Today’s Archives Photo of the Day features two young Vancouver children and their “pet” bear cub. Description: Ken & Theresa Quiney with bear cub at 1820 Waterloo Street in Kitsilano, 1910 Photographer: James Luke Quiney Archives item#: CVA 7-29

The Vancouver Heritage Foundation is hosting Hotdogs for Heritage Sunday July 11th from 11:00am until 3:00pm. Photo credit: to be, inspired on Flickr The main focus of the event is an architectural salvage sale, including items like hard-to-find heritage doors to sinks. You can also bring in your items for donation to the sale such […]

On a whim I’ve decided to start up a new series called, Archives Photo of the Day. I considered posting this to Twitter only until I realized that the links generated by my search queries end up expiring after a few minutes. With people heading on vacation (including us) next month I’m keen on posting […]

The old Hastings Mill store was one of the only buildings in Vancouver at the time to survive the Great Fire of 1886 and it now resides near Jericho Beach in Kitsilano. Photo credit © SqueakyMarmot on Flickr The store carried the staples of the day when it opened in the 1860s; tabacco, pipes, overalls, […]

It was 124 years ago last Sunday (June 13th, 1886) that Vancouver was completely destroyed by fire. It began as a controlled fire to clear brush on the land, however it quickly spread out of control. The Great Vancouver Fire of 1886 Vancouver before the Great Fire, Water Street 1886. Archives item #Str P8 The […]

There are few places in Vancouver where public can get a panoramic view of the city without heading up one of the North Shore mountains. There’s the Lookout at Harbour Centre (which recently celebrated a birthday), then Cloud 9 restaurant atop the Empire Landmark Hotel. The other vantage points are mostly from private suites. However, […]

33 years ago today Harbour Centre was officially opened and at 481 feet, it was the tallest building in Vancouver at the time.1 Harbour Centre is the home of The Vancouver Lookout, a revolving restaurant, a mall, various businesses and tech firms, as well as one of SFU‘s downtown campuses. In 1977 it was called […]

Trying to come up with themes for history posts is sometimes a bit tough. I’ve done everything from feature photos of long-gone hotels and aerial images of the region, to people walking dogs down Hastings Street a hundred years ago. Sometimes it’s the oddities that are the most interesting, such as that time an elephant […]

After a bit of a break from the Then and Now series I’ve decided to get it up and running again. Usually I explore the Vancouver Archives online database however I’ll be pulling from the Vancouver Public Library‘s collection for today’s “then” images. The “now” images have been captured from Google Maps. 1908 – Hamilton […]

The Vancouver Art Gallery is icon in our city and was a central hub of activity during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games and although the building won’t be going anywhere… it’s what’s inside that counts. Photo credit: rodefeld on Flickr A relocation, that would see it move out of the old courthouse building, has […]