the years the hotel has hosted people like Pierre Trudeau and Errol Flynn. Like a good hotel manager, Dyck doesn’t like to name his famous guests, but he’s comfortable telling me that singer songwriters Jane Siberry and Jennifer Warnes are both regulars.

The Sylvia Hotel received Heritage Designation in 1975. Six years before the Englesea Lodge (seen in the photo below) burned to the ground.

Dyck, who likens his job to that of mayor of a small town, says that the best part of his job is that in the five years he has worked at the Sylvia he’s never had the same two days in a row.

The Sylvia, named after the original owner's daughter, was an apartment building until 1936 — The Sylvia Hotel was designed by William P. White, the Seattle architect who designed the Englesea Lodge (at the far left) and the Del Mar Hotel on Hamilton Street.

The Vancouver Aquariums

Hastings Park:

English Bay:

Oscar and Oliver:

Related:

The Sylvia Hotel turns 100

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Hastings Park:

English Bay:

Oscar and Oliver:

Related:

Support

Click to read posts about:

Subscribe to Our Newsletter