Paul Huba and the Canada Post Building
Blair Mercer left a comment on an old blog post of mine this week. He told me that his mother, Beatrice Mary Hayes was the model for the ceramic of a woman and child installed inside the Canada Post...
View ArticleEpisode 10: The Love Drug
Tip jar: On March 9, 1947, Inspector Vance of the Vancouver Police Department was called to an apartment in Kitsilano, Vancouver to check out a suspicious death. Seventeen-year-old Ruth Cooperman was...
View ArticleEpisode 11: Manhunt
This week’s episode is called Manhunt, the same name that I gave the chapter in my book Blood, Sweat, and Fear. It was a bit surreal putting the podcast together this week while RCMP and military were...
View ArticleNo Justice for Molly Justice
This is the last episode of my podcast Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance. I’ll be taking a few months off to write a new book, and then my plan is to host and produce a second...
View ArticleMay is Asian Heritage Month – Meet Mary Chan
Can’t let Asian Heritage Month go by without a nod to Mary and Walter Chan, the Strathcona activists who helped keep the bulldozers at bay and rallied the community to preserve not only Chinatown, but...
View ArticleAlice: A Murder Mystery
In her day job, my friend Cat Rose works as a Crime Analyst for the Vancouver Police Department. In her spare time, she volunteers at the Vancouver Police Museum. Cat has a Masters in Public History...
View ArticleIrving House: A Gothic Ghost Story
I realize this is ridiculously early, but if you are shopping for a local history/true crime fan this Christmas, I’m selling three signed books (Murder by Milkshake, Cold Case Vancouver, and Blood,...
View ArticleRemembering Shannon Arlene Guyatt (1958-1992)
Monday November 25 is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This is an excerpt from Sensational Victoria: Bright Lights, Red Lights, Murders, Ghosts & Gardens. Doug...
View ArticleThe Woodward’s Christmas Windows
When David Rowland heard that Woodward’s was closing in 1993, he phoned up the manager and put in an offer for the department store’s historic Christmas windows. They agreed on a price, and Rowland...
View ArticleMy Favourite Vancouver History Blogs of 2019
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve done a roundup of my favourite history blogs. To make the list, the blog had to be written by an individual, come out fairly regularly and have a strong Vancouver...
View ArticleThe Flying Seven and the Cambie Street Rocket Ship
This is one of my favourite photos. It ran with a story in Sensational Vancouver and shows six members of the Flying Seven posed in front of the rocket ship at Vancouver International Airport. The...
View ArticleWest Coast Modern: Selling Architecture as Art
For the last year or so I’ve been receiving emails from a realtor named Trent Rodney. They come with an invitation to drop by one of the dwindling stock of West Coast Modern houses on the North Shore,...
View ArticleDocumenting Local History
It wasn’t easy getting a seat at the West Vancouver Library last Wednesday night. The West Van Historical Society presented Local Voices: Shooting the North Shore with Ralph Bower, retired Vancouver...
View ArticleThornton Tunnel
I’ve had a fascination with the Thornton Tunnel for some time now—ever since I first read about it on the Nostalgic/Sentimental Vancouver Pictures site (thank you Michael Arnold and Allen Doolan). I...
View ArticleJack Cash, Photographer
I first heard about Jack Cash when I was researching his mother Gwen Cash, who when she went to work for Walter Nichol at the Vancouver Daily Province in 1917, became one of the first female news...
View ArticleVancouver After Dark: Richards on Richards
Aaron Chapman’s latest book Vancouver After Dark: The Wild History of a City’s Nightlife is a delightful romp through the ghosts of nightclubs past. Aaron’s behind-the-scenes stories are told in such...
View ArticleMeet Vancouver’s Newest Street Photographers
When I think of street photographers, the first names that usually spring to mind are Fred Herzog, Foncie Pullice, Greg Girard, Michael de Courcy, Curt Lang and Bruce Stewart. But there were so many...
View ArticleThe Tomahawk Restaurant
I normally work out of my home, but at the moment I don’t have a lot of it (work that is) so I’ve been clearing out 30 years of old files. Today, I came across this menu from North Vancouver’s Tomahawk...
View Article111 Places in Vancouver that you may not know about
A few months back, I spent a frustrating hour searching for a plaque at the corner of West Hastings and Hamilton Streets. It was unveiled in 1953, as evidenced in a Vancouver Sun article and photo. It...
View ArticleCrabtown
We’ve been taking advantage of the lack of traffic on the roads to take Pickles, our Chiweenie on some new trails. This week we ended up in North Burnaby, parked at the bottom of Boundary and walked...
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