The History of Metropolitan Vancouver

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]

1980

This year is sponsored.

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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 date. If YOU know the
specific date of an event shown there, please notify us . . . and cite the source! Many thanks!
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January 20 The Carnegie Building at Main and Hastings reopened. It became the Carnegie Reading Room, would be open seven days a week, 12 hours a day, 365 days each year.

January 26 William John “Torchy” Peden, cyclist, died in Northbrook, Illinois, aged 73. He was born April 17, 1906 (another source gives April 16) in Victoria. A “flame-haired youth who led the pack like a torch,” he was famed during the Depression as “a six-day immortal” bicycle racer, winning Vancouver's first such event in 1931. In 1929, Peden set a world speed record on a bicycle of 81 mph (130.3 km/h) that stood for 12 years. There is a very good brief biography here. With his brother James Douglas Peden, Torchy won races across North America, setting a world record of 38 victories that lasted 28 years. His brother Ernie and cousin Rusty also raced. A crowd pleaser, he received a gold-plated bicycle in honor of his years aboard his CCM Flyer. He was inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 1966 and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.

Also January 26 Lynn Patrick, hockey player and executive, died in St. Louis, Mo. aged 67. “He was born,” writes Constance Brissenden, “February 3, 1912 in Victoria. He was a member of the 1933 Canadian Championship basketball team, the Victoria Blue Ribbons. In 1934, he signed with Winnipeg Blue Bombers. In the first game, he set a season's record with 68 yard touchdown reception. In 1943 he joined the New York Rangers, coached by his father Lester Patrick, scoring 13 goals in his first season. During 10 years with the Rangers, he scored 145 goals and 190 assists in 455 games. He twice led the team in scoring and played with them to a 1940 Stanley Cup win. Patrick coached and managed the Boston Bruins (1950-55). He was general manager of the St. Louis Blues (1967), taking the team to the Stanley Cup play-offs in each of their first three seasons. He retired in 1977 as vice president, St. Louis Hockey Club. He was inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 1968.” And see this site and click on “The Legends.”

February Architects McCarter and Nairne moved to a new location, having been Marine Building tenants for just under 50 years. They designed the building.

March 1 Canada's first all-jazz station, Vancouver CJAZ-FM 92.1 signed on. See this site.

March 29 The building housing the Surrey Central Library and the city’s Chamber of Commerce opened.

April 1 B.C. Hydro split off its transit division and a new company, Metro Transit Operating Co., under contract to the Urban Transit Authority, took over the region’s transit. Within a few years Metro Transit and the Urban Transit Authority would join forces to become BC Transit, predecessor to TransLink.

April 12 One-legged runner Terry Fox of Port Coquitlam began his cross-country “Marathon of Hope” to raise money for cancer research. After the operation Terry began to run daily, painfully short distances at first, but increasing steadily as he developed strength and technique. His running style was his own: two hops on his remaining leg, then a long stride on his artificial leg while lifting his torso and shoulders for leverage. "It takes more courage to fight cancer than it does for me to run," said a determined Fox. Two years later he had obtained sponsorship, planned his route and today—April 12, 1980—he was in St. John's, Newfoundland. As he dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic, then turned his face to the west to run across the nation, Terry's dream, the “Marathon of Hope,” began.

April 18 Actress Dorothy Stratten, born Dorothy Ruth Hoogstraten February 28, 1960 in Vancouver, appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. See the August 14 entry below.

April The CN Station (1917-19) and its rooftop neon sign were designated Schedule A Heritage Structures by Vancouver City Council. Today, that handsome building is called Pacific Central Station, the terminal for Greyhound Lines, Pacific Coach Lines and two passenger railways: VIA Rail and Amtrak.

Also April Construction began on a new building for the Valley Curling Club in Cloverdale, a club that had started in 1954. The new facility would open January 17, 1981. The club’s excellent web site (lots of history, lots of pictures) says: “When the new rink opened, the sheets were numbered from 2 to 7! The old rink had been built on a bog and Sheet 1 had been so terrible that it was decided that nobody should ever have to play on Sheet 1 again!!”

May 1 CISL AM 940 Richmond signed on. See this site.

May 18 The eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State (named, incidentally, by Capt. George Vancouver in 1792) rattled windows in Greater Vancouver. This excellent website gives the details below.

Rather than clutter up this item with metric conversions, if you want them, we’ll direct you to this site.

Mount St. Helens is an active stratovolcano (a type of volcanic cone that consists of alternating layers of lava and ash debris. These are usually steep-sided volcanoes found at convergent boundaries between a continental plate and an oceanic plate) located in southwest Washington, approximately a three-hour drive from Seattle (90 miles).
The eruption, at 8:32 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time May 18, was triggered by a 5.1 earthquake centered beneath the mountain.
The mountain was 9,677 feet high before the eruption, 8,363 feet after. Some 1,314 feet had been removed by the eruption.
The eruption caused the largest landslide in recorded history. It swept down the mountain at speeds of 70 to 150 miles per hour and buried the North Fork of the Toutle River under an average of 150 feet of debris. Some areas are covered by as much as 600 feet. In all, approximately 23 square miles of material was removed from the mountain.
The lateral blast swept out of the north side of the mountain at 300 miles per hour creating a 230-square-mile fan-shaped area of devastation reaching a distance of 17 miles from the crater. With temperatures as high as 660 degrees F and the power of 24 megatons of thermal energy, it snapped 100-year-old trees like toothpicks and stripped them of their bark.
The snow on the mountain that was not instantly flashed to steam by the heat, melted and formed large mudflows that destroyed 27 bridges, 200 homes, 185 miles of roadway, and 15 miles of railway.
Pyroclastic (fragmented rock material) flows rolled out of the crater for hours after the eruption. Covering six square miles they sterilized the remaining soil with temperatures nearing 1,300 degrees F.
The massive ash cloud grew to 80,000 feet (18 kilometers) in 15 minutes and reached the east coast in three days. Although most of the ash fell within 300 miles of the mountain, finer ash circled the earth in 15 days and may continue to stay in the atmosphere for many years.
57 people were killed as a result of the eruption. 21 bodies were never recovered.
Losses amounted to $1.1 billion (US) for timber, civil works and agricultural losses. This does not include money for personal property losses, the cost of ash clean-up, or the loss of tourism in the area immediately after the eruption.
7,000 big game animals, 12 million Chinook and Coho salmon, and millions of birds and small mammals are believed to have died in the eruption.
The mountain can't even twitch without scientists knowing about it. Seismic disturbances, gas emissions, temperature, elevation changes (deformation), water levels, sediment flow rates, and even magma movement are all carefully monitored.
Mount St. Helens is expected to continue erupting but no one knows for how long. Pyroclastic flows, lahars (pyroclastic material mixed with water), ejection of ash and pumice, and even the possibility of lava flows may all lie somewhere in MSH's future.

And a site visitor has kindly pointed out another very detailed site on the event.

May 21 The movie The Empire Strikes Back premiered in the US.

June 27 O Canada was officially made the country’s national anthem. The English version has had slight revisions made.

June The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was forced into the Spanish port of El Ferro by Spanish naval vessels, and its crew was accused of obstructing Spanish whalers. Spanish naval engineers disabled the boat by removing a propellor shaft bearing. But see the November 8 entry!

July The 1932 Coroner’s Court at 238-240 East Cordova and Firehall No. 2 (1907) at 270 East Cordova were designated Schedule A Heritage Structures by Vancouver City Council. Today, the Coroner’s Court has become the Vancouver Police Centennial Museum and the Firehall is now home to the Firehall Arts Centre.

Summer Greater Vancouver brewery workers went on strike. It happened to coincide with an unseasonably hot summer. Groan.

August 14 Vancouver-born actress and Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten was shotgunned to death by her husband Paul Snider in a West Los Angeles apartment. Snider then shot himself. The Province ran a feature November 30 that told how young and pretty Dorothy Hoogstraten, who had been working at a Dairy Queen on East Hastings, was “discovered” by Snider, a promoter. He arranged to have her participate in Playboy's Great Playmate Hunt in 1978, which led to her success and a promising movie career. As she rose, Snider apparently became a handicap . . . and his anger and frustration ended in murder. This site has details, and there is a fan site. A movie about the tragedy, Star 80, starring Mariel Hemingway will be made in 1983.

Stratten is buried in Los Angeles, Snider in the Schara Tzedeck Cemetery in New Westminster.

August 16 Vancouver's Lois Wilson was the first woman to be named moderator of the United Church of Canada.

August 27 Southam acquired ownership of the Vancouver Sun, now owned both dailies in the city, the Vancouver Sun and the Province. In 1964 the two papers had established Pacific Press Ltd. to print both newspapers from a single shared plant at 2250 Granville St. The Sun was given exclusive jurisdiction as the evening newspaper and the Province became a morning daily when the old News-Herald (latterly called, simply, the Herald) was killed. There were two separate owners, Southam Inc. for the Province and, successively for the Sun, Sun Publishing, FP Publications Ltd, and, briefly, Thomson Newspapers. Now there was just one.

August The “Boat People” of Vietnam, fleeing that country by the thousands, were on our minds. The City of Vancouver, Kevin Griffin wrote in The Greater Vancouver Book, “formed a special Task Force on the Boat People Rescue Project and opened a special refugee coordinating centre at 16th and Cambie. The centre wasn't so much a place for the refugees themselves to get help as much as it was for local residents to find out more information about sponsoring a Vietnamese refugee or to donate furniture, clothing or to lend a hand in whatever way possible. The City of North Vancouver declared September as Boat People Rescue Fund Month to focus attention on raising money for Vietnamese refugees and the Greater Vancouver Regional District sent letters to its member municipalities asking for contribution funds and other support for the Boat People.”

September 2 143 days after he began his Marathon of Hope, Terry Fox had to stop. His cancer had returned and spread to his lungs. The courageous trek stopped near Thunder Bay, Ontario. Terry was flown home and taken to Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster. See the September 18 entry below.

September 14 The first phase of the Chinese Cultural Centre in Vancouver’s Chinatown opened.

September 18 At age 22 Terry Fox became the youngest companion of the Order of Canada. The companion is the highest of three levels of the Order. In a special ceremony Governor General Ed Schreyer flew to B.C. to invest Terry with the honor in the municipal council chamber of his home town, Port Coquitlam. “The Order of Canada awards,” the Province reported, “normally are presented twice a year. But Schreyer and the council which advises him on selections decided that, because of his illness and because of his contribution to the country, a special award should be made to Fox.”

Schreyer quoted from poet Edwin Markham at the ceremony: “Brave soul that took the long and painful road to help create a dream that could not fail.”

This marked the first and only time when the Governor General went to the recipient of the award.

Terry died June 28, 1981, one month before his 23rd birthday.

A book on Terry by Douglas Coupland is now a Canadian best seller.

September 21 A plaque on the Stanley Park Seawall gives this as the official opening date.

October In 1978 the newly named Emily Carr College of Art had regained its independence from VCC through the efforts of then-principal Robin Mayor (appointed in 1972). With an increased enrolment and a new mandate to serve all of British Columbia, the college needed a new facility. As part of a federal government urban renewal project on Granville Island, three abandoned industrial buildings on Johnston Street were transformed into the school's new premises and officially opened in October 1980. The words “and Design” were added to the college's name.

November 8 The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior escaped from El Ferro, where the vessel was being held by Spanish armed forces. The crew has secretly jerry-rigged a substitute propellor shaft bearing to make the boat sailable again.

November 26 The International Bureau of Expositions in Paris approved Expo 86 for Vancouver.

November The Look of Music opened at the Vancouver Museum, and proved a hugely popular show featuring old, rare and beautifully made musical instruments. The guiding force behind the mounting of the show was Dr. Phillip T. Young of the School of Music, University of Victoria. Dr. Young was an active member of the American Musical Instrument Society. The exhibition featured about 300 items illustrating the evolution of Western musical instruments from 1500 to 1900.

Also November The Canadian Fire Underwriters Survey declared the Vancouver Fire Department had achieved Canada's first-ever and only Class I rating.

December 3 The Province reported: “Terry Fox, the 22-year-old athlete who ran halfway across Canada with an artificial leg before being sidetracked by lung cancer, has been made a freeman of the City of Port Coquitlam. Terry, who has raised almost $20 million for cancer research, was earlier admitted to the Order of Canada and the Order of the Dogwood.”

December 9 John Lennon was shot dead.

December 22 Ethel Wilson, writer, died in Vancouver, aged 92. She was born Ethel Davis in Port Elizabeth, South Africa January 20, 1888. “An orphan,” Constance Brissenden writes, “she came to Vancouver in 1898 to live with her grandmother. Taught in public schools from 1907 to 1920. In 1921 she married Dr. Wallace Wilson. She began writing in 1937; in 1947, her first novel, Hetty Dorval, was published. From 1947 to 1957 she wrote four more novels, the best known being Swamp Angel. Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories, her last published work, appeared in 1961, the year she received a special Canada Council medal for contributions to Canadian literature. In 1960 she received the Lorne Pierce Medal from the Royal Society of Canada, in 1970 the Order of Canada Medal of Service. George Woodcock said, "No other writer has more successfully evoked British Columbia as a place or its inhabitants as a strange and unique people than Ethel Wilson.” B.C.'s top fiction prize is named for her. See this appreciation.

December Blackcomb opened with a capacity of 4,000 skiers per day, on four triple chairs and a beginner double chair, serving 4,068 vertical feet. It grew slowly at first, as it was still much smaller than its largest competitor and neighbor across the valley, Whistler Mountain.

December 31 Thanks largely to an earlier CTV telethon honoring Terry Fox, a total of more than $24 million had been raised for his cause by year’s end. Terry's goal of $1 for every Canadian had been reached, and more. He had more than doubled the National Cancer Institute of Canada's 1980 research allowance. And the Port Coquitlam post office reported that Terry got more mail this month than everyone else in town—residential and business—combined.

Also in 1980

Says Rolling Stone: “Perhaps no other modern musician is as synonymous with mainstream pop rock music as Bryan Adams. Since embarking on a solo career in 1980, Adams has sold more than 45 million albums worldwide, becoming a top global concert attraction thanks to his rigorous tour schedule.” Adams, born November 5, 1959 in Kingston, Ontario, came to Vancouver in the early 1970s.

John Avison's health at age 65 resulted in his resigning as musical director of the CBC Vancouver Orchestra. Succeeding him as principal conductor was the renowned English conductor John Eliot Gardiner. Gardiner, born April 20, 1943 in Fontmell, Dorset, England began conducting at age 15. He will hold the CBC post to 1983. There is a good biography of him at this site.

Patricia Carney was elected a Conservative MP for Vancouver Centre. She wrote in her 2000 memoirs, Trade Secrets. “[L]ike Alice in Through the Looking Glass, I walked through the mirror and found my political passion, politics, and the rest of my life.” Carney, born with twin Jim in Shanghai May 26, 1935, earned national attention in the 1960s writing from Vancouver on business issues. Years as a business consultant in the Northwest Territories were followed by her election this year. She will be appointed to the Senate in 1990, the first Conservative senator to be appointed from B.C. in 59 years.

Leila Getz founded the Vancouver Recital Society. To quote the citation on the web site for the Order of British Columbia (which she was awarded in 2004): “Leila Getz had a dream—to present outstanding musicians in recitals for Vancouver music lovers. In 1980, she brought that dream to life when she founded the Vancouver Recital Society. Her vision and leadership have established the Society as one of North America's most respected classical music organizations and its concerts are sought-after platforms for presenting new talent. As artistic director, she has been instrumental in launching the careers of numerous emerging local and international artists, and brought renowned artists to Vancouver from around the world.” You will read more of this remarkable woman as we add new material to the Chronology.

Vancouver entertainer Barney Potts, 70, who led bands here in the 1930s, performed in musicals in the 1940s and was a CBC-TV star for many years, released an album titled Barney Potts, Live—Just Barely.

The Eastburn Community Centre opened at 7435 Edmonds Street in Burnaby.

Debra McPherson, a nurse at University Hospital, looked at her first 1980 pay cheque from the hospital and wondered out loud why it didn’t reflect three years of identical experience in Edmonton. Manitoba-born McPherson became an activist at that point and today is president of the 25,000-member B.C. Nurses’ Union. “Sure we can settle for less," she asks, "but why should we? Why should I be paid less than a freaking plumber?”

The Cascades Drive-In Theatre, a Burnaby landmark since August 30, 1946, closed. The site is now occupied by the Cascade Village condominium development.

Jack Short, horse racing broadcaster, was named to the B.C Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

The 13-minute NFB film Nails, made by Vancouver film director Philip Borsos, was nominated for an Oscar. It won the 1980 Canadian Film Award for Best Short. “Who'd have thought the subject could be so interesting, or so exciting photographically?” (Los Angeles Times). To quote the Victoria Independent Film & Video Website: “It is not surprising that Borsos was nominated for an Academy Award for this short film. Continuing the trend he began with his earlier films, Spartree [1975] and Cooperage [1977], Borsos uses the subject of nail making to explore the loss of traditional production methods inherent in the industrialized world. From the lone nail maker in his workshop to the mechanized factory that is hardly reliant upon the skill and toil of the human hand, Borsos takes us on a journey through nail making that is awe-inspiring. Its remarkable visual style, incorporating pans and tracking shots that are a trademark of Borsos' work, and its riveting score by Michael Conway Baker make it the most developed of Borsos' three ‘process’ films.” Borsos will go on to make several fine feature films.

Writes Michael Walsh on the movie Klondike Fever (director Peter Carter): “The young Jack London (Jeff East) encounters such legendary characters as Northwest Mounted Policeman Sam Steele (Lorne Greene) during his real-life Yukon gold-fields odyssey.” Jeff East, by the way, played the young Clark Kent in the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie.

Other Walsh annotations:

Out Of The Blue (also known as Ce Be; director Dennis Hopper) The Easy Rider director used east side locations for the story of a disturbed, abused teen (Linda Manz) who must face the bitter fact that her parents (Sharon Farrell, Dennis Hopper) are terminally dysfunctional.

The Changeling (director Peter Medak) is released. Vancouver plays a Gothic-looking Seattle in this tale of a restless spirit attempting to communicate with a grieving widower (George C. Scott).

Mr. Patman (director John Guillermin) Insanity proves contagious for a Vancouver psychiatric orderly (James Coburn), an Irish charmer who identifies too closely with the patients on his ward.

Virus (director Kinji Fukasaku) Local backgrounds supplement the Antarctic footage featured in this Japanese-made disaster drama that follows the fate of the 858 survivors of a global holocaust.

Big Meat Eater (aka The Butcher of Burquitlam. Director Chris Windsor) Cannibalism and small appliance repair are featured in this deliberate attempt by SFU Film Workshop alumni to create a suburban midnight movie musical.

An improvisational group called the TheatreSports League began performing late night shows on weekends at City Stage. Mark Leiren-Young has written that “the ever-changing cast of improvisational comedians (which has included such successful performers and/or writers as Jay Brazeau, Garry Chalk, Roger Frederichs, Dean Haglund, Christine Lippa, Colin Mocherie, Louise Moon, Morris Panych and Veena Sood) . . . gradually developed a devout following and in 1986 took over the City Stage space themselves, renaming their venue The Back Alley Theatre.”

Kamloops-born Renald Rabu succeeded Maria Lewis as head of Pacific Ballet Theatre. In 1985 the company will be renamed Ballet British Columbia.

Montreal-born dancer Judith Marcuse, who had moved to Vancouver in 1976 and began to choreograph that same year, launched her own company concentrating on modern choreography.

The Federal Department of Communications established the Cultural Initiatives Program which, unlike the Canada Council, could provide popular arts festival funding.

Carol Shields left her teaching duties at UBC and went to the University of Manitoba.

The book Vancouver: An Illustrated History, by Patricia E. Roy, appeared. She was a history professor at the University of Victoria. A solid piece of work, it was part of the History of Canadian Cities series co-published by James Lorimer and Company, Toronto and the National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada. 190 pages, 9 maps, 14 tables and lots and lots of photographs.

An excerpt: “While the CPR’s need for a good harbour is obvious, the provincial government’s motive in encouraging extension of the railway is less clear. A few weeks after the federal government relinquished its claim to railway lands west of Port Moody, the province announced that the lands were not open for sale. While visiting Montreal, Premier William Smithe had promised to hold them for the railway company until [CPR President William] Van Horne could inspect the area. Van Horne agreed that if he could have the lands and ‘make reasonable arrangements with private holders of lands in that vicinity,’ the CPR would make Coal Harbour and English Bay its Pacific terminus. After examining the site, Van Horne asked the province for approximately 11,000 acres, including the Granville townsite and the north half of the Hastings preserve . . .”

The book Along the No. 20 line: reminiscences of the Vancouver waterfront, by Rolf Knight, appeared, published by New Star Books. It’s a lively, exceedingly readable chronicle of life in the areas of Vancouver where loggers tended to hang out in the 1930s and ’40s. “No trip to town,” reads one passage, “was complete without a trip to The Only, just around the corner from The West. It was a tiny restaurant with a big neon seahorse hanging over its swinging doors. The windows were ‘artfully’ arranged to look like an underwater garden of ice blocks, sprouting celery and lettuce, with pods of cooked crabs, pockets of oysters and silvery whole salmon. Through steamed over windows you got a glimpse of an open kitchen with cooks hovering around boiling kettles. It was always busy and you often had to wait in line to sit at the counters for the clam chowder stew and the quick-boiled fish that made the Only renowned, unchanged almost from the beginning of the century.”

We’re delighted to report the text of the entire book is viewable here.

SFU has a web site about Knight, which makes it clear that the title of his 1974 book A Very Ordinary Life is not quite accurate: “Rolf Knight was born in 1936 and grew up partially in Vancouver and partially in the resource workers' camps of the B.C. coast, working in them until the late 1950s. He obtained a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of British Columbia and traipsed around the U.S. and other parts of the world for some years before getting his Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York in 1968. He taught in a number of American universities, including Columbia, and returned to Canada to teach at the University of Manitoba, Simon Fraser University, and finally at the University of Toronto, where he held a tenured Associate Professorship until 1977. He left that position to engage in full time writing and has published ten books since then. For some years he also drove taxi in Vancouver. In 1992 he received the Canadian Historical Association's award for his contributions to regional history. He continues to live in Vancouver and to write books.”

Barry Downs, a Vancouver architect, celebrated B.C.'s early churches and church sites in Sacred Places. It received an Eaton's B.C. Book Prize.

The small book A Guide to Sculpture in Vancouver, by Peggy Imredy, appeared. For research she incorporated the files of her husband, sculptor Elek Imredy.

The book The House That Jack Built, by Stan Persky, appeared. The full title gives a good indication of the content: The House (Convention Centre, Stadium, Rapid Transit System, etc.) that Jack Built: Mayor Jack Volrich and Vancouver politics.

The novel, Always Tip The Dealer, by local writer Gary Ross, appeared. It was described as a look at the “dark side of Las Vegas that tourists never see.” Ross will have two great book successes in the future, both filmed. Read about them here.

Chuck Davis’ Vancouver Appointment Book, published by New Star Books, appeared. It held space for a week’s appointments on one page, a brief historical vignette on the other. The historical material was from Chuck’s weekly columns in the Province. The book’s success led to two sequels.

The book Mosaic fragments: from the memoirs of T. Ellis Ladner (1871-1958), edited by Edna G. Ladner, appeared.

The B.C. Penitentiary, a federal maximum-security facility and the largest prison in the province, was phased out. It was replaced by Kent Prison in Matsqui and other institutions as part of a decentralization plan.

The Downtown Eastside Residents Association, DERA, hired an organizer. DERA had been having financial problems, exacerbated by non-supportive provincial and civic governments. But then both Bruce Eriksen and Libby Davies were elected to city council, and with other supporters such as Harry Rankin and Mike Harcourt the organization was eventually able to obtain the funding to hire that organizer. His name was Jim Green.

The nine-kilometre Stanley Park seawall was completed. Much of it was built or supervised by master stonemason Jimmy Cunningham, who has hefted thousands of the 45-kilogram blocks into place over 32 years.

The Boeing plant on Sea Island was demolished. It was built in 1939 for the production of Canso and Catalina and later B-29 superfortress aircraft. At the peak of production it employed 6,000 people.

Large numbers of trespassers picking hallucinogenic mushrooms became a nuisance for Surrey farmers. One farmer solved the problem by pasturing a young bull on his land and posting conspicuous notices to Beware of the Bull.

The north side of Whistler Mountain opened. So did the first phase of Whistler Village with hotels, restaurants, pubs, shops, the Whistler Conference Centre, banks and tour companies.

Mohawk Lubricants began operating a used oil re-refining plant in North Vancouver. Mohawk's used oil division can collect over 33 million litres a year of used lubricating oil. This equates, said Mohawk, to 30,000 tonnes of potentially hazardous waste material being removed from the Western Canadian environment every year.

The architectural firm of Musson Cattell Mackey won the Governor General's Award in architecture for their design of 888 West Hastings. According to Sean Rossiter, who writes extensively on local architecture, MCM “reoriented Downtown Vancouver from its east-west Georgia Street axis to north-south along Burrard. . . . A staff architect from England with Semmens and Simpson and the Bentall family's Dominion Construction firm, Musson and his partner Terry Cattell were natural choices to build the Bentall Centre (1966-82), four towers that formed the biggest superblock development in western Canada. MCM were involved in almost every development from West Georgia to the waterfront . . .”

A cast-concrete fountain designed by Paul Deggan, a West Vancouver artist, was installed at 601 West Broadway.

The oldest surviving Catholic church in Greater Vancouver is St. Paul's Indian Church, built in 1884 in North Vancouver. Its twin steeples are a familiar North Shore landmark. An extensive restoration began this year, and would continue to 1983.

The Aquatic Centre indoor pool at UBC opened at a cost of $5.4 million, largely paid by students, alumni and the community. The pool is Olympic size—50 metres long, 25 metres wide—and holds three million litres (644,000 gallons) of water. Designed for recreational and competitive use, it holds up to 738 swimmers and allows several different activities to take place at one time. The Centre also houses a well-equipped exercise room, physical fitness testing centre, two saunas and a whirlpool. The Centre is open to students, staff and faculty members and the general public.

Langara College began a co-operative education program that combined academic studies with practical work experience.

The south tower at Richmond General Hospital was completed.

The Greater Vancouver Information Referral Service (GVIRS, pronounced jeevers) purchased its first computer (thanks to grants from B.C. Lotteries and the Vancouver Foundation), and began to build its famous Red Book database. This was a book for professionals in the field that listed social and other helping agencies in the region.

The Knowledge Network was created. A B.C. government-funded educational channel, it would make its on-air debut in January 1981. During that year the Knowledge Network staff increased from one to 30.

A number of publications debuted in 1980. They included:

Critique Published four times a year by the Xanthyros Foundation in West Vancouver, this was a New Age publication, the motto of which was Getting to the Heart of the Matter.

Ennui A bi-monthly art magazine produced by Ennui Publications of Vancouver. We could check to see if it’s still around, but we’re just too tired.

Prospector Exploration & Investment Bulletin, published six times a year by KW Publishing.

Sacred Fire, a poetry magazine published in West Vancouver four times a year.

Softball B.C. Magazine: The Voice of the British Columbia Amateur Softball Association, a quarterly published by Softball British Columbia that contains membership information and articles of sport-related interest.

Writing Published three times a year, a journal of socially committed and experimental poetry and fiction from Canada, the United States and Great Britain.

The Lady Alexandra, built in 1924, which became a floating restaurant in Coal Harbour in 1959, then a gambling hall in Redonda Beach, California, was badly damaged in a storm there and finally scrapped.

The Samson V, one of a line of “snagpullers” used to keep the Fraser River's channels free of hazards, particularly deadheads, and also to maintain marker buoys and lights, was retired. It is now a New Westminster-based maritime museum portraying the history of the Fraser River.

The B.C. ferry Queen of Surrey was refurbished at a cost of more than $10 million, renamed Queen of the North and put into service on the Queen Charlotte run. The ship—with 99 passengers and crew aboard—would sink after hitting a rock about 135 kilometres south of Prince Rupert on March 22, 2006. Two passengers lost their lives. All other passengers and crew were rescued.

AirBC was formed when the Jim Pattison Group of investors purchased six smaller commuter airlines and amalgamated them into a larger, more efficient operation to serve destinations across western Canada (connecting B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) and the northwestern U.S.

Assets at Vancouver City Savings Credit Union (VanCity) hit the $1 billion mark.

Power from the Peace Canyon project came on line, and BC Hydro's province-wide capacity increased to 7,948,000 kilowatts (83 percent of it hydroelectric), more than five times its capacity two decades earlier. “Faced with the slowing of economic growth,” Jim Lyon wrote in The Greater Vancouver Book, “and intensifying environmental criticism over the practice of flooding valleys to provide hydroelectric generation, in the 1980s B.C. Hydro would turn away from building more generating facilities. Instead, it sought to get the most out of its existing ones. By the end of the 1980s total installed capacity would rise to 10,467,000 kilowatts (90 per cent hydroelectric).”

HRH Prince Charles unveiled the striking Bill Reid sculpture, Raven and the First Man, at the Museum of Anthropology. The work, commissioned by Walter and Marianne Koerner, was carved by Reid from a 4 1/2 ton block of yellow cedar formed from 106 beams. Haida people brought the sand at the base of the sculpture from the beach where the trickster Raven is said to have made his discovery of the first humans in a clam shell. The small, beautiful boxwood prototype, small enough to fit snugly into a person's hand, is now in a permanent display at the Museum of Reid's smaller work in gold, silver, argillite and wood.

The tapestry Vancouver Vertical, by Joanna Staniszkis, was installed at 999 West Hastings. The weaving shows the skyline of the city at that time. There is a very attractive web site by Ms. Staniszkis here.

The big (18 feet x 16 feet) painted canvas Beautiful British Columbia Multiple-Purpose Thermal Blanket, created by Gathie Falk, was installed at 1441 Creekside, home of the B.C. Central Credit Union.

Gate to the Northwest Passage, a corten steel sculpture by Alan Chung Hung, was installed at Kitsilano Point near the Vancouver Museum. Reaction to the work is mixed. (We like it.) See this site.

Flower Totems, a steel sculpture by Sam Carter, was installed at Kingsway and King Edward. It’s described as “three steel vertical poles holding silhouettes of stylized flower forms enameled in different primary colors.” Funds for the work came from a Neighborhood Improvement Project for the Kensington area.

A Mural by Richard Tetrault was installed at the Four Sisters Housing Co-op. Tetrault has created murals all over the area, in community centres, housing developments, banks and schools. (He coordinated a student-project mural—with students from Grades 1 through 7—on the south-facing wall of Lord Roberts Elementary School, on Bidwell Street in the West End. There is an interesting article on him here.)