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]
1979
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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
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February 23 Former premier W.A.C. Bennett
died in Kelowna, aged 78. See a good brief biography here
and listen to an interview with Bennett conducted by Jack Wasserman,
then with the CBC, here.
May 10 The Social Credit party was re-elected
under Premier Bill Bennett.
May 22 The Vancouver Sun won a long-running
case against GATE, publishers of Gay Tide newspaper. It began
in the mid-1970s when the Sun refused to run a two-line classified
ad promoting Gay Tide. GATE had won a B.C. Human Rights Commission
complaint and a subsequent challenge by the Sun in B.C. Supreme
Court, but the decision was reversed in the B.C. Court of Appeals.
Finally, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the Sun’s
favor.
June 9 “Cyclone” Taylor, OBE, hockey
player, died in Vancouver, aged 95. Frederick Wellington Taylor
was born June 24, 1883 (or was it 1884, or 1885?) in Tara, Ontario.
He played with the Ottawa Senators in 1909 when they won the Stanley
Cup, was the key player with the Vancouver Millionaires when they
won the Cup in 1915. (They beat Ottawa in three straight games,
during which Cyclone scored seven goals.) It was his speed on the
ice that earned him his nickname. When Taylor joined the Pacific
Coast Hockey Association in 1913, it gave the new league the credibility
it needed. He played for Vancouver from 1913 to 1921, then retired.
One of the great hockey players, he scored 194 goals—or was
it 205?—in 186 games.
During his professional hockey career Taylor was
also employed by the Immigration Department. On his retirement he
was Commissioner of Immigration for British Columbia and the Yukon
Territory. He was president of the Pacific Coast Hockey League from
1936 to 1940 and helped form the British Columbia Hockey Benevolent
Society, which he served as director from 1954 until his death.
He is, of course, in Canada’s Hockey Hall of Fame.
His oldest son, Fred, started Cyclone Taylor Sports
in Vancouver, a retail outlet for sports equipment, in 1957.
June 16 Richmond celebrated 100 years since
incorporation as a municipality and honored its pioneers who had
lived in the community for more than 60 years.
July 12 Granville Island Public Market opened,
and became an immediate hit, one of the great Vancouver experiences.
Some 10.5 million people visit every year now, and a big chunk of
them go to the market. Denny Boyd raved about it in his Vancouver
Sun column the day after the opening. “I want to be able
to poke a red snapper in the gills. I want to hear a good trumpet
player blow a couple of choruses of Yellow Dog Blues while I’m
looking at the scallions. Dammit, I want to buy a warm cookie.”
The market is in a building erected by the Island’s
very first tenant (1916), B.C. Equipment Ltd. Part of the offbeat
charm of that building is the travelling cranes that hang from the
rafters, kept by the architects. The Island’s architecture
has won design awards for Hotson Bakker, the coordinating architects,
and others who worked on various projects.
This
site has a wealth of photos of the island by the indefatigable
Maurice Jassak. For more examples of Maurice’s vast body of
work, go here.
August 6 Surrey Council “invites one
and all” to the city’s 100th Birthday Party Centennial
Week at Bear Creek Park.
August 12 The Province first appeared
on a Sunday.
August 16 Population growth in Coquitlam had
been shifting north to Eagle Ridge in the late 1970s. Today, in
response to that, Coquitlam Centre opened at 2929 Barnet Highway.
It was “bordered by bush, a trailer park and houses scattered
amid trees.” The centre would win the Governor General's Award
for Excellence in Architecture in 1982 for Edmonton architect B.
James Wensley. A collection of 27 sculptures and other art work
by B.C. artists at the Centre also garnered praise.
August 22 The Village of Belcarra was incorporated.
It covers just over five-and-a-half square kilometres, and the population
is an estimated 2,000. It’s policed by the Coquitlam Detachment
of the RCMP, and there is the Sasamat Volunteer Fire Department:
August Richmond hosted the three-day 1979
B.C. Summer Games, the first to include disabled athletes.
August Kent Prison in Agassiz opened. This
maximum security institution houses 313 (original capacity 234)
prisoners. Inmates are kept under a constant level of high surveillance.
More than half of the prison population are housed in the protective
custody wing, separated from the regular population for the duration
of their sentences.
September 1 Barry Downs and Richard Archambault,
architects, went into business as Downs Archambault & Partners.
September 8 The Vancouver Whitecaps pounded
out a dramatic win over the Tampa Bay Rowdies in New York to win
the North American Soccer League Championship. Trevor Whymark scored
both goals (one off each foot) in Vancouver’s 2-1 victory.
“Whymark has been,” Jim Taylor wrote, “the catalyst,
the trigger, the missing piece in the marvellously improbable soccer
story that has taken Vancouver by the heart and squeezed it as no
other sports event has before.”
John Craven (Defensive Player of the Game) and Alan
Ball (Most Valuable Player of the Playoffs) were also singled out
for special mention.
100,000 fans greeted the team on its return.
September 27 Vancouver street photographer
Foncie Pulice took his last picture. Foncie and his Electric-Photo
camera had been a familiar sight on city streets for a jaw-dropping
45 years. He’d begun as a 20-year-old away back in 1934 as
an assistant to street photographer Joe Iaci, and had taken millions
of photographs since. (It is quite possible Foncie Pulice photographed
more people than anyone who ever lived.) “I said I’d retire
at 65, and I kept my word,” he said in a November 21, 1979
interview in the Province.
Did he save all those millions of negatives? They’d
likely be worth a small fortune now. “I never did,” he
said. “I didn’t really think about it at the time. I’d
keep ’em for a year, then throw ’em out. I realize now
I should have saved them, but it’s too late.”
People even made appointments for street pictures!
“Oh, yes. They’d phone ahead and tell us what time they’d
be walking down Granville. Dr. Peter Bell-Irving had members of
his family photographed every year. I have shots showing one little
tyke in that family growing all the way up to six-foot-five.”
Foncie’s camera, made of war surplus materials,
is preserved at the Vancouver Museum. It’s part of their 1950s
gallery, and is accompanied by a slew of Foncie’s Fotos.
All across Canada and in other countries there are
thousands and thousands of Foncie’s Fotos, showing thousands
and thousands of people striding along the street, captured in motion
in unposed moments that may be closer to the spirit of the people
shown than any carefully composed studio portrait.
Foncie Pulice was the last of the street photographers.
He died January 20, 2003 at age 88, but his work lives on . . .
everywhere.
September 15, 16 and 18 Kent, the leading
English county team of the 1970s, visited Vancouver to play three
one-day games at Brockton Point against local teams. (If you know
the scores, please contact us here.)
September George Wootton ended his tenure
as principal of Douglas College. He was the college’s first
principal, starting in August 1969.
October 27 The last scheduled passenger train
departed from the CPR station at the foot of Granville Street. Trains
had been arriving and leaving from this handsome building since
1912. The cliche is irresistible: It was the end of an era. For
67 years the handsome building had been the site of arrivals, reunions
and farewells. I first saw Vancouver from this building, having
just arrived from Winnipeg with my father in December 1944. My first
visual memory of the city was of the First World War statue in front
of the station depicting an angel lifting a fallen soldier into
heaven. That statue is still there, with later wars added to its
words of dedication.
There was disappointment that Via Rail's passenger
service would operate from the CN Station on Main Street. “The
CN is just a barn,” train patron George Copeland told The Province.
“This place has got character.”
Station baggage master Doug Taylor had worked there
for 39 years. When he started in 1940, Taylor said, the baggage
department had 100 employees. On this last day it had six. The building
still has character. It’s been beautifully restored as thousands
of SkyTrain, West Coast Express and SeaBus patrons well know.
October 28 Chuck Davis’ columns on local
history began to appear in The Province’s Sunday editions.
In all, there were 194 of them, then the paper went tabloid.
October Presentation House on the North Shore
presented Eric Nicol's two-act comedy, Free at Last.
November 6 Burnaby council voted itself a
7.5-per-cent wage increase, bringing its total increases over two
years to almost 30 per cent.
December 16 The Steveston Museum opened in
a 1905 building, which had been a bank, then a doctors office. The
Steveston Historical Society also operates a post-office there.
December 21 In The Province Consumer
Alert columnist Chuck Poulsen wrote, “In a month or so, supermarkets
should be serving up a large batch of rabbits for sale. Chinese
rabbits. For Canada Packers, it will be the first test run of the
low-cost, imported rabbits which are expected to sell for about
half the price of the B.C. bunnies. The Chinese rabbits will be
coming at a time when a government survey predicts that we'd eat
rabbits faster than they multiply if there was a reasonable supply
and the price wasn't too much higher than chicken.”
Also in 1979
Art Cameron, Resident Manager at the Hotel Vancouver
for decades, retired. What made Art—born in January, 1910 in
New Westminster—distinctive was his style: he was a naturally
funny guy, a never-exhausted font of sly humor and wicked ripostes.
How many hotel managers are also gag writers? Art wrote gags for
Bob Hope (a lifelong friend), Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Phil Harris,
Ed Gardner, Alan Young and others. Among the more notable events
of his long career: he was manager of the Sylvia Hotel in 1959 and
was one of the guests at the West End apartment death October 14
of that year of screen star Errol Flynn.
The Office of the Ombudsman was established by provincial
legislation. The Ombudsman receives inquiries and complaints about
the practices and services provided by public bodies. He or she
can investigate to determine if the public body is being fair to
the people it serves.
Tsutae and Hanako Sato, who together ran the Vancouver
Japanese Language School (from 1906 to 1942), established scholarships
in Japanese studies at UBC. In 1978 Tsutae Sato was awarded the
Order of Canada.
Ballard Power Systems was created. Dr. Geoffrey Ballard
developed the fuel cell technology that led to the creation of the
company, but would leave it in1997. In 1999, with Paul Howard, he
would form the company General
Hydrogen. Time Magazine would name him a Hero of the
Planet in 1999. He said, at a recent conference, “It will take
a combined effort of academia, government, and industry to bring
about the change from a gasoline economy to a hydrogen economy.
The forces are building and progress is being made. It is of major
importance that a change of this magnitude not be forced on unwilling
participants, but that all of us work together for an economically
viable path to change.”
The wooden auxiliary schooner Maple Leaf began
to provide educational/environmental cruises between the Gulf of
Georgia and Alaska. She is the oldest B.C. vessel in the Canada
Registry of Ships. She was built at Vancouver Shipyard in Coal Harbour
in 1904 for lumber baron Alexander McLaren, and was the first vessel
to fly the colors of the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club in an open race.
(From 1916 to 1979 she was used in the halibut fishery under the
names Constance B and Parma.) See this
website.
The provincial government sold the buses it inherited
from the BC Electric Company to Pacific Coach Lines.
Hassan Khosrowshahi and his family fled Iran during
the Ayatollah Khomeini unrest and came to Vancouver. He opened a
small office equipment shop on West Broadway. In 1983 he will incorporate
Future
Shop Ltd. and build it into a giant Canadian enterprise,
employing more than 10,000 people in 90 locations across Canada.
Harold Lenett, a Vancouver businessman, approached
the Levi Strauss company with an offer to make leather jackets,
but was asked to make denim instead. He borrowed $5,000, bought
some used Levi equipment, and launched Pimlico Apparel Ltd. Today,
the company is North America's leading denim jacket producer, supplying
Levi Strauss and The Gap from a 75,000-square-foot factory.
Maureen Drew, Executive Director of Apparel BC, an
industry trade group, and other industry leaders launched the Western
Canadian Designers & Fashion Association. To quote the website:
“WCDFA has been on the leading edge of networking in the Canadian
fashion industry. Founded in 1979, this association is the oldest
functioning design and fashion association in Canada. Geographically
WCDFA included professionals from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba
and British Columbia. Their aim was ‘to create a professional
organization to benefit and reflect the talent of fashion designers
in Western Canada.’ The WCDFA presents an annual fashion event
called the ‘Designer Showcase’ and sponsors fashion related
events at western colleges and universities.”
Svend Robinson was elected MP for Burnaby-Douglas,
the youngest member of the NDP caucus (born March 4, 1952).
Pauline Jewett was elected as an NDP Member of Parliament
for New Westminster-Coquitlam. She will serve in that capacity until
1988.
George Laverock became the producer for programs
featuring the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, and the orchestra would go
on to become the most recorded in Canada.
Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation got a new
name: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Vancouver city council reinstated Joe Philliponi’s
licence to run the Penthouse. On December 31, 1975, the club had
been closed by the vice squad, and in 1977 Philliponi was charged
with living off prostitution but the conviction was quashed.
These books appeared in 1979. Details on their writers
can be found at www.abcbookworld.com.
Son of Socred, by Stan Persky. Persky’s first book
asked in its subtitle: Has Bill Bennett’s Government Gotten
BC Moving Again?
Exploring the Coast by Boat, by Freda Van der Ree, was a
comprehensive guidebook to 51 boating areas in the Strait of Georgia
and Puget Sound. It has had numerous printings since this first
appearance. Van der Ree travelled extensively with her family, both
under power and under sail, in both summer and winter.
The Delta Centenary, 1879-1979: a Pictorial Review of Delta's
First One Hundred Years Corporation of Delta.
Above the sand heads: first hand accounts of pioneering in the
area which, in 1879, became the Municipality of Delta, British Columbia
Narrated by T. Ellis Ladner; prepared for publication by Edna G.
Ladner.
Richmond, Child of the Fraser by Leslie J. Ross under the
direction of the Historical Committee of the Richmond '79 Centennial
Society
Saints: The story of St. George's School for Boys by Douglas
E. Harker.
Empire of Time, the first in Crawford Kilian’s Chronoplane
Wars science fiction trilogy. It was described by one reviewer as
“a nifty page turner about a physically and mentally augmented
James Bond type.”
Michael Walsh, long-time film critic for The Province,
gave us The Canadian Movie Quiz Book.
The late L.R. “Bunny” Wright was Canada's
leading female author of mysteries. Born in Saskatoon in 1939 and
raised in Abbotsford, she left a newspaper job in Mission to work
for major newspapers in the prairies. She received the Alberta First
Novel Award this year for Neighbours. Her major successes
ahead will be mysteries set on the coast featuring RCMP officer
Karl Alberg.
Raincoast Books was established. This company would,
in the future, gain the rights to Canadian publication of the Harry
Potter books. That would turn out rather well for them. See this
site.
Several periodicals began in 1979:
International History Review, a quarterly
from Simon Fraser University, examining relations between all states
throughout history
Musick, a quarterly produced by the Vancouver
Society for Early Music. It covers medieval, Renaissance, baroque
and classical music
Uptrend: Canadian Penny Market Newsletter
was published every three weeks by Yorkton Continental Securities
Inc.
Wildlife Rescue, a quarterly for members of
the Wildlife Rescue Association of British Columbia. It reviews
the organization's activities in wildlife rehabilitation and education.
The movie A Man, A Woman And A Bank, directed
by Noel Black, is described by Michael Walsh as “a caper comedy
with a Gastown setting. Its focus is on two high-tech robbers (Donald
Sutherland, Paul Mazursky) and the non-technical distractions provided
by a local beauty (Brooke Adams).”
The movie Prophecy, directed by John Frankenheimer,
appeared. Wrote Michael Walsh: “Though caused by industrial
pollution, the horrific mutations that an environmental scientist
(Robert Foxworth) encounters in the Maine woods also fulfill local
Native American legends.”
The Internet
Movie Database says about this movie: “Filmed in
British Columbia in 1978, Prophecy marked the beginning of ‘Hollywood
North,’ the major start to the development of a massive film
production business in Vancouver and other parts of the province
of British Columbia, in Canada. Since then hundreds of ‘American’
movies have been filmed in the Canadian province.”
Bird of Spring, a bronze sculpture by Etungat,
an Inuit artist, was placed at Robson Square (on the stairway near
the Art Gallery). The sculpture is a recreation of a tiny 14-cm
original by Etungat.
The 460-seat Arts Club Theatre: Mainstage opened
at 1585 Johnston Street on Granville Island.
The Arts Club became one of the earliest landmarks
on Granville Island and a personal triumph for Managing Director
Bill Millerd who had always dreamed of having a theatre on the waterfront.
Now the theatre is home base for a company with three theatres and
an adjoining lounge. The company regularly tours its shows throughout
the province.
The 240-seat Waterfront Theatre opened at 1410 Cartwright
on Granville Island. This was originally the home of Carousel Theatre,
the New Play Centre (now Playwrights Theatre) and the now defunct
Westcoast Actors. The Waterfront is now primarily a rental venue
and home to Carousel,
which produces three shows for family audiences each year.
The David Y.H. Lui Theatre, opened by Lui in 1975,
closed. During its brief, but notable, life theatre goers enjoyed
major appearances by Dame Joan Sutherland, the National Ballet of
Canada, The Royal Winnipeg Ballet and others. Today, the building
is a nightclub, Richard’s on Richards.
With the departure of Freddie Long, Mauryne Allan
became sole head of Mountain Dance Theatre, which had started as
Burnaby Mountain Dance Company in 1973 at Simon Fraser University.
The company had moved off-campus in 1975 under the joint direction
of Allan and Long.
Arts Umbrella began. To quote its web
site: “Since our inception in 1979 with only 45
students, Arts Umbrella has grown to now reach more than 30,000
young people annually. Our Granville Island facility hosts more
than 260 classes each week, ranging from general courses to pre-professional
training in theatre, dance, painting, sculpture, architecture, film,
new media, photography, and more.”
A study showed that Surrey had become “Vancouver's
bedroom,” as more than 50 per cent of its residents worked
elsewhere. In 1879 almost everyone who lived in Surrey worked there.
Vancouver's new courthouse and Robson Square complex,
designed by Arthur Erickson, was completed. The complex changed
the face of downtown.
North Vancouver High School closed, having served
the community for 69 years. On the closure of the school the new
gym, named after Principal Mickey McDougall, became part of the
North Vancouver Recreation Centre.
The provincial government finally officially recognized
the name “The British Properties,” long after it appeared
on district maps.
In White Rock Tom Kirstein, a chartered accountant,
and a friend, Chip Barrett, wondered aloud: why not have a sandcastle
competition? That led to White Rock’s famous Great Canadian
Open Sandcastle Competition. With prizes amounting to $10,000, and
scores of teams competing, the annual event drew international attention,
attracting crowds estimated at 150,000 to the waterfront. Unfortunately,
by 1987, community dismay at the crush of people, unruly elements,
and rising police costs would force the cancellation of the competition.
Greenpeace began to go international. Greenpeace
organizations in Australia, Canada, France, Holland, New Zealand,
the United Kingdom and the United States formed Stichting Greenpeace.
Today, Greenpeace
International is headquartered in Amsterdam.
Elisabeth Hawley and her three grandchildren willed
Haney House to Maple Ridge. Elisabeth was the daughter of Thomas
and Annie Haney, area pioneers, after whom Haney—now a part
of Maple Ridge—was named. The house, at 11612 224th Street
in Maple Ridge, was built in 1878. It has been restored as a museum,
and displays many furnishings and artifacts used by three generations
of the Haney family.
The International Plaza Towers were built, at 71.6
metres and 26 storeys the tallest buildings in North Vancouver District.
Nathan T. Nemetz became Chief Justice of British
Columbia. He will hold the post until 1988.
In 1979, the provincial government, in part prompted
by the dire situation facing refugees from Southeast Asia, passed
a special act to help refugees resettle in B.C.
George Pedersen became president of Simon Fraser
University. He will hold the post until 1983. During his tenure
part-time studies for mature students and the school of engineering
science, which concentrates on new technology, began. He also launched
cooperation with BCIT to establish downtown classes in rented office
space.
The Continuing Education Division of Vancouver Community
College introduced a Court Interpreting program, the first of its
kind in Canada.
A totem pole carved by Don Yeomans, a Haida native
and a graduate of Langara's fine arts program, was erected near
the college's main entrance.
Terry Fox began to participate in a in a wheelchair-basketball
team, after being recruited by Rick Hansen. Part of Terry's self-designed
exercise routine was pushing his chair up Gaglardi Way, a long,
steep climb up Burnaby Mountain toward Simon Fraser University at
the top.
Police seized a little brown book at the apartment
of a well-known Vancouver prostitute. In it were 800 names of men,
a who's who of high society, including a high-ranking member of
the B.C. judiciary. Wendy King pleaded guilty to keeping a bawdy
house and was fined $1,500. But the notebook was sealed by a B.C.
Supreme Court Judge, the names never revealed.
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]
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