Author: Vancouver History

January 3 The SkyTrain commenced operation between Vancouver and New Westminster. (The extension to Surrey would come later.)

February 19 John Prentice, forest company executive, died in Vancouver, aged 79. Born in Vienna February 27, 1907 he came to Canada in 1938, changing his surname from Pick.

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

January 11 The books damaged in the burst water pipe incident in the main library in 1988—at least, those that were able to saved to be freeze-dried and restored—were back on the shelves.

January 10 Laurence J. Peter, writer, died in Palos Verdes, California, aged 70. Dr. Laurence Johnston Peter was born in Vancouver September 16, 1919 and might have toiled forever in obscurity as a teacher at UBC if he hadn’t bumped into Vancouver writer Raymond Hull in the Metro Theatre.