Grouse Mountain is as much a summer playground as it is a snowy winter destination. The Grouse Grind tests endurance, performances at the peak entertain, ziplines thrill, the resident grizzly bears awake from their cold season slumber, and the views of the South Coast mesmerize. For today’s roundup of photos from the Vancouver Archives, I [...]

If you’ve ever driven to or from Vancouver International Airport (“YVR”) then you have traveled along Grant McConachie Way. This road on Sea Island was named after bush pilot Grant McConachie, a man who Chuck Davis referred to as “a genuine Canadian hero”. Source: AC Family Network / Wing Walkers: A History of Canadian Airlines [...]

Playland is opening for 2012 this weekend so a look through the City of Vancouver Archives to find old amusement park photos seemed in order. 1939 – Fair rides. Archives item# CVA 99 – 3131. Photographer: Stuart Thomson. 1936 – Canadian Pacific Exhibition. Archives item# CVA 260-503. Photographer: James Crookall. 1936 – Children’s rides. Archives [...]

99 years ago, on April 17, 1913, Athletic Park was dedicated on Hemlock and West 6th. 1915 – Opening Day vs Victoria by the City of Vancouver Archives on Flickr. Archives item# PAN N14B. Photographer: WJ Moore. Chuck Davis writes: “The park was built by Bob Brown, who would come to be known as Mr. [...]

I love stepping under the canopy of Stanley Park‘s forest trails, detouring from the concrete paths of the Sea Wall and surrounding thoroughfares. A few years ago I profiled the origins of several Stanley Park Trail Names including Merilees, Rawlings, Tatlow, Thompson, and Tisdall. Tourism Vancouver recently launched their ultimate guide to Stanley Park (useful [...]

Each year Heritage Vancouver lists their Top Ten Endangered Sites around the city. These are libraries, schools, motels, theatres, and other structures whose fate is uncertain or threatened. The 2012 list will be revealed exclusively during a bus tour next month. Date: Saturday, May 5, 2012 Time: 1pm to 5pm (loading begins at 12:30pm and [...]

New Westminster will be celebrating the 120th anniversary of the Burr Block building this month. The old provincial capital was destroyed by fire in 1898 (twelve years after Vancouver’s “Great Fire”) and the Burr Block at 411-419 Columbia Street was only one of two buildings that remained. Today, it’s the home of the Met Hotel, [...]

Walking around Stanley Park nowadays there are hardly any remnants of the zoo that once housed over 50 species of animals, from monkeys and cobras to penguins and kangaroos. However, the old cement polar bear habitat still haunts the grounds just west of Brockton Oval and south of the Vancouver Aquarium. When I was young [...]