The History of Metropolitan Vancouver

Chronology Continued

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[1923] [1924] [1925] [1926] [1927] [1928]
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[1941] [1942] [1943] [1944] [1945] [1946]
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[1971] [1972] [1973] [1974] [1975] [1976]
[1977] [1978] [1979] [1980] [1981] [1982]
[1983] [1984] [1985] [1986] [1987] [1988]
[1989] [1990] [1991] [1992] [1993] [1994]

1976

This year is sponsored.

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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 1 Cloverdale Raceway opened, quickly became one of the premier harness racing centres in North America. In 1996, it would undergo about $3 million in renovations and be renamed Fraser Downs. See this site for an interesting story about Jim Keeling, Sr., who began the raceway.

January 2 The Social Credit government ordered that auto insurance rates in BC be increased by as much as three times current rates, starting March 1. ICBC chief Pat McGeer told motorists that, if they couldn’t afford the new rates, they should sell their cars. That warm, sympathetic advice prompted the overnight appearance of bumper stickers everywhere reading Stick it in Your Ear, McGeer.

January 18 John Arthur Clark, lawyer and soldier, died in Vancouver, aged 89. “He was born,” writes Constance Brissenden, “June 8, 1886 in Dundas, Ont. He graduated from U. of T. (BA, 1906; Bachelor of Law, 1909; Osgoode Hall, 1909). He joined the 77th Volunteer Regiment in Dundas, served from 1903 to 1909. In 1910 he was appointed captain in the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada. In 1911 Clark came to Vancouver, and began the law firm of Lennie & Clark (1911-29). During the Second World War, he commanded Vancouver's 72nd Battalion; then the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade, fighting at all major battles, and reaching the rank of brigadier. Wounded once, he was awarded the CMG and DSO with two bars. Clark was Progressive Conservative MP for Vancouver-Burrard from 1921 to 1926.”

February 9 Prime Minister Trudeau officially commissioned the TRIUMF (Tri-University Meson Facility) nuclear accelerator at the University of British Columbia. Check the 1972 Chronology for more detail on this important facility, in the forefront of, among many other things, medical research.

Also February 9 H.R. MacMillan, lumber magnate, died in Vancouver, aged 90. Harvey Reginald MacMillan was born September 9, 1885 in Newmarket, Ont. He attended Ontario Agricultural College and Yale Forestry School. In 1908 he was hired as assistant inspector, Western Canada forest reserves, but had to spend two years in a TB sanatorium. In 1912 he was named chief B.C. forester. During WWI MacMillan worked for the federal timber-trade commissioner and the Imperial Munitions Board. In 1919, backed by British timber merchant Montague Meyer, he launched H.R. MacMillan Export. His manager (and later partner) was W.J. VanDusen. During WWII he was the chair of Wartime Shipping Ltd., a Crown corporation. In 1951 MacMillan merged his company with Bloedel, Stewart and Welch to form MacMillan Bloedel Ltd. He resigned as chair in 1956, and as a director in 1970. See H.R. by Ken Drushka.

February 12 The opening ceremonies of the Earle Douglas MacPhee Executive Conference Centre and the Cyrus H. McLean Audio-Visual Theatre, the bottom and top floors (respectively) of the north wing of the Henry Angus building (Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration).

March 10 12-year-old Abby Drover was abducted while on her way to school from her Port Moody home. She was finally found in September of 1976. Abby had been confined for six months in a bunker underneath the garage of Donald Hay's home, less than half-a-mile from the Drover home, and tortured and repeatedly raped. Hay was given a life sentence for the abduction.

In 2001 Abby Drover would give her consent for her name to be published. She said she was moved to go public by a spate of recent attempted abductions of children in the Vancouver area. She said she wanted to make sure that those hurt by crime, especially children, know they can get help through victim services. “They certainly have made a difference in my life,” she said. “If we’re all honest with ourselves, we can all remember the victim’s name second, and I want to change that.”

Hay has frequently applied for parole, most recently in 2006, and has been turned down. See the book Resurrection: The Kidnapping of Abby Drover by John Griffiths.

March 16 Artist B.C. Binning died in Vancouver, aged 67. “Bertram Charles Binning,” writes Constance Brissenden, “was born February 10, 1909 in Medicine Hat, Alta. His family moved to Vancouver in 1913. He attended the Vancouver School of Art (VSA), and art schools in Oregon, Greenwich Village and London, Eng. He joined UBC's school of architecture in 1949 after teaching at VSA. Binning was a founder and head of the UBC fine arts department (1955-68); instructor (1968-73). He developed UBC's Fine Arts Gallery, launched the Brock Hall Canadian art collection and was founder/director of the Festival of Contemporary Arts.” He was involved in the negotiations for the planning of the Nitobe Memorial Garden at UBC.

Binning was awarded the Order of Canada Medal of Service in 1971. Thousands of locals see his work daily in the intricate pattern of tiles on Electra, formerly the BC Hydro, and earlier the BC Electric Building, at Burrard and Nelson Streets.

There is a nice appreciation of his work on the Artists For Kids web site and the North Shore News has a delightful story here on the home Binning built in 1941 for himself and his wife . . . for $5,000!

March The following structures were designated Schedule A Heritage Buildings by the City of Vancouver. (Years of construction/modifications in parentheses).

Beatty Street Drill Hall (1899-1901) 620 Beatty
James England House (1907) 2300 Birch
Marine Building (1920-30) 355 Burrard
Hotel Vancouver (1929-39) 900 West Georgia
Sylvia Hotel (1911-12) 1154 Gilford
Vancouver Block (1912) 736 Granville
Winch Building (1909) 757 West Hastings
BC Permanent Loan (1907) 330 West Pender
Canada Permanent (1911) 432 Richards
Hodson Manor (1894 & 1903) 1254 West 7th
Steamboat House (1890) 1151 West 8th
Davis House (1891) 166 West 10th
City Hall (1936) 453 West 12th

The City of Vancouver has a web site that explains the heritage designations. “A” refers to buildings of “Primary Significance,” which represent “the best examples of a style or type of building; may be associated with a person or event of significance.” “B” refers to “Significant” buildings, which represent “good examples of a particular style or type, either individually or collectively; may have some documented historical or cultural significance in a neighbourhood.”

April 3 The West Vancouver Aquatic Centre opened at 776 22nd Street. It has a pool, weight room, sauna, Jacuzzi, children’s pool, etc.

April 7 Rebecca Belle Watson, community activist, died in Vancouver, aged about 65. She was born c. 1911 in Kitsilano. She taught in the Cariboo, then trained as a nurse at Vancouver General Hospital. In 1958, as spokesperson for Save Our Parklands Association, she rescued the Shaughnessy Golf Course from development. She was elected to the Vancouver park board in 1968. She was an executive member of TEAM, The Electors Action Movement, and in 1971 became president of the BC Progressive Conservative Party. A West End resident, she was active in its community associations. She was named to the City of Vancouver’s Civic Merit Board of Honor, the 22nd inductee in its 34-year history.

April 23 The 93-metre high, 24-storey Four Seasons Hotel at 791 W. Georgia officially opened with a benefit to raise funds for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

May 15 The Arthur Laing Bridge officially opened, named after a native son of Richmond who became a cabinet minister under Pierre Trudeau, then later a Senator. The $23 million four-lane bridge, which crosses the north arm of the Fraser to Sea Island, vastly speeded up access to the Vancouver International Airport. See the entry for August 27, 1975 (when traffic began using the bridge) for more.

May 16 An earthquake jolted southwestern BC and adjacent Washington State, a 5.3 Richter-scale fracture 70 kilometres below Pender Island. “It knocked people from their beds in White Rock, cut electrical services in Richmond and South Vancouver, and on the Sechelt Peninsula, and sent residents of West End highrises screaming into the halls as the building swayed for 30 seconds.” This is also the year the Pacific Geoscience Centre was created.

May 18 The Komagata Maru Incident, a play by Sharon Pollock, opened at the Playhouse Theatre. The Literary Encyclopedia has this to say about the play: “The Komagata Maru Incident, first produced by the Vancouver Playhouse in 1976 under Larry Lillo’s direction, secured Pollock’s position as an important playwright. It draws on an actual event—the government’s refusal in 1914 to allow Sikh immigrants to land on Canadian soil—for its story, but it stages that story in a highly theatrical, presentational style developed through the metaphors of a brothel and a circus with a ringmaster-cum-barker called ‘T.S.’ (short for The System).”

May 20 The Joe Fortes Branch of the Vancouver Public Library—named for the beloved English Bay life guard—opened at 870 Denman Street in the West End. Its web site has much information, and neighborhood data.

May 27 Habitat, a United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, convened in Vancouver. Hundreds of delegates attended from all over the world. The event ran to June 11. To get a sense of what was discussed (its style makes it a very dry read) go here to read the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements. Here’s a sample: “Governments and the international community should facilitate the transfer of relevant technology and experience and should encourage and assist the creation of endogenous technology better suited to the sociocultural characteristics and patterns of population by means of bilateral or multilateral agreements having regard to the sovereignty and interest of the participating States. The knowledge and experience accumulated on the subject of human settlements should be available to all countries. Research and academic institutions should contribute more fully to this effort by giving greater attention to human settlements problems.”

An alternative—and hugely popular—conference, Habitat Forum, run by Alan Clapp, was held at Jericho Beach Park. There was music and entertainment and talk and the world’s longest bar.

May 31 UBC's Museum of Anthropology, around since 1947, moved into a stunning new building designed by Arthur Erickson.

MOA was founded to preserve and display existing material, while continuing to collect archaeological and ethnographical artifacts from British Columbia and the rest of the world. (UBC had been collecting ethnographic material since 1927.) For almost 50 years, the collection remained in the basement of the Main Library, tended by a devoted Dr. Harry Hawthorn and Audrey Hawthorn. In 1976, the collection came out of the basement and moved into its 70,000-square-foot home on the bluffs of Point Grey overlooking Howe Sound and the mountains. The first director was Dr. Michael Ames, a Professor in the department of Anthropology and Sociology.

The Museum was a gift from the federal government to the people of B.C., to celebrate the 100th anniversary of B.C. entering Confederation in 1871. The building was designed by Arthur Erickson, once a professor at UBC. The Great Hall is reminiscent of Haida Indian longhouses (examples of which can be found by the museum). Inside is an impressive collection of Northwest Coastal Indian artifacts and a vast research collection of anthropological artifacts from most of the Pacific Cultures. These collections are kept in “open storage,” displayed in glass cases and drawers where anyone can see them easily, instead of in closed storage where access for research or enjoyment is difficult. The entrance area features a dramatic sculpture, Raven and the First Men, by Haida artist Bill Reid (commissioned by the Museum in 1980). The Museum has the world's largest collection of works by Reid.

May The Canadian Encyclopedia has good detailed coverage of Vancouver’s Community Music School (which became the Vancouver Academy of Music in 1979) here. A portion of it reads: “Founded in 1969 as the result of a five-year study of Vancouver's expanding needs by the non-profit Community Arts Council. Situated at first on West 12th Ave, the school moved in May 1976 to the Music Centre in Vanier Park, a former RCAF warehouse, reconstructed at a cost of $1.8 million. The centre comprises classrooms, practice studios, a library, rehearsal rooms for orchestra and choir, 36 teaching studios, and the 284-seat Koerner Recital Hall.”

June 3 Freddie (Frederic Gordon Campbell) Wood, University Players' Club founder, died in Vancouver, aged 89. “He was born,” writes Constance Brissenden, “January 26, 1887 in Victoria. A McGill graduate (1910), he taught in Victoria, then attended Harvard (MA, 1915). He was the first B.C.-born educator at UBC when it opened in 1915 and was there until he retired in 1950. Wood founded and directed the University Players' Club from 1915 to 1931. He annually toured a student show across B.C., the only live theatre seen in many towns. His wife Beatrice (b. November 29, 1899, Vancouver, d. July 18, 1992, Vancouver), was the daughter of lieutenant-governor John William Fordham-Johnson (1931-36). The University Players' Club was disbanded in 1966 after the launch of UBC's theatre department. Wood was co-founder of Vancouver Little Theatre with E.V. Young. UBC’s Frederic Wood Theatre (the ‘Freddy Wood’) is named for him.” See the top of our 1952 page for an interesting photograph.

June 27 The first Greek Days Festival is held on West Broadway, sponsored by the Hellenic Community Association.

July 21 Black Top Taxi bowed to the B.C. Human Rights Branch and lifted a 9 p.m. ban on woman drivers that had been contested by owner-operator Terry Bellamy, a mother of three who needed to work nights.

August 4 Brill T-44 coach #2082 made its final run after 28 years of service.

August 8 Wilson Duff, anthropologist, died by suicide in Vancouver, aged 51. He was born March 23, 1925 in Vancouver. His entire career centered on the study of Northwest Coast Indians. He was educated at UBC (BA, 1949) and U. of Washington (MA, 1951). Duff was the curator of anthropology at provincial museum from 1950 to 1965. He moved to Vancouver to teach and do research at UBC’s department of anthropology and sociology. He was a founding member of the B.C. Museum Association. Duff helped preserve the last remaining totem poles at Kitwancool and villages in Queen Charlotte Islands in the 1950s. He wrote The Indian History of British Columbia and Arts of the Raven: Masterworks by the Northwest Coast Indians. And see The World is as Sharp as a Knife, An Anthology in Honor of Wilson Duff, edited by Donald N. Abbott. For a good brief biography, and an explanation of his suicide, look here.

August Vancouver's Greg Joy won Olympic silver in the high jump. There’s a brief 1976 interview about the win with Joy by Peter Gzowski here. He talks about his rivalry with American Dwight Stones (who won bronze), the booing of the crowd and more.

September 5 Writes Lee Bacchus: “A former CBC producer/director named Daryl Duke and his partner, writer/producer Norman Klenman, created CKVU, a small independent station on West Second Avenue in Vancouver. Their flagship program was a five-day-a-week, live talk and entertainment potpourri called The Vancouver Show. CKVU kicked off its broadcast on Sept. 5, 1976 with the two-hour program with hosts Mike Winlaw (a former host of CBUT's Hourglass) and Pia Shandel (a local actor).” This was Vancouver's second privately-owned television station, CKVU-TV. Duke would serve as president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board until 1988 when he sold his ownership in order to devote full time to his film and television career. See this site.

“It was pretty hairy back then,” says Ed Knight, the station's design director and charter staffer. “I was the eldest even back then. Most of the employees very young people who had come from other media. We worked around the clock—of course there were no unions back then.”

September 7 B.C. Tel began direct distance dialling overseas. To mark the occasion Vancouver’s mayor Art Phillips called the mayor of King’s Lynn in England, the birthplace of Capt. George Vancouver.

September 12 The old Central School/City Hall building in North Vancouver opened as Presentation House, housing the North Shore Museum and Archives, a small theatre, and a photographic gallery. There is a fine history of the complex, and a tribute to Anne MacDonald—so important to its development—here.

September 17 Official opening of the UBC Law Building.

September 27 CBUFT/26 (cable 7) signed on at 9:30 a.m., bringing CBC-TV's French language service to the west coast.

Fall Douglas College opened a Richmond campus, at 5840 Cedarbridge way, a converted warehouse.

November 30 Six women were ordained as Anglican priests in Canada today, two of them in B.C. Nearly 1,000 people jammed into Vancouver's 800-seat Christ Church Cathedral to witness the ordination of the Rev. Virginia Briant and the Rev. Elspeth Alley. Anglican Archbishop David Somerville officiated at the ceremony, which also saw the Rev. Michael Deck become a priest. During the ceremony, the rector at St. David's parish read a protest against the ordination of the two women, saying it was a “sponge [sic] to women's lib.” The Rev. Virginia Briant is now retired in Penticton. The Rev. Elspeth Alley died in 2000.

Also November 30 The front page of the Province had disturbing news: The Canadian dollar had dropped to 96.95 cents in U.S. funds. Corporate traders in the U.S. were “jumping into the foreign exchange market to unload their Canadian currency.” It was not until December 2 that our dollar stopped its “plunge” at 96.76 cents. (At this writing, it's 85.7.)

December 6 The BC Paraplegic Foundation was incorporated.

December 10 “Work will start immediately,” the Province wrote, “on construction of a $30-million grain elevator in North Vancouver to replace the Burrard Terminals elevator partly destroyed by an explosion and fire in October 1975 . . . The elevator will have a storage capacity of four million bushels and will be able to unload more than 100 cars per eight-hour shift. The present concrete silos, built in 1928, will be integrated into the new complex, which will operate under the name of Pioneer Grain Terminals Ltd.”

December 15 Grouse Mountain Resorts' “Superskyride” was opened by Premier Bill Bennett, more than doubling the uphill capacity. It was 10 years to the day since his father, Premier W.A.C. Bennett, opened the first Grouse Mountain skyride.

December The following structures were designated Schedule A Heritage Buildings by the City of Vancouver. (Years of construction/modifications in parentheses).

Alexandra Park Bandstand (1915) Beach Avenue at Burnaby
St. Paul's Church (1905) 1138 Jervis
First Baptist Church (1911) 969 Burrard
Strathcona School, Nos. 2, 3, 4, & 5 (1897) 594 East Pender
Roedde House (1893) 1415 Barclay
Vancouver Club (1912-14)
Ukrainian Orthodox Church (1950) 154 East 10th
Hirshfield House (1910) 1963 Comox

The following structures were designated Schedule B Heritage Buildings by the City of Vancouver. (Years of construction/modifications in parentheses).

Chalmers Church (1912) 2801 Hemlock
Douglas Lodge (1907) 2799 Granville
St. Luke's Home (1924) 309 East Cordova
Palms Hotel (1890 & 1913) 869-873 Granville
Bank of Commerce (1929) 819 Granville
Hudson's Bay Insurance Co. (1911) 900 West Hastings

For an explanation of the “A” and “B” designations, see the same subject in the March entry above.

Also in 1976

Tong Louie, head of H.Y. Louie Co. Limited, bought London Drugs—which was, at the time, owned by an American company, the Daylin Corporation. His competition for the purchase was the American firm Payless. They held the option to buy the chain, but were being thwarted by Canadian federal regulations forbidding foreign companies taking over Canadian companies without having a Canadian partner. In 1976 Payless came to Vancouver looking for just such a partner. From a fascinating 2003 book titled Laws of Heaven by Eve Rockett, the story of the H.Y. Louie Company, we learn that the search came down to two contenders: H.Y. Louie and eastern-based Shoppers Drug Mart.

“Tong, Payless and the lawyers gathered in the offices of Bull Housser & Tupper in the Royal Centre downtown,” Rockett writes. “‘I’m not used to having partners,’ said Tong. ‘What do you want for the option?’ The price for the stores was $9 million; for the option they wanted $500,000 US. ‘His accountant and his lawyer warned him in no uncertain terms that there had been no due diligence,’ says Brandt. ‘My father puffed on his pipe and thought about it for 30 seconds, and extended his hand. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘it’s a deal.’ From the moment they all sat down until they shook hands, the meeting took 20 minutes.’

“A Payless representative spoke up. ‘You’re a private company, we don’t know anything about you. We have to look at your financial statements to vouch you’ll go through with the deal.’ Tong phoned the Royal Bank on the 36th floor and told them to come down with a comfort letter and a bank draft for half a million dollars. He handed over the comfort letter and the cheque, the lawyers drafted a document and Tong walked out.

“In about half an hour, Tong Louie had brought London Drugs home to Canada.”

The Vancouver Book appeared. This was an “urban almanac,” conceived and edited by Chuck Davis. It was just under 500 pages long, commissioned by the Social Planning Department of the City of Vancouver, and had dozens of articles on the city’s history, neighborhoods, environment, architecture, government, ethnic groups, media, transportation and more. The Greater Vancouver Book (1997), also edited by Davis, was an expansion of the original notion.

The local book-publishing trade began to make an impression. In 1976 The Vancouver Book listed more than 35 local book publishers with an annual total of 100 new titles, including books on poetry, yoga, metric conversion, educational, medical and music textbooks.

The book Gabby, Ernie and Me, by Ted Ashlee, appeared, an anecdotal reminiscence of the author’s early life in Marpole.

The book Two Weeks in Vancouver, by Chuck Davis and John Ewing, appeared. This was a small guidebook to the city intended for use by delegates to Habitat, the UN conference. The book also appeared in French and Spanish translation.

The book Woodwards: the story of a distinguished B.C. family appeared. Written by Douglas E. Harker, it’s a history of the famed retailing family.

These publications first appeared in 1976:

Association for Canadian Theatre Research: Newsletter, a semi-annual publication of the Association for Canadian Theatre Research.

B C Journal of Special Education It was published three times a year by the Special Education Association, Dept. of Educational Psychology and Special Education, UBC. The publication was devoted to reviews of research, case studies, surveys, and reports on the effectiveness of innovative programs

Copper Toadstool, a semi-annual literary magazine.

Multifaith News, published five times a year by the Multifaith Action Society, this was an inter-faith publication aimed at promoting understanding between different faith groups, social action in perspective

Music Research News This was a semi-annual publication of the Canadian Music Research Council, c/o Simon Fraser University.

Other Press, a free fortnightly student newspaper out of Douglas College in New Westminster.

TV Week, a weekly magazine with listings and television-related features.

The Outdoor Recreation Council of B.C. was established. It is a registered non-profit umbrella organization dedicated to promoting outdoor recreation in B.C.

Artist Robert Bateman retired after 20 years of teaching high school geography and art to paint full time. He was, he says, inspired by the work of American painter Andrew Wyeth. And what does Salt Spring Island’s most well-known resident, renowned for his wildlife paintings, think of critics who say his work isn’t real art? “My view of all this is that an artist is an artist, be he/she high, low or decorative. Artists are artists because they can't help it—they just are and they do art for the love of it or because they can't stop themselves.” He’s raised millions for naturalist and conservation organizations. There’s lots of his work viewable on the Net. Go to this site and click on the “Biography” link.

After the Vancouver Stock Exchange’s worst year in more than a decade (1975, with just 190 million shares traded), the VSE got a new president, tough-minded securities lawyer Robert Scott. In their critical 1987 book on the VSE, Fleecing The Lamb, David Cruise and Alison Griffiths wrote that Scott “created new regulations and saw to it that the old ones were enforced.”

The building at Main Street and East 15th in Vancouver, erected in 1914, was originally Postal Station C. Later it became a federal Department of Agriculture office block, then sat empty for three years. Then in 1965 it was occupied by a special investigation branch of the RCMP . . . who moved out this year. Today the building is known as Heritage Hall.

The 198-metre-high (650 feet) Mica Dam on the Columbia River added 870,000 kilowatts to the B.C. Hydro power system. The first two dams on the Columbia had been completed in 1967 (Duncan) and 1968 (Hugh Keenlyside).

BC Ferries launched three double-ended “jumbo ferries.”

The Richmond Nature Park opened. It was intended to preserve the last remaining section of Burns Bog. The web site says, in part, “The Richmond Nature Park consists of 200 acres of the raised peat bog habitat that once covered large portions of Lulu Island. Four walking trails totalling 7 km in length provide visitors the opportunity to encounter plants and animals in bog, forest and pond habitats.”

Vancouver designated the Marine Building as a heritage property, citing it as “one of the most accomplished and complete examples of Art Deco style in the world. In addition, the literal interpretation of the Vancouver environment in its form and details gives it a special architectural significance.”

Whistler got its own post office.

Architect Arthur Erickson won a Citation from the Canadian Architect Yearbook for the British Columbia Medical Centre.

The 10-storey 35-metre-high B.C. Turf Building was constructed. Its architect was Zoltan Kiss. It’s known today simply as 475 West Georgia.

The owners and management of the Penthouse Cabaret on Seymour were charged with keeping a common bawdy house. The Penthouse Six, as they became known, included Joe Philliponi, a celebrated cabaret figure. It was alleged that 80 to 100 prostitutes a night would pick up clients at the nightspot. “The trial,” wrote Greg Middleton of the Province, “was a sensation. There were undercover tapes, liquor inspectors on the take . . . During the trial, Philliponi pleaded for leniency, claiming it ‘would kill my mother.’ The trial regaled packed courtrooms for months, before all six finally walked free after successfully appealing the conviction.” In 1983 Joe Philliponi was shot dead during a robbery.

The landfill in Langley City was closed. It was full.

A study showed that 63.9 per cent of B.C.’s native population lived on reserves. Today it’s less than 50 per cent and dropping.

George Athans, Jr., who had won the world crown for water-skiing in 1973 at Bogota, was inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame.

Whistler opened a new school named for pioneer Myrtle Philip. She and her husband Alex had opened Rainbow Lodge. She helped run the lodge, kept a general store and was postmistress for 30 years. Myrtle Philip was instrumental in establishing the area's first school in 1920. When the government turned down her request for a school she arranged to lease land from the railway and parents built their own.

A north wing was added to UBC’s Biological Sciences Building (Botany, Zoology, Oceanography and Microbiology).

An addition including the main lecture hall, faculty offices, a lounge and a library of more than 200,000 volumes, was added to UBC’s George F. Curtis Building (Law).

A censure of SFU by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (for alleged interference in academic affairs by the university’s Board of Governors), in place since 1970, was removed.

The B.C. Children’s Hospital chose its location: 4480 Oak Street.

Jack Short, about 68, BC’s famous racing broadcaster, wrapped up his race-calling career nicely: he was named BC’s Broadcast Performer of the Year.

Two major local firms, Benndorf Office Equipment and Verster Business Machines, merged to become Benndorf Verster. Today the company is known as Ikon Office Solutions.

Max Wyman, who came to Vancouver from London in 1967, began to serve as a national assessor of dance companies for the Canada Council.

The CBC produces a film, Between the Sky and the Splinters, a look at poet Peter Trower. The title is taken from Trower’s 1974 poetry collection.

The film The Keeper (director Tom Drake) is released. “In this tongue-in-cheek look at institutional bedlam,” writes Michael Walsh, “it's hard to tell the patients from the administrator (Christopher Lee) of the Underwood Asylum.” The cast included a 12-year-old Ian Tracey.

We can’t resist including this precis of the film, written by a visitor to the Internet Movie Data Base (imdb.com), the best movie-centered web site there is:

“The Keeper of Underwood Asylum has the mental patients of the wealthiest families in British Columbia. The rest of the family members have been dying under mysterious circumstances, so Biggs hires private investigator Richard Driver, who puts his assistant, Maybelline, in the asylum pretending she is his cousin and that they came from a family where the parents were all first cousins to each other and they decided to keep their love platonic for genetic reasons. Then he tries to get Inspector Clarke to check him in as a narcoleptic who didn't wake up with his body. They all know what the keeper has been doing, but it is a matter of proving it, and avoiding the hypnotized Biggs twins and Danny, who he is able to keep catatonic with his machine. Inspector Clarke gives Driver a lot of trouble, and the kid giving shoe shines looks down on everybody, knowing more.” Wow. This one sounds like a . . . keeper.

The film Shadow Of The Hawk (director George McCowan) is released. The Vancouver grandson (Jan-Michael Vincent) of a tribal shaman (Chief Dan George) is summoned to his ancestral home to deal with a demonic entity. The cast includes Pia Shandel.

The film Food Of The Gods (director Bert I. Gordon) is released. When growth hormones from outer space turn Bowen Island rats into monster rodents, writes Michael Walsh, a vacationing B.C. Lion (Marjoe Gortner) calls the plays like a professional exterminator.

Choreographer Judith Marcuse, born in Montreal in 1947, moved to Vancouver after dancing in modern and classical companies in Europe, Israel and North America. She would launch her own company in 1980.

The Terminal City Dance company was launched. This was a company, writes Max Wyman, with “long-term significance for movement-making in Vancouver . . . A product of a collaboration between (initially) two former Garland students, Karen Rimmer and Savannah Walling, and (eventually) three other dancers, its focus was experiment and exploration.” The ensemble would break up in 1983. See that year (when it’s added!) for what happened next.

A 40-foot-tall pole titled Myth of the Bear People, carved by Chief William Jeffrey, was placed at the West Van Aquatic Centre.

Canada Geese in Flight, a fibreglass sculpture by Robert Dow Reid, was installed at 700 West Pender.

Horse, an abstract bronze sculpture by Jack Harman, was placed at 475 West Georgia. “This,” writes Elizabeth Godley, “is one of the few of Harman's sculptures that he did not cast himself.” It would be removed and replaced in 2000 by Royal Sweet Diamond (a bull) by Joe Fafard.

1976 Pontiac Trans Am
[Photo: www.dealsonwheels.com]