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 [...]

Look at an image of Vancouver before the 1990s and you’ll notice a very different landscape. Apartment towers have sprouted up at a rate of 3,000 units per year, which is 1,000 more annually than twenty years ago. Moving away from brick and stone, transforming into a city of glass. Apartment-dwellers outnumber those in row [...]

Vancouver is only going on 126 years old but despite its infancy compared to most other world-class cities, it had a community that supported the arts right off the bat. I dug around the Vancouver Archives to find evidence of everything from Vancouver’s vibrant vaudeville days to its fanatical film-going culture, in neighbourhood theatres to [...]

It was on March 10th 1870 the settlement know locally as Gastown was given its official name: Granville Townsite. Lord Granville was the Colonial Secretary at the time and the Granville Townsite was selected as the terminus for the Canadian Pacific Railway. It wasn’t until 1886 that the townsite was renamed, when it incorporated, as [...]

Painted on the sides of brick buildings that lined Hastings and other downtown thoroughfares that have existed for the better part of the last century, there was obviously a time when Vancouver’s ghost signs were just signs. Thanks to the Vancouver Archives, here’s a quick look at these painted adverts in their heyday. 1917 – [...]

Art Deco Chic, the latest exhibit from the Museum of Vancouver, opens March 7, 2012 and I am currently doing a ticket giveaway for opening night. In conjunction with this, I thought it would be fun to browse the Vancouver Archives and preview some historic style from Vancouver’s earlier years. (Left) 1916 – BC Sugar [...]

Although yesterday’s numbers haven’t yet been tallied, it’s estimated that 49 million cases of beer were consumed during last year’s Super Bowl1. While everyone slides back into work this morning I figured an ale-themed archive photo roundup would be in order. 1890 – Employees of Doering and Marstrand Brewery in Mount Pleasant. Archive item# Dist [...]

The Bailey brothers, Charles S. and William, setup shop in Vancouver at the end of the 19th century. Charles was the first to arrive from Ontario and form a photography company partnership, Neelands & Bailey, which lasted about a year. In 1890 William joined his brother in Vancouver and Bailey Bros Photography was born. 1886 [...]