The History of Metropolitan Vancouver

*******************************************
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!
*******************************************

January 1 Thirteen maximum security prisoners escaped from Oakalla Prison. There had been a riot at the prison four days earlier.

January 24 A riot erupted at Kent Prison in Agassiz. Eighty inmates were involved. Three were injured.

February Designated schedule A heritage structures in Vancouver were these buildings:

April 23 The Metrotown Save-on-Foods roof collapsed during opening ceremonies, only minutes after Mayor Bill Copeland—who was presiding over the grand opening—had directed the evacuation. There were no fatalities. Copeland had become alarmed by cracks in the ceiling, and personally escorted dozens of customers out of the store just before the roof caved in, bringing several automobiles down with it into the store. The owners of the Station Square development suspended all construction at the $75-million project after the collapse of the roof.

Fifteen people, including Mayor Copeland, were briefly hospitalized. There were about 1,000 people in the store, and it was believed that Copeland, a former firefighter, had saved many lives.

April 24 The Vancouver Fire Department’s first 6-alarm fire occurred at the Fraser Arms Hotel. A history of the VFD by Alex Matches will appear this fall. Here’s an advance excerpt from the book, kindly sent me by Alex: “On April 24th, 1988 the first six-alarm fire in VFD history occurred at the Fraser Arms Hotel at 1450 Southwest Marine Drive. The first alarm came in at 2141 hours and was made a second alarm eight minutes later by the first-in battalion chief, B3. Then it was up-graded to a third at 2151 when the fire continued its rapid spread throughout the south side of the building and through the roof. The off-shift was called out with the upgrades to fourth- and fifth-alarms at 2228 and 2230 hours respectively, then at 2237 it was made a six-alarm fire by Command 1, the on-duty Assistant Chief from No.1.

“An hour later, at 2345 hours, the fire was under control and 25 minutes later, at 0011 hours, it was ‘struck out.’ Fresh manpower was brought onto the scene throughout the early morning hours to overhaul and extinguish the remaining small fires. Three fire fighters received minor injuries but were checked out at the hospital and released. The fire was believed to have started under a wooden stairway at the rear of the building in a garbage container. Damage was estimated at $1 million.”

May 5 The Biomedical Research Centre opened at UBC. The $23 million facility is devoted to advancing the treatment of cancer and other diseases such as arthritis, allergies and asthma. It’s a joint project of the Terry Fox Medical Research Foundation and the Wellcome Foundation (funded by Burroughs-Wellcome, a pharmaceutical company). Supporting organizations include the University Hospital, the TRIUMF research laboratory and the Imaging Research Centre, all on campus.

May 20 The Hongkong Bank acquired all the assets of Midland Bank Canada. On May 29, 1990 it would buy Lloyds Bank Canada. The two acquisitions would add nearly $5 billion in assets and 53 new branches, mainly in Ontario and Quebec.

Spring The 1988 inductees into the Vancouver Board of Trade Hall of Fame (awarded to companies or organizations active for 100 years) were Ocean Construction Supplies and the YMCA of Greater Vancouver.

June 8 The Vancouver 86ers (formerly the Whitecaps) began an astonishing 46-game (37-0-9) streak without a defeat. The streak would last to August 8, 1989. They won the Canadian Soccer League championship this year, and would go on to win it for three more consecutive seasons.

June While the Prairies suffered from drought, there was a record rainfall for June in the Fraser Valley this month: 144 mm. (5.7 inches.)

July 31 Eileen Underhill, badminton champion, died in Vancouver, aged 99. Margaret Eileen Stuart George was born April 1, 1889 in Moosomin, Sask. She moved to Vancouver in 1910. Considered to be B.C.'s all-time best female badminton player, she dominated the sport from 1927 to 1936. With her husband, Jack Underhill (b. Sept. 3, 1902, Vancouver; d. July 14, 1974, Vancouver), won National Doubles Championship for three consecutive years. They were five times B.C. mixed doubles champions (1928 to 1931 inclusive and 1935). Jack was Canada's top male badminton star (1925-47), winning numerous B.C. and national championships. The Underhills were the first husband-and-wife team in the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame (1970).

Summer Science World opened in the former Expo Centre, the “golf ball,” at 1455 Quebec Street. The first show was a preview, a four-month smash titled Dinosaurs! A Journey through Time with White Spot. More than 350,000 visitors came during its run. The centre would close for refurbishing, then open for good on May 6, 1989. The conversion was by architect Boak Alexander.

August 11 Hy Aisenstat, restaurateur, died in Vancouver, aged 62. He was born April 28, 1926 in Calgary. Aisenstat, writes Constance Brissenden, “was the son of a Russian emigre wholesale grocer in Calgary. Hy worked in sales, then owned a small oil company. In 1955, with his wife Barbara (born March 20, 1934 in Kirkland Lake, Ont.), he opened Hy's Steak House in Calgary with a $3,000 loan. They moved to Vancouver (1960) and he opened Hy's at The Sands, The Mansion (1979) and Hy's Encore. By 1968, Hy's of Canada united 12 companies, with restaurants across Canada, and in Chicago, Honolulu, Palm Springs and Beverly Hills. He called his restaurants ‘saloons’ and was noted for smoking 10 Havana cigars daily.”

August 19 A high-pressure water main feeding the new sprinkler system in the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library at Robson and Burrard burst, soaking hundreds of rare books and bound periodicals. Said a newspaper report: “More than 200,000 books and newspapers in the basement of the Robson and Burrard Building were doused in the 10-minute shower . . . Workers mopped up much of the mess, using 2,000 kg of newsprint to blot the moisture out of the less severely damaged items.

“Chief librarian Barbara Bell said staff stacked the most badly soaked items into 236 milk crates and sent them off to be freeze-dried, which stops water damage and mold growth.” BC Ice and Cold Storage froze the books to prevent mildew until they could be shipped to BMS Catastrophe Ltd., in Fort Worth, Texas. There, the books were freeze-dried, and the resultant ice crystals removed, preserving fragile paper and bindings. Though quick action preserved much of the collection, losses included 400 books, as well as several art periodicals printed on clay-coated paper stock that turned to muck in the flood. Totally lost was a 23-year bound collection (1939 to 1961) of the Province and Vancouver Sun newspapers.

By January 11, 1989, the freeze-dried books were back on the shelves. And see the November 10 item below.

September 2 At 12 noon the radio call letters CJOR, which had been in use since 1927, disappeared as the station changed its name to CHRX and—still at 600 on the dial—began a classic rock format. See this site. The station has changed its name more than once since.

September 9 David See-Chai Lam was sworn in as B.C.’s lieutenant governor, succeeding Robert Rogers.

September 22 During the Second World War 22,000 Japanese Canadians were uprooted from their homes, separated from their families and sent away to camps. Not one was ever charged with an act of disloyalty. Today, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney formally apologized to Japanese Canadian survivors and their families. Art Miki, of the National Association of Japanese Canadians, called the apology and $300 million compensation package “a settlement that heals.”

CBC Radio’s national service broadcast a report today on the apology, and the compensation to be paid to them. You can hear it (and a voice clip from wartime PM Mackenzie King) here.

September 27 A plaque commemorating the opening a century earlier of Stanley Park was unveiled on the right side of the park drive at the north foot of Pipeline Road. That’s where the park was declared open by Mayor David Oppenheimer September 27, 1888.

September IFC Vancouver opened its offices. Michael Goldberg would be its executive director until July 1991 when he returned to the Faculty of Commerce at UBC. See the February 1986 chronology on this site for an explanation of the significance of the IFC (International Financial Centre).

September Designated a schedule A heritage structure was Firehall No. 6, at 1001 Nicola, built in 1907. Designated a schedule B heritage structure was Tellier Tower, 10-16 East Hastings, built 1910-11.

October A small army of Vancouver musicians paid their respects to jazz DJ Bob Smith at the Commodore Ballroom. He was the city's first jazz disc jockey, began playing big-band music as a teenager on a CJOR program, Hilites, in 1937. On February 1, 1947 he began to host a national radio show on CBC called Hot Air. With Bob at the helm Hot Air ran for 30 astonishing years, and with Paul Grant as host is still going today, the longest-running radio program in Canada and maybe North America. Bob died in 1989.

November 2 Repap Enterprises Inc. was incorporated. The company’s coated papers were used by publishers like Time, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker and Canadian Living. By 1995 Repap was exporting more coated paper—46,000 tons that year—than any other North American producer. But by 1997 the company was in trouble. More to come.

December 2 Walter Koerner, forest company executive and philanthropist, donated his huge collection of ceramic art objects to UBC. Today he wrote to Dr. David Strangway, the university president, about the collection. Here is an excerpt from that letter:

“I am happy that the collection should find an appropriate home here at the University of British Columbia. Its gathering has been delightful past time for most of my life, covering the span of nearly of 80 years. Since I was a boy, at school. At that distant time when the Austro-Hungarian Empire ruled central Europe, I first got the bug for decorative ceramics objects, usually plates and jars created by the Czecho-Slovakian peasants potters. These were sold usually for little money on market days. With the encouragement of my mother, who had an unusual feeling for color and life of the people of our native land I slowly began to build my collection. Gradually this expanded to more sophisticated forms of Baroque and Anabaptist ceramic art, derived initially from Italian majolica of renaissance and also to other European decorative art forms. Long ago while I was still gathering I came to the conclusion that the collection should be kept together, be given permanence and stability and made part of the public domain in trust for the community and the nation by being displayed and studied by scholars in the public institution.

“What more fitting an institution than the University of British Columbia with which I have been for so long partly identified and to which I also match its stimulation and inspiration. It is particularly fitting that the collection should be part of this museum in whose creation I was fortunate to be involved.

“Hitherto, the museum's art has been predominantly North West Coast Indian and Asian. Now European decorative art will also be substantially represented.”

December 12 Today marked the run of the first train—a 111-car coal train—through Canada's longest rail tunnel, 14.66 kilometres long, through Mount Macdonald in the Selkirk Range. (The two arms of the tunnel met in October, 1986.) The $500-million Canadian Pacific Railway project, wrote The Province’s Mark Wilson, was “completed more than four months ahead of its scheduled official opening and nearly $100 million under budget.” Heavily loaded westbound trains found the one-per-cent grade easier than the eight-kilometre 1916 Connaught Tunnel, the country's longest until this new one opened. The Connaught sits 83 metres above the longer tunnel, and is now used for eastbound trains.

December 17 A 17-year-old man named Harkirat Bagga began serving a 14-year sentence today for shooting and crippling Tara Singh Hayer, editor of the Indo-Canadian Times. The shooting, which left Hayer confined to a wheelchair, occurred Aug. 26. Province reporter Bob Hendrickson wrote that “Bagga wore a small, fixed smile as Judge Patrick Hyde told him in Surrey provincial court: ‘Your religious and political beliefs and your personal animosity were the obvious factors behind the shooting.’”

December The provincial government transferred title to 763 hectares (1,885 acres) of undeveloped land from the University Endowment Lands to the Greater Vancouver Regional District to form a park. A resulting competition to provide a name saw young Sherry Sakamoto winning with Pacific Spirit Park. She chose the name, she explained, to signify “Gateway to the Pacific and spiritual ground to becoming one with nature.” The naming ceremony—with Sherry in attendance—will occur April 29, 1989.

The vacant Expo site was sold in one of the largest real estate deals in Canadian history. Some locals predicted that when all the projects are completed, Vancouver would become a sort of Hong Kong of the Pacific Northwest, an international financial centre surrounded by mountains and saltwater inlets.

Financed largely by Li Ka-Shing, a Hong Kong billionaire whose assets in 1988 made up one-tenth of the stock exchange in Hong Kong, the Concord Pacific development was expected to transform the Expo site into a 207-acre community of offices, town houses and parks.

Li's purchase of the site, for $320 million (Canadian) to be paid over 15 years, was evidence, the New York Times commented, “of the Hong Kong capital now pouring into Vancouver in anticipation of the 1997 deadline for turning over control of the British Colony to China. As a British Commonwealth nation, Canada has immigration policies that are less strict than those of the United States, which has made it easier for Hong Kong businessmen to develop projects in growing Canadian cities.

“Both the sale of the old Expo site, from the Government-run British Columbia Enterprise Corporation, and the designs for Pacific Place,” the Times continued, “generated considerable controversy here. Some critics say that developers other than Mr. Li were not given an opportunity to bid on the property, while others argue that the design does not include enough moderate-income housing. The Government [headed by Premier Bill Vander Zalm] says it wanted to complete the sale with a minimum of delay, to a developer with enough capital to complete a project large enough to cover the old Expo site.”

Wrote Catherine Gourley in 1997 in The Greater Vancouver Book: “When finally presented, the official development plan revealed the largest development scheme in North America, an ambitious $3 billion re-designing of the entire shore. It shows a series of neighborhoods strung along the waterfront with 40 highrise towers, four parks, schools, marinas and a three-kilometre seawall. And as a salute to the area's industrial past, the CPR's Roundhouse has been preserved and is slated for use as a community centre. By 2010, when the last building is finished and sold, Concord Pacific should be home to 15,000 people and the north shore of False Creek at last open to all the residents of Vancouver.”

B.C. Tel began construction of the Lightguide Transmission system. By 1990 it had completed its portion of the cross Canada LTS—the worlds longest terrestrial fibre optic network—three million metres of fibre optic cable. This allowed British Columbians rapid interactive voice, data, image and video transmission on one circuit.

The company BC Gas was formed when Inland Natural Gas (incorporated in 1952) acquired the mainland natural gas division of B.C. Hydro. By far the largest natural gas utility in the province, it distributes through 30,000 kilometres of pipeline, running from the Peace River District through the centre of the province, to about 700,000 residential and corporate customers in more than 100 communities throughout mainland British Columbia. In the Lower Mainland, storage facilities for Liquefied Natural Gas are in Delta. There are 10,189 kilometres of pipeline transporting and distributing natural gas, exclusive of pipes running to individual customers, running underground throughout the Lower Mainland.

BC Gas is now called Terasen, which in turn is a subsidiary of US-based Kinder-Morgan Inc.

Whonnock Industries Limited—which had started in the 1930s with a sawmill in Whonnock, east of Haney—changed its name in 1988 to International Forest Products Limited, usually referred to as Interfor. Today, it’s one of the biggest forest companies in Canada, with annual sales of more than $800 million.

The GVRD opened the Burnaby Incinerator. Costing just over $63 million, this was one of the most advanced municipal waste incinerators in North America. By 1997 it was handling about 20 per cent of all the solid waste disposed in the Lower Mainland: 240,000 tonnes of it every year. And it was earning $4 million annually from the sale of steam to the nearby Norampac paper recycling mill. However, not all of the steam could be utilized by the mill. The plant operators and GVRD engineers saw the excess steam as an opportunity to make the plant more sustainable. So they generate electricity from the steam and sell the power—enough to heat 15,000 homes—to BC Hydro.

There is a very good five-minute video produced by GVTV showing how it all works. Check it out here.

The ownership history of the Hotel Vancouver is a complicated one, and would make for a long article. Suffice it to say that CN, which had earlier (1960s) contracted the hotel’s management to Hilton, resumed sole management in 1983. But this year Canadian Pacific Hotels once again acquired the hotel. Today, it’s owned by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts . . . which is owned by Canadian Pacific.

The number of passengers arriving and departing using Vancouver International Airport this year: 8,840,130. That was a big increase over 1987's 7,822,500. In 1989 the comparable figure will be 9,143,850.

A $40 million wastewater treatment plant and deep-sea outfall was built on Iona Island near Sturgeon Bank. It improved the quality of water at nearby Sturgeon Bank, and served as the foundation for a popular public promenade and cycle path extending four kilometres into Georgia Strait . . . on top of the outfall pipes!

Charles “Chunky” Woodward resigned as president of Woodward’s. The company had expanded greatly under his direction, but the recession of the 1980s spelled its doom. A Wikipedia article tells the story. An excerpt: “The recession hit Woodward's harder, perhaps, than any other retailer. The rapid expansion of the preceding years, including the opening of 4 stores in 1981 alone, left the Company financially fragile at a time when a combination of high inflation, high interest rates and large debt exerted pressure on customers as well as retailers. In a bid to improve its situation, Woodward's immediately began disposing of assets to lower its liabilities and improve cash flow . . .”

B.C. Tel reported that 40 per cent of all new homes built in B.C. this year were located in Surrey.

Pacific Regeneration Technologies Inc. (PRT), now Canada’s largest forest nursery company, was established. It consists today of a network of nurseries in Canada and the U.S. Collectively, these nurseries produce more than 220 million forest seedlings per year.

CCI Learning Solutions Inc. (we haven’t been able yet to determine what the initials are for) was incorporated. Based in Maple Ridge, it’s a software publisher concentrating on “courseware for instructor led classes, e-learning courses, blended training solutions and official certification exams.”

A Ford Motor Company assembly plant in Burnaby (built in 1938 and used to produce military vehicles during the Second World War) was demolished to make way for Station Square.

In 1949 the Matsumoto family purchased a small shipyard on Dollarton Highway in North Vancouver, building fishboats and fire-fighting boats for Mexico. They sold the company this year to Pacific Western Shipbuilders.

Surrey's Farm Fair celebrated its 100th birthday this year, and changed its name to the Cloverdale Exhibition.

A Cree language course was offered in the Guildford Park Continuing Education program. Buffalo Child, a full-blooded Cree, was the teacher.

Ray Murao of the Steveston Kendo Club won the Best Fighting Spirit award at the world Kendo tournament. (This website has a very brief video clip showing Kendo students.)

Heraldry was patriated to Canada this year and a Canadian Heraldic Authority established as part of the Governor General’s office. Since then, all lawful heraldry granted to Canadian corporations or individuals flows from that office. The second group of official symbols are non heraldic: logos or wordmarks designed by graphic artists and others and adopted by resolution of a particular Council. As the use of heraldry has spread across the GVRD, this type of emblem has become less common: it seems we like coats of arms better than logos! Canada’s Chief Herald since 1988 is Vancouver-based Robb Watt.

Amid considerable controversy approximately 500 permanent Kerrisdale residents were dispersed when a number of low-rise rental apartments were demolished to make way for intended condominium developments. Some of the sites were still vacant in 1997, nine years later.

A study showed that between 1980 and 1988, immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China accounted for 23 per cent of all foreign immigrants coming to Richmond.

Point Roberts, the little tip of Washington State that’s accessible by land only through BC, finally got its own US-based telephone service. B.C. Tel had been serving the area up until this year.

The former American Can Company Building, at 611 Alexander Street, built in 1925, was reshaped by architect Bruno Freschi. “Old and new are superbly mated in this industrial building, built as a container factory and retooled to become a chic design centre,” wrote architectural historian Harold Kalman. “It features showrooms for Vancouver's emerging clothing designers, as well as accommodating offices and studios of architects and others in the design industry.”

The former Ferry Building at 101 14th Street in West Vancouver, built in 1913, was rehabilitated by Howard/Yano Architects to become an art gallery. The clapboard structure served as the West Vancouver ferry terminal until the service was discontinued in 1947.

Another 1913 building very attractively reshaped for 1988 was the Port Coquitlam City Hall, at 2580 Shaughnessy Street. The project was part of PoCo’s Diamond Jubilee (75 years). Architects Toby Russell Buckwell and Partners integrated the old municipal hall with a very fine new addition. Wrote Harold Kalman: “The red brick walls and window pattern of the old building, which was thoroughly rehabilitated to today's standards, set the theme for the new wing, the two connected by a concrete-and-glass entrance and foyer.”

A personal note: I wrote the history of the city (Port Coquitlam: Where Rails Meet Rivers, published in 2000 by Harbour Publishing) and spent many genuinely pleasant hours in this building. Here’s an excerpt from that book: “Another Diamond Jubilee project was a city hall expansion. The lead architect on the project, Tom Annandale, had a job on his hands. ‘The inside of the building was pretty old,’ he said. ‘It needed extensive seismic upgrading, it didn’t come close to meeting the code. Everyone was agreed on one thing: they wanted to keep the exterior as a reminder of the city’s heritage.’ It was Annandale who had the idea to ‘swing the building around,’ so that its front entrance would be on Shaughnessy.”

Curiously, in 1913 there was a jail in the building’s basement. You can still see the bars.

The North Parkade was built at UBC. The eight-level $7.7 million parkade—designed by architect Zoltan Kiss—can accommodate 1,003 vehicles. Some spaces are used by residents in the nearby Walter Gage Towers. Engineers were N.D. Lea.

Phase II of UBC’s Acadia Family Housing project was completed. Architects of the $12.8 million complex: Waisman, Dewar, Grout. (First phase was Fairview Crescent Student Housing.) Phase III would be completed in 1989.

The South Delta Baptist Church was built at 1988 56th Street in Tsawwassen, designed by James K.M. Cheng Architects. The fan-shaped sanctuary seats 1,300 worshippers.

W.T. Whiteway, from Newfoundland, was an important early-century architect in Vancouver. Among his works is the Kelly Building, begun in 1905. This year, rehabilitated by Soren Rasmussen, it became The Landing.

An envelope with a “28” postmark was sold at auction this year for more than $3,000. Postmaster Maximilian Michaud, who bought the Brighton Hotel on Burrard Inlet early in 1869 and changed its name to the Hastings, used a grid-lined hammer enclosing the number “28” to cancel the mail. His was the only postal outlet in colonial times within Vancouver's current boundarie

The publication Gnome (Opinion), published semi-monthly in Greek with a regular English section, was established.

Nathan T. Nemetz reached the age of 75 and stepped down as Chief Justice of British Columbia. He was also made a Freeman of the City of Vancouver this year.

Pearl Steen, women’s activist, died in Vancouver, aged about 95. Born Pearl Soper in Victoria in 1893, she was educated in Vancouver. She was president of the National Council of Women, the Vancouver Council of Women and the Vancouver Women's Canadian Club. She joined the Canadian Federation of Professional and Business Women's Club, and was its president in 1935. She was president of the Point Grey Conservative Association (1936-37). She spent six years on the Vancouver School Board (1947-52), and was elected chair in 1950. A member of the B.C. Centennial Committee (1958). She was the sole Canadian woman delegate to the UN General Assembly in 1960, and the only woman director of the PNE (1960-68). She was a member of the B.C. Human Rights Council. Ms. Steen received Vancouver's Good Citizen Award in 1967.

The octagonal tower of St Edmund’s Catholic Church in North Vancouver was struck by lightning. The tower was repaired.

SFU is a world leader in chemical ecology and pest management. This year an SFU team synthesized a queen bee pheromone (message-carrying chemicals) that others had been trying to replicate for 25 years. It's used to boost production in North America's $20 billion fruit and vegetable industries.

University Hospital came into existence as a merger took place between Shaughnessy Hospital, UBC Health Sciences Centre and George Derby Centre. This partnership would dissolve in 1993 with the closure of the Shaughnessy site and subsequent merger of the UBC Site with Vancouver General.

A Federal Court ruled mental patients were eligible to vote in federal elections.

Riverview Hospital, a facility for patients with serious, long-term mental illnesses, is within the geographical boundaries of the Greater Vancouver Regional Hospital District, but now began to be operated outside the GVRHD system by the B.C. Mental Health Society. In keeping with a 40-year trend in Western countries away from institutional care and toward community care, Riverview began reducing its inpatient numbers. Patients were being switched to care in or through psychiatric departments in acute-care hospital, in care-homes or by outreach services in the patients' own communities. An historical review of Riverview noted: “Whether the seriously mentally ill will profit in the long run from these changes will largely depend upon the degree of integration of the various components of this community model and the adequacy of their funding.”

Canadian Journal of Nursing Administration A quarterly published by Health Media Inc., aimed at Canadian nurse administrators, managers and educators.

Chinese Edition Lifestyle Magazine A monthly, with text in Chinese and English, a consumer lifestyle magazine directed at the Chinese market in Canada.

Computer Paper * (B.C. Edition) A free monthly, directed at IBM, Macintosh, OS/2 and Unix end users, it offered news, features and reviews.

False Creek News A weekly suburban community newspaper, distributed free to households in the area.

Gallerie: Women Artists Monographs Irregularly published, this gave women artists from across North America a forum to discuss their art and concerns in a series of books.

Vancouver Prospector A monthly publication covering speculative Vancouver market stocks, “especially penny and junior precious metals mining stocks poised for over 200 per cent profits in 1 to 2 years.”

B.C. Research incorporated as a private company. When the B.C. Research Council began on the campus of the University of British Columbia in 1944 it was a non-profit government-subsidized research facility. It worked in a multitude of fields, such as research and development for small business, environmental consulting and laboratory analyses for a range of private- and public-sector clients. Revenues began to climb, soon reached more than $10 million annually. But by 1992, on sales of $11 million, the company, employing more than 100 people, would report a loss of $700,000. In March of 1993 it would be declared insolvent. Three months later it was back in business . . . and then some! More details when we get 1993 up.

Pat Quinn, since 1987 the president, general manager and some-time coach of the Vancouver Canucks, made his first draft pick in 1988: Trevor Linden, 18. Linden, the future Captain of the team, was voted Hockey News Rookie of the Year that season and in 1996 would become the Canucks iron-man after passing Don Lever's record of 437 consecutive games. That photo to the right shows Linden in the uniform of the Medicine Hat Tigers, just before joining the Canucks. We chose it to show you what he looked like in 1988.

South Africa’s Sally Little won a major golf tournament, sponsored by a cigarette company, at the Vancouver Golf Club in Coquitlam. Her closing 20-foot (6-meter) birdie putt beat Laura Davies by one stroke.

It’s gone now, but when the Canadian Craft Museum opened in 1988, behind and part of the Cathedral Place complex, it garnered warm praise. It was a small architectural gem, designed by Paul Merrick, with its own tiny green courtyard. Readers of Vancouver Magazine voted its gift shop the best in the city. Shows by Canada's master artisans ranged from exquisite ceramics to erotic jewelry to knitted symbols of Vancouver. The museum closed in 2002.

Earth Art was unveiled on the rear plaza at 1363 West Broadway. A sculpture of steel mesh sprayed with liquid concrete, this piece by Judson Beaumont is, says art writer Elizabeth Godley, an “extremely subtle piece doubling as a bench and retaining wall in a plaza designed by landscape architect Ron Rule.”

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra was struggling with bankruptcy. It cancelled half the 1987/88 season. On October 24, 1989, City Council would approve a “rescue package” to help the Symphony Society avoid bankruptcy. Part of that package was a contract to lease the basement of the Orpheum Theatre at an annual rent of $100,000 to be offset by a grant of $100,000 from the City. This arrangement allowed the Society to use the City contribution as leverage in its fund-raising efforts. The orchestra would survive.

Larry Lillo, 41, became the artistic director of the Vancouver Playhouse. “Audiences should be challenged as well as entertained,” he said, “some theatre-goers want to see plays with meat on their bones.” Under his direction, Playhouse subscriptions rose from 5,800 the year he began to nearly 12,000 by the 1992/93 season.

A dance company named DanceCorps was formed, with Germany-born Cornelius Fischer-Credo as director. It had sprung from Mountain Dance Theatre. See more on Fischer-Credo here.

Mark Breslin opened a Yuk Yuks comedy club on Davie Street, but would move it to the former Expo 86 site in 1989. Later it moved to 1015 Burrard Street.

The movie world took notice when the first Vancouver-made film with an Oscar-winning performance was released. The movie was The Accused, directed by Jonathan Kaplan, and starring Jodie Foster, playing a rape victim who seeks justice through the courts. It was her first Oscar. Among the more well-known local talents also in the movie: Terry David Mulligan and Stephen E. Miller. The movie was based on a real-life gang rape that occurred March 6, 1983 at a bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Michael Walsh, movie reviewer and historian, had these comments about other 1988 releases filmed here:

Distant Thunder (director Rick Rosenberg) The Seymour watershed doubled as Washington State's Olympic Peninsula for the story of a “bush vet” (John Lithgow), a troubled Vietnam war survivor in self-imposed wilderness exile. Also featuring Ralph Macchio and Janet Margolin.

Shoot To Kill (director Roger Spottiswoode) Tracking a deranged killer (Clancy Brown) to Vancouver, an FBI agent (Sidney Poitier) stakes out Robson Square, leads a hot pursuit through downtown and shoots it out aboard a B.C. ferry. Also features Tom Berenger and Kirstie Alley.

American Gothic (director John Hough) Bowen Island provides splendid rural isolation for a family of recreational murderers (Yvonne De Carlo, Rod Steiger), until an innocent-looking ex-mental patient (Sarah Torgov) comes calling. Janet Wright is in the cast.

Watchers (director Jon Hess) A trusting teen (Corey Haim) discovers that his new golden retriever (Sandy) is the friendly half of an escaped living-weapons system, and the killer half is at large in the woods.

Douglas Coupland wrote an article for Vancouver Magazine in which he first referred to people born between 1961 and 1981 as “Generation X.” He moved to Palm Springs shortly after and wrote the best-selling book of the same title. This website plucks many of Coupland’s neologisms from the book. A sample from Page 48: “Bambification: The mental conversion of flesh and blood living creatures into cartoon creatures possessing bourgeois Judeo-Christian attitudes and morals.”

Lots of locally-oriented books appeared in 1988. They include:

Saltwater City: an illustrated history of the Chinese in Vancouver by Paul Yee. An updated and expanded version of this excellent history would appear in May 2006 from the same publisher, Douglas & McIntyre. The 1988 version earned the City of Vancouver Book Award. Says BC Bookworld: “It blends historical facts and folklore motifs to recreate the daily lives and emotional hardships of early Chinese immigrants to the Pacific Coast.” (In a 2006 talk to the Chinese Canadian Historical Society, Yee said that the updated version would have more material on the accomplishments of Vancouver’s Chinese-Canadians.)

The book Union Jack, a biography of union leader Jack Munro co-written by Jane O’Hara and Munro, appeared. It was a profile of the 16-year president of the International Woodworkers of America in B.C., with special attention paid to the 1983 Solidarity movement, in which Munro went to B.C. premier Bill Bennett to attempt to end the labor-vs-government war of the time. The “Kelowna meeting” generates arguments to this day.

The Architecture of Arthur Erickson by Arthur Erickson, Vancouver's most renowned architect, born here June 14, 1924. He designed Simon Fraser University, Robson Square, the Museum of Anthropology, the MacMillan Bloedel Building, the Canadian Embassy in Washington (see the photo to right) and much more. The book examines his career up to 1988. (Try this: go to Google Images and type in Erickson’s name. You’ll see many fine buildings.)

Guy's Guide to the Flipside by Guy Bennett, a self-published book described by BC Bookworld as an “offbeat but acerbically truthful view of Vancouver's less-celebrated attractions.” It would be re-issued by Pulp Press in 1992. Bennett was born in Cambridge, England in 1959, came to Vancouver in 1968. He now lives in Manitoba.

This Won’t Hurt a Bit, a collection of interviews and autobiographical glimpses by Vancouver-born (May 1, 1946) CBC radio host Vicki Gabereau. She started as host of Variety Tonight in 1981, was an instant hit. In 1985 she became host of a two-hour daily interview show on CBC, and stayed there until 1997 when she moved to television and CTV. (Born Vicki Filion, her father was well-known Vancouver press photographer Harry Filion.)

Canada Customs: Droll Recollections, Musings and Quibbles, by Winnipeg-born (1955) Bill Richardson. It’s a collection of memoirs, observations and poems, his first book of humor. There were many more to follow, and many awards, too.

Love in the Temperate Zone, a novel about a middle-aged relationship, by L.R. “Bunny” Wright. Reviews were mixed, but the New York Times ended its moderately favorable look at the book by saying it: “shares with all good stories—from Cinderella to Scruples—the one quality that makes the reader keep turning pages: characters whose fates the reader cares about.”

Harvesting the Fraser: a history of Early Delta Researched and written by Terrence Phillips; edited and designed by Susan Buckley, and published by the Delta Museum and Archives. The Winter 2004 issue of British Columbia Historical News has a review by Norm Collingwood of the later edition, but this quote from that review will serve as an indication of the book’s target: “The Ladners were the first to bring the rich delta marshland into production by diking and draining. In 1873, a government wharf was built on land donated by William Ladner, thus providing access to the steamboats travelling the Fraser. Prior to the wharf construction, Ladner offered part of his homestead as a post office site, which had become known as Ladner’s Landing. He would row out to passing steamers, collect the mail and hand it over to local residents. The area continued to prosper with the construction of the Ladner Trunk Road in 1874, and in 1879 Delta was incorporated as a municipality.”

The Natural history of Stanley Park Edited by Valentin Schaefer and Angela Chen, compiled and illustrated by members of the Vancouver Natural History Society. A new edition (with a new title: Wilderness on the Doorstep: Discovering Nature in Stanley Park) was expected for the spring of 2006 from Harbour Publishing.

Running tough: the story of Vancouver's Jack Diamond, by Gareth Sirotnik. Published by the Diamond Family as a tribute to the well-known Vancouver businessman. Among his many citations and honours, Diamond received the Vancouver Good Citizen of the Year Award in 1955, was named a member of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 1977 (he’s widely acknowledged to have saved the sport locally with his financial backing), a Freeman of the City in 1979, and received the Order of Canada in 1980 and the Order of B.C. in 1991. See a fine biographical sketch centered on his support of Simon Fraser University here and another concentrating on his horse racing endeavors here. Diamond died March 25, 2001, aged 91.

Glancing back: reflections and anecdotes on Vancouver public schools, edited by Chuck Gosbee and Leslie Dyson and published by the Vancouver School Board. Gosbee was director of communications for the Board when this book appeared, and Leslie Dyson was a VSB Publications editor. Their history dates back to the city’s first public school which opened in 1872 with 15 students.

Poet Roy Kiyooka’s book Pear Tree Pomes was nominated for a Governor General’s Award. Kiyooka worked on the book with Toronto painter David Bolduc.

No Way to Live: Poor Women Speak Out, by Sheila Baxter, an anti-poverty activist, a book based on interviews with poor Vancouver women.

1988 Lotus
[Photo: livingbeing.com]

Chronology Continued

1988