Stanley Park is one of my favourite places to profile since it is a living reminder of the history of the area combined with the ever-changing landscape of the City of Vancouver. While I have featured photos of its entrance arches, bridges and eventually the causeway that bisected Coal Harbour (creating Lost Lagoon), I have […]

On this day in history (October 9, 1970) the Vancouver Canucks played their first (regular season) game as a National Hockey League team. Today, they took their 43rd team photo on the ice at Rogers Arena and in honour of this, I found an early team photo back from the Canucks’ days in the Pacific […]

A new month has arrived with rain, winds, and Halloween preparations. In Vancouver history, October has had some defining moments, some of which have been captured and preserved in the Vancouver Public Library and City of Vancouver Archives, while others live on through the words of Chuck Davis’ History of Metropolitan Vancouver. Here’s a quick […]

There are characters that can define a community and in the 1970s, it was “Ace” Aasen — the self-proclaimed Mayor of Gastown. Although the area on the eastern edge of Vancouver’s downtown is named after another character, John “Gassy Jack” Deighton, this historic quarter seems to have always attracted interesting personalities. “Ace” Aasen, “Mayor of […]

Historically, the month of September has had its share of milestones and events in Vancouver. Everything from the disastrous “Great Fire” in New Westminster to the opening of Rogers Arena in 1995, the formation of The Vancouver Board of Trade in 1887, and the dedication of the steam-clock in Gastown on September 24, 1977. Today’s […]