The History of Metropolitan Vancouver

Chronology Continued

[1757 - 1884] [1885 - 1891] [1892 - 1899]
[1900 - 1905] [1906 - 1908] [1909] [1910]
[1911] [1912] [1913] [1914] [1915] [1916]
[1917] [1918] [1919] [1920] [1921] [1922]
[1923] [1924] [1925] [1926] [1927] [1928]
[1929] [1930] [1931] [1932] [1933] [1934]
[1935] [1936] [1937] [1938] [1939] [1940]
[1941] [1942] [1943] [1944] [1945] [1946]
[1947] [1948] [1949] [1950] [1951] [1952]
[1953] [1954] [1955] [1956] [1957] [1958]
[1959] [1960] [1961] [1962] [1963] [1964]
[1965] [1966] [1967] [1968] [1969] [1970]
[1971] [1972] [1973] [1974] [1975] [1976]
[1977] [1978] [1979] [1980] [1981] [1982]
[1983] [1984] [1985] [1986] [1987] [1988]
[1989] [1990] [1991] [1992] [1993] [1994]

1971

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You'll note that this year includes events listed under “Also in . . .“ These are events for which we don't have a specific date. If YOU know the
specific date of an event shown there, please notify us . . . and cite the source! Many thanks!
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January 2 Lions Bay was incorporated. Resident Max Wyman has written: “A plebiscite on incorporation late in 1970 drew more than the requisite 60 per cent majority vote from the 250 residents, and in the spring of 1971 Lions Bay officially became a village municipality. Some members of the GVRD board felt such a small community should not be allowed one of only 57 GVRD votes. ‘I think it's totally wrong,’ said Bill Vander Zalm, then Mayor of Surrey. ‘I don't know why it was done.’ A village complex was built: fire hall, fire truck storage, a council room, village office, kitchen and community hall-cum-gym. Allan (Curly) Stewart was elected mayor by acclamation, and villagers elected their first four-member council.”

January 8 Seaspan International was chosen as the new name after the merger of Vancouver Tugboats and Island Tug and Barge. The North Vancouver company operates tugs and specialty barges from Alaska to Mexico.

January 15 Vancouver got title to the old Shaughnessy Golf Course lands that would later be developed as Van Dusen Botanical Display Garden.

January 25 200 poor people marched on Vancouver’s city hall.

February The provincial government assigned the designation of historic areas, thus preventing demolition of historically significant buildings. Vancouver’s Gastown and Chinatown neighborhoods were designated historic sites. But this silver lining had a cloud. Writes Eleanor Yuen in The Greater Vancouver Book: “In 1971, the municipal government crippled the growth of Chinatown by declaring it an Historical Area where all old buildings of significant value to be were to be preserved and new developments strictly controlled. This designation was a blessing in those years as it helped fight proposals for a freeway right across its heart. A decade later, however, the heritage classification turned into a curse in disguise and stalled growth and development in the district.”

March 4 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, 52, married Margaret Sinclair, 22, at St. Stephen's Catholic Church in Lynn Valley, North Vancouver.

April 4 Victor Wentworth Odlum, soldier and publisher, died in Vancouver, aged 90. He was born October 21, 1880 in Cobourg, Ont. He arrived in Vancouver in 1889 with his scientist/writer father, Edward Odlum. Victor served in the Boer War and the First World War. Between wars, he worked as a journalist with several newspapers, including the Vancouver Daily Star as editor-in-chief. He was a Liberal MLA for Vancouver City from 1924 to 1928. He became the Star’s publisher in 1924, would hold that post until 1932. In the late 1930s, Odlum served on the CBC’s board. A brigadier, he commanded the 2nd Canadian Division in 1940-41. He was high commissioner to Australia and Canada's first ambassador to China (1943-46). He was ambassador to Turkey (1947-52). He was the publisher in 1964 of the short-lived Vancouver Times.

April The railway through White Rock (now called the Burlington Northern) ended its passenger service. A few years later a ‘fastbus’ commuter service by B.C. Hydro would link White Rock with Vancouver.

April 30 The War Measures Act, imposed October 16, 1970, lapsed.

May 4 Peter Basil Pantages, founder of the Polar Bear Club, died in Hawaii. He was born November 15, 1901 in Andros, Greece. He ran the Peter Pan Cafe on Granville Street with his three brothers from the early 1920s. He was the founder (1920) and director (for 51 years) of the Polar Bear swimming club, promoting New Year's Day outdoor swimming. An ardent fisherman; member of Canadian Wildlife Association and Royal Lifeguard Association. He swam every day, no matter where he travelled.

June 21 George Tidball opened his first Keg Restaurant in North Vancouver. In 1987 he would sell his Kegs and other restaurants (76 in all) to Whitbread PLC of London, England.

June 23 Vancouver mayor Tom Campbell visited the ‘Four Seasons’ site (at the entrance to Stanley Park) and vocally sparred with young people squatting there.

June 28 The Georgia Viaduct opened, in a ceremony presided over by Vancouver mayor Tom Campbell. (Its Dunsmuir twin, to the north, would open in November. Cost for the two: $11 million.) The old Georgia Viaduct, which had been dropping chunks of concrete onto the roadway below for much of its 56 years, was finally demolished to be replaced by the present viaduct.

The old viaduct—opened July 1, 1915 to extend Georgia Street over the CPR’s Beatty Street yards—was named the Hart McHarg Bridge for a First World War hero, but the name never caught on. During the Depression, the viaduct had provided shelter from the elements for large “hobo jungles” beneath.

July 2 Writer Evelyn Lau was born. She was having her work published by age 12. Now her books (Runaway, Fresh Girls, Other Women, Choose Me, others) are studied by college students. See this site and this one.

July 20 A pageant at Empire Stadium marked the centennial of B.C.'s entry into Confederation.

July 31 Foon Sien Wong, a well-known spokesperson for Chinese-Canadian rights, died in Vancouver in his 70s. Writes Constance Brissenden, “He was born c. late 1890s in Canton, China. He was also known as Wong Mon Poo. When he was 10, his family came to Vancouver Island and became well-off Cumberland merchants. In 1911 he met and was influenced by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. He graduated from UBC, later worked as a legal interpreter and translator. In 1937 Foon was named publicity agent for the Chinese Benevolent Association's (CBA) aid-to-China program during the Sino-Japanese War. During the Second World War he said that if Chinese were eligible to fight for Canada, they should be allowed to vote. He travelled often to Ottawa to make his case. The vote would come in 1947. As president of the Vancouver CBA (1947-59) he pursued human rights issues, especially immigration laws. In the 1960s he led the fight to stop the bulldozing of Strathcona's Chinese homes for a freeway project. “The unofficial mayor of Chinatown.”

July An 18-year-old lad from Dawson Creek named Roy Forbes came to Vancouver and began to sing professionally. He called himself Bim. He was sensational. And more than 30 years later, now singing as Roy Forbes, he still is. He has a good web site here.

August 7 The Gastown Riot. “The Battle of Maple Tree Square” drew more than 1,000 people to Gastown as a protest against the illegality of marijuana. But police on horseback were called in to break it up, arresting 79 and charging 38. A later judicial inquiry headed by Justice Thomas Dohm criticized the action, characterizing it as a “police riot.” The British Columbia Civil Liberties Assn has a response to the Dohm Inquiry here.

August 14 A “Gastown Festival,” exactly one week after the riot, and meant to repair the area’s image, drew 15,000 peaceful participants.

August 15 The Cannery Seafood Restaurant, still thriving, opened on Burrard Inlet in Vancouver. Some 46 pilings had to be driven into the Inlet's floor to create the foundation of the restaurant.

August 24 Yasutaro Yamaga, laborer and Japanese farm activist, died in Beamsville, Ontario, aged about 85. He was born in 1886 in Toyohama-mura, Hiroshima-ken, Japan. He came to B.C. from Seattle in 1907. After working as a CPR laborer, in 1908 he bought 10 acres near Haney. He spoke English well and understood the Canadian way of life. He organized Japanese social clubs in Haney, and imported Japanese schoolbooks from the US to replace Japanese government textbooks. He led the Japanese Farmers' Union in the Fraser Valley. After internment during the Second World War in Tashme, B.C., he ran a sawmill at 70 Mile House, then moved to Beamsville. While there, he established Nipponia Home, the first Japanese-Canadian senior citizen's home in Canada.

September 7 City School opened, “providing an education alternative to Vancouver students.” See this site.

September 15 The Greenpeace sailed from Vancouver to the island of Amchitka to protest a nuclear test on the remote Aleutian island by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The Greenpeace—the original name of which was the Phyllis Cormack, an 80-foot fishing vessel named after skipper John Cormack’s wife—had been chartered by the Don’t Make a Wave Committee.

“Environmentalists feared,” the Province reported, “that the underground blast might touch off an earthquake or tidal wave and that radiation might leak to the surface or into the sea.”

The test occurred while the Greenpeace was still en route, but the protest sparked a huge anti-nuclear demonstration in Vancouver by high school students and the Don’t Make a Wave Committee—renamed Greenpeace—stepped onto the world environmental stage. And see the October 6 item below.

September 26 Official opening of the nine-kilometre-long Stanley Park seawall. Special guest was the Hon. H.H. Stevens, present as a Member of Parliament in 1914 when the Parks Board and federal government authorized construction of the first section of the wall.

The ashes of Jimmy Cunningham, the brawny little man who supervised virtually all of the wall’s construction, are buried in an unmarked location within the wall. Cunningham had hefted thousands of its 45-kilogram (100-lb.) blocks into place over 32 years.

October 6 More than 10,000 secondary school students from all over the Lower Mainland massed in the 1000-block Alberni—near the U.S. consulate general’s office—as a protest against a planned U.S. nuclear test on Alaska’s Amchitka Island. The students sang, chanted and listened to speeches . . . and when the demonstration was over, some of them stayed behind to sweep up and collect litter boxes. A delegation from the group went to the consulate general’s office to explain their opposition to the blast. And see the September 15 item above.

October 21 The British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame opened in the B.C. Pavilion at the PNE. Tributes were paid to sports writer Eric Whitehead as the man most responsible "for the splendid collection of memorabilia, not to mention various splendid collections of money which made the Hall possible and will ensure its future." Today, with 19 galleries and even more splendid memorabilia (film, video, uniforms, trophies and more), the Hall is in bigger quarters (20,000 sq ft) at B.C. Place—and well worth a visit. See this site.

October 24 Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin made a state visit to Vancouver.

October 29 While the Greenpeace was still en route to Amchitka (see September 15 item) the atomic blast they were planning to protest went ahead. A second ship was organized, and left Vancouver today. This was the converted Canadian minesweeper the Edgewater Fortune. She was named the Greenpeace Too. From the web site: “The Greenpeace Too passed the Greenpeace near Campbell River and carried on north to Alaska—first to Juneau, and then outward bound across the Gulf of Alaska to the Aleutians . . . the U.S. Atomic Energy Committee advanced the next blast date to avoid the Greenpeace Too. The five-megaton explosion was detonated under Amchitka Island when the Greenpeace Too was still a few hundred miles away. The controversy the Greenpeace voyages generated led to the decision to cancel further tests, and the detonation of November 1971 was the last nuclear test to take place at Amchitka.”

November 5 Evlyn Fenwick Keirstead Farris, women's education activist, died in Vancouver, aged 93. She was born August 21, 1878 in Windsor, Nova Scotia. “She was a minister's daughter,” writes Constance Brissenden, “and a graduate, with first class honors, of Acadia U. (MA, 1898). From 1899 to 1905 she taught history at a Connecticut high school. At 28 she was a founder of UBC's University Women's Club (1907), formed to “stimulate intellectual activity.” She was club president from 1907 to 1909 and again in 1925-26. When the first UBC board was elected, women were excluded. In 1917, she was elected the first woman on the board, and went on to serve more than 20 years. She was married to J.W. deBeque Farris, crown prosecutor and attorney general. "Clever, elegant, idealistic . . . she made things happen.”

November 19 Heritage Village (now Burnaby Village Museum) was opened by Governor General Roland Michener. It showed Burnaby as it might have looked in bygone days. There are costumed townsfolk, historic buildings, self-guided tours, and a beautiful old carousel. Besides its entertainment purposes, the village is a learning resource for school groups.

November The Dunsmuir Viaduct opened to traffic. See the June 28 item above.

December 15 Bernice R. Brown, activist, died in West Vancouver, aged 66. She was born Bernice Dickhoff on April 11, 1905 in San Francisco. She worked at the San Francisco News, then married and settled in Vancouver in 1930. She was an early editor of the Jewish Western Bulletin. In 1939 she organized a Red Cross unit to enable Jewish women to do war work. In addition to providing supplies for use overseas, they resettled refugees and opened their homes to servicemen of all faiths. She received a Canadian Red Cross Distinguished Service Award in 1946. The unit continued until 1947, collecting clothes for Holocaust survivors. Through the media, she urged Parliament to change immigration policy and accept orphans of the Holocaust. She was later an active member of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs.

December 23 Sister Charles Spinola died in Montreal, aged 86. She was born January 28, 1885, came to St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver in 1906. She graduated from the hospital’s School of Nursing in 1912 and became supervisor of surgery. In 1918 she invented the “St. Charles Ether Machine," a device described by the hospital’s archives as "a vaporizing machine designed to reduce the dangerous aftereffects of anaesthesia.” Following the advice of many doctors, she applied for a patent in December of 1921. It was granted February 12, 1924. “Although she was encouraged to name it after herself, she preferred to name it after the Hospital instead; in the end she named it after her patron, St. Charles.” (The patent mistakenly refers to Sr. Charles as “him.”) The machine was eventually widely used throughout the country. In 1956 Sr. Charles celebrated her 50th year at St. Paul’s. She retired in 1963, after spending 57 years of her life in its service.

There’s an interesting article on the St. Paul’s archives by its former archivist Melanie Hardbattle here.

December 31 Province publisher Fred Auger buried a time capsule near the reception desk in the editorial department. It was to be opened on B.C.'s 200th birthday. This was when the newspaper was at 2250 Granville Street, before its move to Granville Square in 1997. Wonder what happened to that time capsule?

Also in 1971

The 1971 census showed the metropolitan population had topped the million mark. One remarkable finding of that census was that Delta’s population had tripled in 10 years. See the detailed figures at the bottom of this page.

Some 83 per cent of Richmond’s population listed English as their first language.

Vancouver film maker Anne Wheeler (born in Edmonton September 23, 1946) became part of Filmwest Associates in Vancouver, “dedicated to telling stories about western Canada. They taught themselves to shoot, edit, write, direct and produce.”

She learned well: The Diviners, from the Margaret Laurence novel, won three Geminis. The Sleep Room earned best movie and best director. Next came a comedy, Suddenly Naked, “about being truthful,” then A Wilderness Station, inspired by an Alice Munro story. Her 1989 Bye-Bye Blues (set in the wartime 1940s, about a young mother pursuing a dream of becoming a singer while her husband's overseas) has become a Canadian classic, a fine film. See this site.

Norbert Vesak’s Western Dance Theatre came to an end. It had lasted just a season-and-a-half. Now Murray Wiseman’s Ballet Horizons (see 1970) was the only ballet company in the province.

The Hyack Festival Association of New Westminster began its activities. These include the annual Hyack Festival, the Hyack Antique Car Easter Parade, the Santa Claus Parade, and the Miss New Westminster Ambassador Program.

The Capilano Fish Hatchery opened. The featured species are coho, chinook and steelhead. There is a good description of why the hatchery was begun (click on ‘history’) here.

A portion reads: “The construction of the Cleveland Dam blocked the route of coho and steelhead traveling up the Capilano River to spawn. Greater than 95 per cent of their spawning and approximately 75 per cent of their rearing habitat was lost. To mitigate this loss, the Greater Vancouver Water District constructed a concrete river weir and fish ladder. This system collected adult salmon returning to the river to spawn. They were then transported in transport tanks and deposited above the dam to continue their journey upstream. However, young salmon migrating downstream to the ocean suffered high losses, as they had to travel over the dam. Over the next decade the Capilano salmon stocks continued to decline. To address this problem, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans decided to build Capilano Hatchery to rear and release salmon below the dam. Construction began in 1969 and the three million-dollar facility was completed in 1971.”

The Greater Vancouver Water District, which had been incorporated in 1926, became part of the Greater Vancouver Regional District. So did the Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District, incorporated in 1956, a successor to the Vancouver and District Joint Sewerage and Drainage Board, incorporated in 1914.

Starbucks opened at its first location: Seattle’s Pike Place Market.

Among the locally-shot films released this year were these five (annotations by film historian Michael Walsh):

Director Mike Nichols shot Carnal Knowledge here. The film starred Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret and Rita Moreno. Michael Walsh comments: “Vancouver stars as Middle America in a boomer generation drama about guys who spend their lives chasing girls and talking about sex.”

McCabe And Mrs. Miller (Director: Robert Altman) A drifter, Warren Beatty, becomes enamored of a frontier madam, Julie Christie, in director Altman's second Vancouver-made feature, a Western that he shot in a specially-built North Shore mining town.

Madeleine Is . . . (Director: Sylvia Spring) Reflecting the militant, mystic 1960s, Torontonian Spring created a feminist fantasy about a runaway Quebecoise (Nicola Lipman) who finds personal fulfillment clowning around Kitsilano. John Juliani was in the cast. This was the first Vancouver-made feature film directed by a woman.

The Life And Times Of Chester-Angus Ramsgood (Director: David Curnick) A love-smitten teen (Robert Matson) develops elaborate schemes to impress the ultra-Scottish parents of his would-be girlfriend (Mary-Beth McGuffin) in this Vancouver West Side farce.

Jack Darcus wrote, directed and co-starred (with Susan Spencer) in Proxyhawks, in which “a coastal farm couple experience deepening sexual tensions in their relationship when the man becomes obsessed with falconry.”

Tiny Fraser Mills, population 157, was annexed by Coquitlam.

The Jericho Youth Hostel was created within what had been a barracks for the old Jericho air station.

Construction began at UBC on the Sedgewick Undergraduate Library (architects: Rhone and Iredale), located in part beneath the Main Mall and featuring conical skylights. It will be completed in 1972.

George Burrows ended his long career (it had started in 1931) supervising Vancouver's beaches and pools. A cairn in his honor is near the bathhouse at Kitsilano Beach.

A bronze and steel fountain in the plaza of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, designed by Gerhard Hans Class, began operating. The fountain was a gift to the city and province from the German-Canadian community.

The fireboat J.H. Carlisle was taken out of service by the Vancouver Fire Department. She was replaced by four 1,500-gallon-per-minute ‘Super Pumps’ stationed in the firehalls around False Creek, which by then was more easily accessible by land-based fire companies.

The federal government, under Prime Minister Trudeau, announced a new policy of multiculturalism. That made Canada the first country in the world to adopt multiculturalism as an official policy. (In 1997 Statistics Canada noted 68 different ethnic backgrounds of people living in the Vancouver region, including 20 Haitians as the smallest group to the English, the largest, at 257,020.) The policy also confirmed the rights of the country’s aboriginal people and the status of Canada's two official languages. It has been largely adopted as a model by many other provincial and civic governments. It’s described in some detail on this site.

St. George's Greek Orthodox Church on Arbutus Street was completed, reflecting a growth in the number of people of Greek ancestry.

UBC began offering the first credit courses in Women’s Studies in Canada.

George F. Curtis, the first Dean of UBC’s Faculty of Law, retired. He had served since 1945. (In 1995 he will become a member of the Order of British Columbia, in 2003 will receive the Queen's Jubilee Gold Medal, and in 2005 be appointed an officer of the Order of Canada.) The Law building at UBC is named for him.

An extension paid for by graduate students is added to UBC’s Graduate Student Centre (Thea Koerner House). The building serves as a social and cultural centre for students in graduate studies.

The Anglican Theological College, Union College (United Church), and the Ecumenical College affiliated with UBC amalgamated to form the Vancouver School of Theology.

Students at the Langara campus of Vancouver Community College, who had been pushing unsuccessfully for a crosswalk at 49th Avenue and Ontario Street, stopped traffic to paint their own crosswalk on the street. The city eventually gave in to the students’ demands, and installed two crosswalks.

Barry M. Gough at UBC submitted a PhD thesis titled The Royal Navy and the Northwest Coast of North America, 1810-1914. It was turned into a book this same year by UBC Press. One review read, in part: “This is a scholar devoted to meticulous empirical research and argument; there are surely very few relevant archival documents which Gough has not seen, few sites of maritime importance which he has not visited in person.”

A 169-bed extended-care unit (Evergreen House) opened at Lions Gate Hospital.

Apartment & Building, published six times a year by BKN Publications, first appeared.

Event, published three times a year at Douglas College, first appeared. It presented reviews, fiction and poetry.

Hellenic View, a semi-monthly with text in English and Greek, first appeared. It featured news of the Greek community in B.C. and elsewhere in Canada.

Supply Post, a monthly publication on the forestry industry from Ken Kenward Enterprises Ltd., first appeared.

The hugely successful Vancouver Buy and Sell, published twice weekly by Buy and Sell Press, first appeared. It presented free classified advertising in tabloid form.

Another great publishing success, Western Living, published 10 times a year by Telemedia West, first appeared. It was founded by Liz Bryan and her husband, photographer Jack Bryan.

Today, this lifestyle magazine’s circulation in B.C. is about 200,000.

The Port of Vancouver processed 22,800 cruise passenger this year. The total would pass 170,000 in 1981, top 423,000 in 1991 and reach 600,000 in 1995. The last full year for which we have figures, 2004, shows a total of 929,976.

Callister Park, bounded by Renfrew, Oxford, Kaslo and Cambridge Streets, and a centre for soccer for more than five decades across from the PNE grounds, was demolished. (The park was formerly known as Con Jones Park. It was built by Con Jones in 1912 as a playing ground for his Vancouver field lacrosse team. The name changed to Callister Park in 1942.)

The 41-kilometre Baden-Powell Trail was built on the north shore by various Boy Scout and Girl Guide troops. The trail was named in honor of the scouting movement's founder. Writes Charles Montgomery: “It cuts a wandering line from Horseshoe Bay to Indian Arm, sampling all the delights of the North Shore: from Black Mountain's magnificent views of Howe Sound, through dark forests and rushing canyons all the way to the quiet waters of Deep Cove.”

The Tunnel Town Curling Club, which had opened four sheets of ice in a Boundary Bay air hangar in 1958, moved to Tsawwassen.

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and wife Margaret opened the 500,000-gallon whale pool at the Vancouver Public Aquarium.

Time Line, a 16-feet-high concrete sculpture by Tom Osborne, was installed in North Vancouver’s Mahon Park. The work was commissioned to commemorate B.C.'s entry into Confederation. It’s described as “Six wall-like cement structures spaced equally on the periphery of a five-meter earth circle.”

The Vancouver Chamber Choir, led by its founder/conductor/music director Jon Washburn, was formed. It is still making great music. From their very fine website: “The Choir impresses audiences with the depth and range of its repertoire and interpretive skills. Their concerts can include music from chant to folksong, traditional to avant-garde, a capella to orchestra or jazz trio; Jon Washburn is noted for devising innovative and fascinating programs and unearthing hidden choral treasures. The singers delight in acquiring foreign language skills and have sung in over 35 languages. A leading advocate of Canadian music and composers, the Choir has commissioned and premiered more than 170 new choral works in the last 30 years.”

Tamahnous Theatre was founded by John Gray, the late Larry Lillo and others. It would present new and challenging work for more than 20 years. A UBC site says: “In addition to scripted works produced by the company, including many plays written for the group, Tamahnous Theatre was known for, and was based in, collective creation. It was a mark of the collaborative nature of this group that even the scripted works developed by the company’s writers went through a workshop process with all of the members of the troupe, and had input from everyone involved with the project. After the 1980s, the number of Tamahnous’ collective creations declined and the company went in other directions.”

Five former Royal Winnipeg Ballet dancers launched Ballet Horizons in Vancouver. It lasted a year.

Concert Box Office was founded by the late Gary Switlo and Tom Worrall. They sold tickets to rock shows. They would merge with their chief competitor, Vancouver Ticket Centre, in 1987.

The leading publisher here of trade books—those directed at the general public—is Douglas & McIntyre, the largest English-language Canadian-owned publisher outside Toronto. The company began this year—publishing two books—as J.J. Douglas Ltd., named for company founder Jim Douglas. Douglas’ partner was Scott McIntyre, now the company president. Their first two books were: British Columbia Coast Names, by John T. Walbran, a book that first appeared in 1909. It’s still in print under the D&M imprint. The other book was Cooking for One, by Norah Mannion Wilmot, which went on to sell some 50,000 copies and which was in print until about 10 years ago. The company was off to a great start!

Ann Blades, writer and illustrator, began her career with Mary of Mile 18, based on her experiences as a teacher in the B.C. Interior. The Canadian Association of Children's Librarians would choose it as Book of the Year in 1972. See this site.

Pulp Press was founded in Vancouver, founded, says the company’s web site, “by a collective of university students and associates disenchanted by what they perceived to be the academic literary pretensions of Canadian literature at the time. The early seventies were a fertile and exciting period in alternative arts and literature, and life at Pulp was no exception.” Pulp would become Arsenal Pulp Press in 1982.

T.W. Paterson, who has written many books on B.C. history, got them going with Treasure, British Columbia. See this site.

The 35-member CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra, conducted by John Avison, became the first Canadian orchestra to perform in the Arctic.

Artist B.C. Binning was named an officer of the Order of Canada.

Walter Gage, while serving as president of UBC, was awarded the Order of Canada.

Sprinter Harry Jerome was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Vancouver’s Bob Smith, who was already presenting the jazz program Hot Air on CBC Radio, became the host of the Vancouver edition of CBC's That Midnight Jazz. He would do that until 1979. Smith was “an encyclopedia of jazz, jazz musicians and records.”

Vancouver’s Rebecca Watson became president of BC’s Progressive Conservative party.

Gertrude Weinrobe, the first Jewish child born in Vancouver (May 12, 1893) received the 1971 B.C. Pioneer Centennial Medal.

The fondly remembered Saskatoon-born Steve Woodman, entertainer and broadcaster, moved to Vancouver, aged 44. Among his many gigs, he hosted CKWX's Steve's Place and Vancouver Variety Club telethons. He was also an original cast member of the zany radio show Dr. Bundolo’s Pandemonium Medicine Show, recorded live at UBC's student union building. “A man of 1,000 voices.” After a 1974 telethon, a car accident on black ice nearly took his life and ended his career. He died March 13, 1990.

1971 census figures for Metropolitan Vancouver:

Bowen Island	350
Burnaby	125,600
Coquitlam (includes Fraser Mills, pop. 157, annexed this year)	53,225
Delta	45,860 (1961 pop. 14,597)
Langley City	4,680
Langley Township	21,935
Lions Bay	396 (incorporated this year)
Maple Ridge	24,480
New Westminster	42,835
North Vancouver City	31,847
North Vancouver District	57,861
Pitt Meadows	2,770
Port Coquitlam	19,560
Port Moody	10,778
Richmond	62,121
Surrey	96,601
Vancouver	426,256
University Endowment Lands	3,536
West Vancouver	36,440
White Rock	10,349