Author: Vancouver History

The 38 acres of Granville Island, worth many millions of dollars today, were once a little mud flat worth zilch. The little mound, in fact, used to disappear at high tide. But, to a keen-eyed public official named Sam McClay, that drab little mud flat (some called it a sand bar) under the shadow of the old Granville Bridge looked as if it might be a good base for some landfill……

This famous bronze memorial was erected here in 1921 to commemorate Canadian Pacific Railway employees who had lost their lives in the First World War. There were, astonishingly, 1,100 of them. Copies of the memorial, perhaps named Winged Victory, went up in Winnipeg in 1922 and at Montréal’s Windsor Station in 1923. After the Second World War, a plaque was added to the statues as a tribute to soldiers in that war……

The Marine Building is still, for old-timers, the building most clearly identified with Vancouver. Its unique wedding cake “icing”, topped by that vaguely Mayan tower, makes a dramatic and exciting backdrop as you look west down Hastings. It is one of the great art deco buildings in the world….

For nearly 80 years the Orpheum has been luring showgoers in—millions upon millions of them. They have walked through its richly ornamented concourse, up its sweeping carpeted staircases, past opulent wall decorations and tall columns and into the great domed auditorium……

It was October 12, 1894. A small party of hikers trudged through the snow of an unnamed mountain on the north shore of Burrard Inlet. Far below, on the other shore of the inlet, they could clearly see through the crisp, clean fall air the little city of Vancouver—population then about 18,000. The north shore itself had only a few hundred residents. There was no bridge across the inlet yet…..