A Brief History of Ambleside Beach
If you live on the North Shore, chances are that you spend at least some of your summer at West Vancouver’s Ambleside Beach. Did you know that you are sitting on reclaimed land? Prior to 1965, much of...
View ArticleThird Crossing – Here we go again
If you’ve tried to drive on or off the North Shore, you’re likely no stranger to gridlock and road rage. An online petition was posted on change.org last week hoping to tap into that frustration. The...
View ArticleThe Story of a Missing Film and a Broken Ring
By Sébastien Hudon In the summer of 2020, my colleague Louis Pelletier, an historian of early cinema, and I learned that some very old film reels were to be auctioned off in England and bids would be...
View ArticleFalse Creek in the ’70s
Story by Eve Lazarus, photos by Bruce Stewart A half a century has gone by since Bruce Stewart took these photos of False Creek. By the time I arrived in Vancouver in the mid-1980s, the city was in the...
View ArticleOn Tour!
I’m hitting the road this month and next, and I’ll be in Kelowna, Nelson, Trail and Abbotsford with stops back in North Vancouver and Vancouver. If you’re in the area, please stop by and say hello, I’d...
View ArticleA Fountain, a Ferry and Superyacht
The Lonsdale Quay fountain broke down in 2020 and cost $300,000 to fix. So we didn't. Now we can gaze upon the $200 million Superyacht instead The post A Fountain, a Ferry and Superyacht appeared first...
View ArticleThe Empress of Ireland and Oliver Mardall
September 25 is World Maritime Day, and this year’s theme is “Our Ocean, Our Obligation, Our Opportunity.” It’s a theme that could easily apply in 1914 when the Empress of Ireland sank, killing four...
View ArticleFire at the Grain Elevators
October 3, 1975, marks the 50th anniversary of the fire at Burrard Terminals which killed five men, severely burned twelve others, caused $8 million in damages, and destroyed the workhouse, track shed...
View ArticleVancouver’s Store Windows – an Essay in Photos
Bruce Stewart sent me an email a couple of weeks ago, saying that he had come across some photos of store windows that he’d taken in the 1970s, was I interested in seeing them. Of course I was, and I...
View ArticleBritish Home Children: A Canadian Scandal
Between 1869 and 1948, Britain shipped more than 100,000 boys and girls, some as young as four to Canada to work on farms and as household servants. These kids were either orphans or from...
View ArticleThe Captain’s House: A Halloween Ghost Story
When the Grays bought the house on Heritage Lane in Saanich in 1990, they didn’t know that it came with a few ghosts. The post The Captain’s House: A Halloween Ghost Story appeared first on Eve...
View ArticleGhosts of the Dominion Building
When Sharilyn Kuehnel worked at Opus Art Supplies on the ground floor of the Dominion Building, she had a couple of ghostly encounters. The store had occupied what was once a bank. The manager’s former...
View ArticleBroken Laws: Uncovering Queer Stories
In 1965, George Klippert was arrested and charged with four counts of gross indecency. He admitted to having consensual sex with four different adult males. A psychiatrist assessed him as “incurably...
View ArticleRemembrance Day: Honouring Tracey Archer
I was thrilled to receive an email from Paul Fletcher last week. He wrote to tell me that he had read Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck and that his maternal...
View ArticlePassage Island
How does a house with a view and a West Vancouver postal code for under a million bucks sound? How about a third of an acre for under $250,000, minutes from the beach? Welcome to Passage Island, a...
View ArticleA Short History of Maplewood Flats
North Vancouver’s Maplewood Flats is a wildlife sanctuary about one-third the size of Stanley Park. In the 1970s, it was home to a group of artists and environmentalists, and for a couple of weeks, it...
View ArticleBeneath Dark Waters on the 6 pm News
You can watch my 2 minutes and 13 seconds of fame here: The Empress of Ireland’s BC Connection Global News – This is BC: It was great to chat to Jay Durrant about the Empress of Ireland on Global News...
View Article40 Years of SkyTrain
SkyTrain officially opened for business on January 3, 1986. The first train left New Westminster station at 5:20 am. Angus McIntyre tells me that the initial test section opened in June 1983. “You...
View ArticleUrban Repurpose and the St. Alice Hotel
Urban Repurpose is a hoarders delight. It’s crammed full of furniture, books, music, art, books and panels from the St. Alice Hotel The post Urban Repurpose and the St. Alice Hotel appeared first on...
View ArticleWest Vancouver’s Navvy Jack House
I walked by the Navvy Jack House in West Vancouver just before Christmas and was delighted to see the amount of progress made since summer. The post West Vancouver’s Navvy Jack House appeared first on...
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