Events Archive

On May 28, 1886, Vancouver’s first fire department was formed. Sixteen days later, the little city burned to the ground. In the 45 minutes it took for the town to burn that day, Volunteer Hose Company No. 1 was helpless—it had no fire engine. City council had ordered equipment from the John D. Ronald Co. of Brussels, Ont., but it hadn’t arrived yet. The two dozen volunteers were equipped with nothing but axes, shovels, buckets and enthusiasm. Sadly, it wasn’t enough….

“Imagine,” says the Vancouver Historical Society, “seeing King George VI and Queen Elizabeth being driven down Georgia Street in 1939 as thousands line the sidewalks and cheer . . . and all in colour!” That’s just one of the rare chunks of film shown February 22 at the Vancouver Museum. Colin Preston (left), the CBC’s Vancouver archivist, has a fine collection of film clips from the past, so this was one of the VHS’s more enjoyable events of the year….

The 1951 census showed that Metropolitan Vancouver had a population of 584,830, just barely squeaking past 50 per cent of the province’s total of 1,165,200. These figures are a reminder of how rapidly the city’s suburbs have grown since 1951, when the population of the city totaled nearly 60 per cent of the metropolitan area. In 2007 the percentage was more like 27 per cent….

1944 marks the dramatic entry into local history of New Westminster’s Ernest Alvia “Smokey” Smith. On October 21 Smokey, a Seaforth Highlander, aged 30, won the Victoria Cross for bravery in action in northern Italy.

I’ve been working on some research for the Association for Mining Exploration British Columbia (AME BC), and came across a book by Ernest Ingersoll (1852-1946) titled Gold Fields of the Klondike. It’s a fine little book, originally published in 1897 as Gold Fields of the Klondike and the Wonders of Alaska.