noon, nine, and all around
by
A while back I posted about the 9 o’clock gun [604] (which still makes me jump at 9pm if I’m not paying attention). Well there’s something else that happens EVERY day in Vancouver (at 12, noon on the nose) that you may or may not notice. After bringing it to my attention a few months ago, Laura’s done some research and figured out the source.
…I found out today that it is actually produced from a horn on top of the old BC Hydro building at 970 Burrard, between Barclay & Smithe. The poor customer service lady at BC Hydro said “It actually has nothing to do with us but yes, it’s ‘O Canada’.” [LoloD]
Do you know of anything else like this that happens around the city that you may just not notice?
Around some other Vancouver blogs, The Vancouverite is on a Craigslist binge lately [TV], Gus Greeper had her ‘last night of freedom’ in anticipation of her wedding (which is merely DAYS away) [GG], and Matthew Good, in a further effort to purge his life of cursed-bad-horrible things almost made my sister cry with this clever and cleansing post [MG].
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Rebecca, the BC Hydro horn does indeed play ‘O Canada’ but the horn is no longer at the BC Hydro Building. After the condo conversion it had to be moved. It found a new home at Canada Place. I believe the inventor of the horn is the same person who made the Gastown Steam Clock.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_Building,_Vancouver
okay, so my original thought that it was at Canada Place was right! GEESH! I need to learn to google better…..
A furth follow-up. The inventor of the O Canada horn is Bob Swanson, a steam engineer.
Check out the picture of the ten horns representing each province of Canada:
http://www.bchistory.ca/PDFs/Newsletters/Newsletter-April-2005.pdf
Check out the Swanson bio:
http://www.vancouverhistory.ca/whoswho_S.htm
And the inventor of the Gastown Steam Clock is Ray Saunders.
http://www.landmarkclocks.com/page3.html
i can’t believe it is on saturday. holy.