Author: Vancouver History

In 2004 Eric Daichi Ishikawa, one of the students taking part in that year’s Historica event (in which students from elementary schools all across Canada prepare historical exhibits on topics of their choice), assembled an illustrated report on the June 17, 1958 collapse of the Second Narrows Bridge.

Was Canada’s national anthem written in Vancouver? No. To get the facts, come back with us to a gloriously sunny day in July, 1908 in Quebec City. Brigadier-General Lawrence Buchan was in command of the garrison at Quebec, at the head of 12,000 troops taking part in ceremonies…

In 1997 Lorne Findlay, the man standing by that beautifully restored 1912 REO Special, made an astonishing journey: he drove the car right across Canada! With him was writer John Nicol.

It’s Christmas time, 1943, in Ortona, Italy. Capt. William H. Melhuish of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada is writing a letter to his mother.

On May 23, 1914 a ship called the Komagata Maru—normally used for transporting coal—arrived at Vancouver and anchored in Burrard Inlet. She carried 376 Indians: 12 Hindus, 24 Muslims and 340 Sikhs, British subjects all, and people who had come to make a new life in Canada