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Archive - Places
The Parker Carousel at Burnaby's Village Museum
It was a treat to stand by the Parker Carousel at Burnaby’s Village Museum and remember a time—a very long time ago—when I actually rode a merry-go-round. My daughter’s past the age where she’d want to, and I’d feel silly. Although it’s tempting! Read more here
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A Trip Up Indian Arm
Thursday, July 24 was a memorable day. Harvey Oberfeld and I were
the guests of Brian Forst aboard Brian’s lively 26-foot Sea Ray, the
Thai Dancer, on a trip to the head of Indian Arm, site of
the famous Wigwam Inn. Read more here
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The Hastings Mill Store
 This
year marks the 77th anniversary of one of the more unusual moving
jobs in Vancouver—when a barge took the city's oldest building
from its location at the foot of Dunlevy Street and, in the words
of the archivist of that day, “tenderly transported it across
the water to this beautiful park and set it down again, for safekeeping,
among the flowers”.... more
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Green Timbers
 Green Timbers Urban Forest in Surrey is unique:
it consists mainly of trees planted from seedlings in the first
attempt at reforestation in British Columbia. It sits on a square
mile of forest astride the Fraser Highway. Stand by that highway
and look east, and you’re directly facing Mount Baker. This
highway was originally the Yale Wagon Road to the interior, built
by the Royal Engineers in 1875....
more »
The SkyTrain Tunnel
 At
midnight on July 16, 1933 all trains of the Canadian Pacific Railway—which
had been running at street level through downtown Vancouver for
decades, infuriating motorists—came off the city’s busy streets
and switched to a new tunnel. The railway would use the 1,396-metre-long
(4,579 feet) tunnel for nearly 50 years. Today it’s used by SkyTrain....
more »
When An Old House Falls
A Guest column by James Johnstone
 Everyone’s
talking about the trees the wind knocked down in Stanley Park. People
are wringing their hands—horrified that nature can wreak such
havoc with nature. Yes, we lost some great old trees. It’s
sad, but with time the forest will rise again.
It’s not the same with this city’s old
houses, though. No one’s talking about how in the same month
developers knocked down the last old house on the 200-block of Union
Street, just north of old Hogan’s Alley.... more
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Street Names
A Guest column by Derlang Ansager
 Street
names tend to give a lopsided view of local history: in the early
years of a municipality they often commemorate businessmen. Local
examples include Flavelle, Ewen, Taylor, Hendry, Lonsdale, Keith
and Dollarton Highway. CPR officials get a lot of local attention:
Matthews, Beatty, Cambie, Hamilton, Angus, Matthews, Salsbury, Whyte....
more »
The Rogers Building
 Picture
the corner of Pender and Granville in 1913, when Vancouver cars
and streetcars were still on the “wrong” side of the street.
You also have a good view of the Rogers Building
which has been standing at the north-east corner of Pender and Granville
for more than 90 years.... more
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Coevorden
 What
connection does Vancouver have with Coevorden, an industrial town
of about 20,000 in the northeast Netherlands, right up against the
German border?
The answer begins nearly 700 years ago in 1315, when a Dutch
nobleman named Reinolt was made a viscount of the city, and so became
known as Reinolt van Coeverden.... more
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Burrard Bridge
 It
was July 1, 1932. “A snip of a pair of golden scissors in the
hands of Mayor Louis D. Taylor,” ran a news report, “and
Vancouver's $3 million Burrard Bridge was opened to the public Friday
afternoon, July 1 . . . Hardly was the ribbon cut in front of the
devouring eyes of movie cameras, than thousands of pedestrians and
hundreds of cars surged across the magnificent white structure in
a procession of triumph.... more
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HMCS Discovery
 About
20 members of the Vancouver Historical Society enjoyed a treat recently
with a visit to HMCS Discovery, the Canadian Naval Reserve
base on Deadman's Island in Stanley Park. For many of us, even a
few born here, it was our first entry onto the island. The tour
was conducted by Lt. Jack Wyne, a reserve officer who joined back
in 1986 and, except for a gap between 1994 and 1998, has been serving
here since...... more »
Granville Island
 The
38 acres of Granville Island, worth many millions of dollars today,
were once a little mud flat worth zilch. The little mound, in fact,
used to disappear at high tide. But, to a keen-eyed public official
named Sam McClay, that drab little mud flat (some called it a sand
bar) under the shadow of the old Granville Bridge looked as if it
might be a good base for some landfill...... more
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Winged Victory
 This
famous bronze memorial was erected here in 1921 to commemorate Canadian
Pacific Railway employees who had lost their lives in the First
World War. There were, astonishingly, 1,100 of them. Copies of the
memorial, perhaps named Winged Victory, went up in Winnipeg
in 1922 and at Montréal's Windsor Station in 1923. After
the Second World War, a plaque was added to the statues as a tribute
to soldiers in that war...... more
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The Marine Building
 The
Marine Building is still, for old-timers, the building most clearly
identified with Vancouver. Its unique wedding cake “icing”,
topped by that vaguely Mayan tower, makes a dramatic and exciting
backdrop as you look west down Hastings. It is one of the great
art deco buildings in the world.
Construction started in the spring of 1929 with
a ceremony in keeping with the style of the building...... more
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The Orpheum
 The
entrance is deceptively narrow. A dozen casual steps along Granville
Street and you’ve gone by. But millions have not always gone
by, they have gone in.
For nearly 80 years the Orpheum has been luring
showgoers in—millions upon millions of them. They have walked
through its richly ornamented concourse, up its sweeping carpeted
staircases, past opulent wall decorations and tall columns and into
the great domed auditorium...... more
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Grouse Mountain
 It
was October 12, 1894. A small party of hikers trudged through the
snow of an unnamed mountain on the north shore of Burrard Inlet.
Far below, on the other shore of the inlet, they could clearly see
through the crisp, clean fall air the little city of Vancouver—population
then about 18,000. The north shore itself had only a few hundred
residents. There was no bridge across the inlet yet..... more
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The Sun Tower
 One
of the most familiar landmarks in Vancouver has been looming over
the southeast corner of Pender and Beatty streets for more than
90 years. It’s a reminder of the stubbornness and determination
of one of the city’s newspaper pioneers, Louis Denison Taylor.
In 1896, working in Revelstoke, “L.D.,” as he was
known, saw an advertisement placed by a Victoria newspaperman, Hewitt
Bostock, seeking a man to run a new daily, The Vancouver Daily
Province. (Bostock wanted to provide competition to the two
daily papers already operating, the World and the News-Advertiser)......
more »
Prospect Point Signal Station
 From
July 27, 1923 until 1939, when the Lions Gate Bridge went up, there
was a Signal Station atop Prospect Point, the highest site in Stanley
Park, overlooking the entrance to Burrard Inlet. The station was
set up there to alert ships entering and leaving the harbour as
to tide conditions, wind, other vessels and so on...... more
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The Pantages in Vancouver
 Alexander
Pantages is important in the show business history of Vancouver
because he built two theatres here that were part of his vaudeville
empire, and because of his influence on the careers of two men who
were important in the Orpheum’s story: Marcus Priteca
and Tony Heinsbergen. Pantages’ life story reads like
an adventure novel. He was a sailor, a laborer, a Klondike prospector,
a guide, a bartender, saloon co-owner...... more
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Vancouver's Nine O'Clock Gun
 It's
been hit by lightning, plugged with rocks, short-circuited, silenced
by work stoppages and even (briefly) stolen but Vancouver's famed
old Nine O'Clock Gun has—as faithfully as circumstances have
allowed—boomed out the time of day from its home in Stanley
Park for 107 years now. The early life of this famed 12-pounder
muzzle-loaded naval cannon is vaguely known. Thanks to an inscription
on the gun itself, we know it was made by H & C King in 1816......
more »
Glen Brae
 There
are people who've lived in Vancouver all their lives and never seen
it, yet 2005 marks the 95th anniversary of the dramatic double-domed
Shaughnessy giant, the Tait Mansion.
A retired B.C. lumberman named William Lamont
Tait built the place, and critical reception to it was mixed
right from the start. There are some who think it's the ugliest
house in Vancouver, some who think it's beautiful—and some,
like me, who simply stand looking at it, open-mouthed..... more
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Canada's First Gas Station
There used to be a plaque at the southeast corner of Cambie and
Smithe in Vancouver that marked the location of Canada’s first
gas station. The plaque was installed in September of 1955 to commemorate
the 75th anniversary of the Imperial Oil Company. The station opened
in Vancouver, said the plaque, “in or before 1907”....
more »
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