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10 things I Love about Munro’s Books
1. It’s in Victoria 2. It’s 52 years old. That means Munro’s has survived Amazon, consolidation and e-books. 3. Carole Sabiston’s tapestries. Eight large banners depict the seasons and decorate the...
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Heritage Vancouver’s Top 10 Most Endangered Heritage Resources of 2016
Bayview Community School (1913-1914) tops the 2016 listHeritage Vancouver hosted its 16th annual bus tour today, taking people to the buildings, streets and landscapes that the Society believes have...
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Van Tan–North Vancouver’s 77-Year-Old Nudist Camp
I’ve lived in Lynn Valley for 20 years and while I’ve heard rumours of a nudist camp at the top of Mountain Highway, I always thought that it was an urban myth. After reading an article this week, I...
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Canada’s flag is in its 50s. Is it time for an update?
Jason Vanderhill dropped around a couple of weeks ago armed with a ton of old copies of the Vancouver Sun that he’d been given by Anders Falk and family. It was a blast looking through them—they ranged...
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Foncie’s North Vancouver Connection
Foncie, to my knowledge, never crossed the bridge or took the ferry to North Vancouver—at least not for his work, but he did capture many of our most colourful citizens. A street photographer who...
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Vancouver Heritage House Tour and Manson’s Deep
Never heard of Manson’s Deep? You’re not alone. It’s one of the deepest points in Howe Sound just off Point Atkinson. It’s also been a burial ground for old sailors since 1941. Manson’s Deep gets its...
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West End Heritage–a chance to have your say
There are two vastly different West End housing proposals going before Vancouver council this week and both have implications about how we view heritage in our development-mad city. One, in Mole Hill,...
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The Second Narrows Bridge Collapse
Some described the noise of the bridge collapsing into the Second Narrows as gunfire or an explosion, others as a rumble or a loud snapping sound. On June 17, 1958 at 3:40 p.m., people from all over...
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The Collectors
If you think that museums are full of old fossils and boring exhibits, it’s time to get yourself down to All Together Now: Vancouver Collectors and their Worlds. Eve Lazarus photo I went on opening...
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Cube House
Just before you hit the bike only section of Point Grey Road at Alma you may have noticed that the corner lot is missing a lovely old heritage house. The lot sold for $4 million last year, and of...
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Hastings Mill and the Flying Angels Club House
Kathryn Murray’s association with the Mission to Seafarers goes back to 1902—the same year the Flying Angels Club came to Vancouver. Kathyrn’s great grandmother Florence Sentell was bringing a fruit...
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Rhona Duncan (1959-1976)
Rhona Duncan died years before I moved to North Vancouver, but whenever I drive up Larson and cross Bewicke I think of her. And, 40 years later, her murder still haunts my friends and neighbours who...
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Janet Smith
On July 26, 1924, Janet Smith was found shot in the head by a .45 calibre automatic revolver in the basement of a Shaughnessy house. The murder of the Scottish nanny rocked Vancouver. The murder...
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The Missing CN Terminal from the foot of Main Street
Fred Herzog, 1958 Before CRAB Park was created in 1987, there was a funky Spanish Colonial-style building that sat on the pier at the foot of Main Street. Built in 1931 as the terminal for the Canadian...
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The Mysterious Disappearance of Nick and Lisa Masee
I worked for the Vancouver Stock Exchange in the late 1980s—the same time that Forbes Magazine published a cover story calling it the “Scam Capital of the World.” While I never met Nick Masee, the...
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Women Police Officers on Patrol
This great Foncie photo of two women police officers ran in Sensational Vancouver, in a chapter called “Lurancy Harris’s Beat.” Lurancy was the first female police officer in Canada when she was hired...
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May 1, 1907: A Trip Across Vancouver
I’m writing a book about John F.C.B. Vance, the first forensic scientist in Vancouver, and this week I wrote about his first day of work as the new City Analyst. My book is non-fiction, but sometimes...
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The Black Hand’s Vancouver Connection
The first time I heard about the Black Hand, I was researching Detective Joe Ricci for Sensational Vancouver. Joe was a kick-arse Italian cop who worked for the Vancouver Police Department between...
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The train that ran down Hastings Street
Did you know that a commuter train used to run right through downtown Vancouver? I found out about it when I was over at Tom Carter’s studio checking out one of his amazing paintings. There it was, a...
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Our Missing Heritage: What were we thinking? (the original VAG)
If you live in Vancouver, you know that the Vancouver Art Gallery is housed in the old law courts, an imposing neo-classical building designed by celebrity architect Francis Rattenbury in 1906. What...
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