As grim news about the German advance across Norway filled the front pages of the newspapers in late April, 1940, local English-Canadians gathered to celebrate St. George’s Day, in honor of the patron saint of England....
An imposing rocky intrusion stands guard at the entrance to Howe Sound. Here grew 1,000- year-old western red cedars before colonial settlement in the late 19th century. Cougars ran wild, while the fiord was graced by...
The history of Vancouver begins, as it should, in myth. A legend states, “In earlier times this Fraser River resembled an enormous dish that stored up food for all mankind . . .” In the beginning, there were no deciduous...
Architects and Architecture of Greater Vancouver
Some say that any work of human hands in Vancouver’s setting detracts from its natural splendor. But these opinions run in cycles. Captain George Vancouver, upon seeing Burrard Inlet in 1792, thought that it “requires...
There was a peaceful, if rather boisterous, American invasion of British Columbia in 1858. It happened in just a few hours on Sunday, April 25, when the American side-wheeler Commodore churned into Victoria and disgorged 450...
The paddlers who greeted José Maria Narvaez as he and his crew sailed cautiously into English Bay had a profound knowledge of the place we call Vancouver. They and their ancestors had lived in the area—either year-round...
The colonial hotel, built by the Grelley brothers on Columbia Street in New Westminster around 1860, was the first hotel in the Greater Vancouver area. In those days New Westminster was connected to Burrard Inlet by a...
History of Planning in Greater Vancouver
Greater Vancouver “is unique both in regards to natural beauty and business prospects,” but “is suffering in a special degree from haphazard growth and speculation in real estate, notwithstanding the progress that has...
Many of Vancouver’s most important insects are similar to its human inhabitants: they came from somewhere else. Honey bees, gypsy moths, cockroaches and crane flies all originated outside of North America, and were carried...
For centuries if not millennia the sheltered bay at the northern edge of the district of Hastings/Sunrise provided a natural stopping point, Khanamoot, for local native peoples beaching canoes on their way to pick berries or...
The landscape beneath the sidewalk is one that few of us ever get to explore, though much that affects our daily life happens underground. Here is a mole’s eye view of Greater Vancouver.
The diversity of the region cannot be fully appreciated without a glance at its islands.Like the region itself, they are varied in makeup. Mudflats, sandbars, even mountains are all represented. There are alluvial islands in...
Greater Vancouver Convention & Visitors Bureau
A newspaper advertisement placed by the newly formed Vancouver Tourist Association in 1902 stated “Vancouver has excellent accommodation and a large number of private boarding houses. Rates are the same as other coast...
James Skitt Matthews and the Vancouver City Archives
Major J. S. Matthews--adventurer, innovator, and first archivist of the City of Vancouver--was born September 7, 1878, in Wales. He was a natural archivist, keeping meticulous track of his activities and of those around him...
The earliest known mention of the Grandview area appears in Pauline Johnson’s Legends of Vancouver. Johnson relays a story from Chief Joe Capilano about the first Chief Capilano, who in about 1820 wounded a giant seal in...
Vancouver Interests
Jonathan J. Israels - Criminal Lawyer Vancouver
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