Ten Things You Won’t See at the PNE This Year

The first PNE was in 1910, and, not surprising, a lot of things have changed since then. Some things will be missed and others not so much. Here are 10 things you won’t be seeing this year.

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

1. A brill trolley bus

Unless it’s taken out of a transit museum, you won’t be taking a brill trolley bus to the fair. In 1974, Angus McIntyre was riding on the back of a brill trolley bus that was detoured for the PNE parade at Hastings and Commercial. “There wasn’t always a switch or wire for these maneuvers, so we rode the rear bumper, held onto to a retriever with one hand, and pulled both poles down with the other,” says Angus, adding that this was done while travelling at speeds of up to 30 km/hr.

2. A Prize Home under $1 Million

The first PNE prize home was valued at $5,000 and raffled off in 1934. The winner, Leonard Frewin, a 27-year-old delivery driver, was in love with Ethel Leitch, 25, but was too poor to marry her. The house changed all that. In 2022, the home which still exists, is assessed at $1.8 million. The next house was raffled in 1952, and except for the years 1967 and 1968 when the PNE experimented with gold bars, there has been a house raffled off every year since. Unfortunately these days you have to out to Langley to view it.

3. Sideshows

Sideshows were once a huge part of the PNE, especially in the 1940s and 50s. You could pay to see the bearded lady, the man with alligator skin, the four-legged woman or little people on parade. If that wasn’t enough, there were girlie revues, palm readers, Siamese twins, and a man with vitiligo (a skin condition that causes white patches).

4. Inspector Vance’s Crime Lab

In 1934, Inspector John F.C.B. Vance of the Vancouver Police Department, who was once known as the “Sherlock Holmes of Canada,” packed up part of his laboratory and took it on the road. The slogan that Depression year was “Forward British Columbia—Prosperity Beckons” and Vance’s display of “scientific apparatus for crime detection” was insured for a whopping $10,000.

5. Dal Richards

Dal Richards was known as “Vancouver’s King of Swing.” He was born in 1918 and raised in Marpole. Richard’s 11-piece dance band played at the Hotel Vancouver for 25 years, and his radio show Dal’s Place aired for more than two decades. Richards played his 75th PNE—a 17-day-run in 2014. It was his last. He died in December 2015 at age 97.

6. Babes in the Woods

The Babes in the Woods was the name given to the skeletons of two little boys found in Stanley Park in 1953. Unbelievably, their tiny skulls were put on exhibition at the PNE and later at the Vancouver Police Museum. Their murders are still unsolved, but in February 2022 we learned that their were Derek D’Alton, 7 and his six-year-old brother David.

7. The Challenger Relief Map and the B.C. Pavilion

The B.C. Pavilion was demolished in 1997 and the Challenger Relief Map of B.C. that occupied 1,850 square metres of floor space, was placed in storage at an Air Canada hangar at YVR. George Challenger and his family spent seven years building the map to topographical scale from fir plywood cut into 986,000 pieces. It was at the PNE for 43 years.

8.  A Parade

The first parade was in 1910, and the last—at least along the route that traversed Georgia, Granville and Hastings Streets—was in 1995.  Pictured in 1938 is the Sheet Metal Workers Local 280 rocket on a float. A replica is on permanent display at the south end of the Cambie Street Bridge.

9. Sky Glider

The Sky Glider was a ride introduced to the PNE in 1970 and was a crowd favourite for 15 years. It carried passengers in gondola chairs suspended from a steel cable in a 7-minute one-way trip. The ride ran almost the full length of the fairgrounds, from the entrance to the roller coaster to a station near the old Showmart Building exhibit hall. If you’re wondering where it went, you can check it out at Mount Seymour—it’s been the Brockton Chair since 1988.

10. Elvis Presley and Empire Stadium

We had Elvis Presley. It’s true. He only performed three shows outside of the US—Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. In August 1957, more than 26,000 fans paid $3.75 each to see him at Empire Stadium, which was constructed in 1954 for the British Empire and Commonwealth Games. It was home to the BC Lions football team from 1954 to 1982, then demolished in 1993.

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