To celebrate BC’s first Family Day holiday, I turned up some old time family photos in the Vancouver Public Library‘s archives. Photographer Philip Timms, whose photos often grace the pages of this site, features his family in many of his photos making them a top hit in my archives searches. Having picnics, hanging out at Stanley Park’s beaches, eating dinner and playing music together, these century-old images provide a glimpse at a quintessential Vancouver family.
(Left) 1901: P. Timms’ residence. VPL Number: 7625. Photographer: Philip Timms.
(Right) Date unknown: Philip Timms (back row, right) with family members. VPL Number: 19058.
1904: Family picnic at Second Beach. VPL Number: 7266. Photographer: Philip Timms.
1905: Family and friends on Dominion Day. VPL Number: 7236. Photographer: Philip Timms.
1906: Philip Timms’ family. VPL Number: 7115. Photographer: Philip Timms.
1908: Family and friends at Third Beach. VPL Number: 7288. Photographer: Philip Timms.
1920s: “Timms Family Orchestra”. VPL Number: 19442. Photographer: Philip Timms.
1931: Timms family camping trip. VPL Number: 19215.
Photographer: Philip Timms.
Date: 1931
Date Unknown: Timms family gathered at the table for a meal. VPL Number: 19431.
Photographer: Philip Timms.
Think you can make a mean cupcake? Then bring your best recipe, pastry bags, and unique ingredients to the Vancouver Cupcake Throwdown for validation. The local cupcake competition returns on Wednesday, February 27th, 2013 and if you’re not up for competing, you can certainly attend to enjoy all of the frosted and buttercream goodness.
Admission to the event, taking place at Fortune Sound Club, is $10 (plus fees) and they include four tasting tickets and a ballot to vote for your favourite cupcakes in a number of categories. Proceeds will go to the Friends of Raincity Housing, Five Star Footy Club, and Leaky Heaven Youth. The evening will be emceed by Erica Sigurdson with music from DJ Hebegebe.
Tickets are on sale now online and if you want to volunteer or sign up as a competitor/baker, email Stephanie (vancouver.cupcake.throwdown[at]gmail.com). Cupcakes are not baked on site. Amateur and professional bakers welcome.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the parade, it will be bigger than ever this year with marching bands, cultural dance troupes, lion dancers, community groups, the Vancouver Police Department Motorcycle Drill Team, and over 60 other entries bringing together 3,000 participants for an estimated 50,000 spectators. Festivities will kick off earlier as well with the parade setting out at 11:00am, taking 2.5 hours to complete.
Parade Route
The 1.3km parade route has been adjusted for 2013 to accomodate more participants. It will start out at the Millenium Gate on Pender (between Shanghai Alley and Taylor Street) and proceed east along Pender, turning south on Gore, west on Keefer, then dispersing at Keefer and Taylor.
TV Broadcast
If you can’t make it out to the parade, you can watch delayed coverage on Shaw Multicultural Channel, Shaw TV, and Omni later that day and the following weekend. Check local listings for exact times.
Post-Parade Lion Dances
Following the parade there will be lion dances throughout Chinatown. The lions will perform a celebrative dance at each participating shop to bring good luck and prosperity from approximately 2:00pm to 4:00pm.
The Cultural Fair and Chinatown Spring Festival will take place on Saturday, February 16 and Sunday, February 17, 2013 at the Sun Yat-Sen Plaza (50 East Pender). This event is free and open to all. It will feature multicultural performances, a lion dance grande finale, martial arts demonstrations and more. Stop by between 1:00pm and 4:00pm on Saturday and between 2:00pm and 4:00pm on Sunday.
Travel vloggers eat your hearts out! Back in 1936 James A. FitzPatrick presented a series of newsreels in fantastic new Technicolor called Traveltalks which included profiles of Victoria and Vancouver. Most of Fitzpatrick’s Traveltalks were produced by MGM and featured over a hundred destinations, from Motoring in Mexico (1943) and Chicago the Beautiful (1948) to Over The Seas to Borneo (1932) and Rural Sweden (1938).
Vancouver’s segment begins at around the 5:30 mark.
After completing training in the dramatic arts, [FitzPatrick] worked for a while as a journalist. In 1925 he entered films and specialized throughout his career in travel documentaries. Besides directing, he also wrote, produced, and narrated many of his films. MGM distributed a series of his travel films under the umbrella titles “Fitzpatrick Traveltalks” and “The Voice of the Globe”, as did Paramount as “Vistavision Visits.” The hallmarks of Fitzpatrick’s films were Technicolor photography and stolidity. [Source: IMDB]
In the reel, Vancouver is a budding city of 350,000 inhabitants with “one of the finest harbours in the world”. The Marine Building and the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver dominate the skyline, and The Great Fire was referenced as an event that took place a mere 70 years before the film.
1931. VPL Number: 4260. Photographer: Leonard Frank.
“By a strange twist of fate therefor, Vancouver – the great lumber port of the Northwest – has fewer wooden buildings than any other city of its size in the Dominion of Canada.”
It’s a quick segment but it’s fascinating to see the city, in colour, at that time – including a moving shot of the same view I have posted here (right).
Credit for this find goes to Steffani Cameron, who recently started up the Victoria-based blog Van Isle Style and profiled Victoria in 1936: MGM Traveltalk Newsreel.
Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada is back on Saturday, February 9, 2013 to bring the country together through community events, on-ice activities, and of course plenty of hockey action as Canadian NHL teams face off.
Scotiabank is hosting three main programs in conjunction with Hockey Day:
Virtual High Fives
Fans are encouraged to post a picture of their Best High Five Moment on the Scotia Hockey Club Facebook page (for inspiration, check out the High Five Series that my pals Vancouver is Awesome have kept up). Between Friday and Saturday, Scotiabank will randomly select 5 photos and those fans will get a personalized video message from an NHL alumni live from Peterborough.
Tweet with Lanny McDonald
On Saturday, February 9th, between 11:am and 12:00pm (Pacific) Scotiabank will be hosting a live tweet chat on @ScotiaHockey, whereby fans can ask questions to Lanny McDonald! Fans can either ask questions on Twitter or on Facebook but they need to use the tag #askLanny.
High Five Program
More high fives! This time, it’s an interactive gesture with the Scotiabank High Five to the Stanley Cup Final contest. Canadian hockey fans choose their team they want to support (this is the team they are going to follow for the season. Should they wish, they have one opportunity to change their team before April 3rd). Then, every time their team scores, fans have 10 minutes to go to the app to High Five. Fans can also opt-in to receive real-time goal notifications via email or text to make this step go quickly. After their team finishes a game, fans also have 12 hours to log on for a bonus High Five.
Each fan’s High Fives logged through the app counts as a contest entry and each week a random winner will be selected to win two tickets to any NHL game of their choice. On June 10th, one grand prize winner will be chosen who will receive a VIP experience for two to a Stanley Cup Final Game. Contest is open until June 9th, 2013 and is open to all Canadian residents.
My Contest
To promote Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada, I have a prize pack to give away that includes a toque, mittens scarf, skate sharpening device, an eco bag and a branded pin.
Here’s how you can enter to win this prize pack:
Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
RT to enter to win a @ScotiaHockey #HockeyDay prize pack from @Miss604 http://ow.ly/hwcdU
I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 10:00am on Hockey Day (Saturday, February 9, 2013). Follow Scotia Hockey on Twitter and Facebook for more information about Hockey Day in Canada this Saturday, live from Peterborough.
Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada: Richmond
For Hockey Day activities in our region, check out what’s happening at the Richmond Olympic Oval. From 10:00am until about 7:00pm on Saturday, February 9, 2013 they’ll have “all things hockey under one roof”. Five Hole For Food will be on site to collect donations of non-perishable food items for the Richmond Food Bank and activities will include ball hockey, street hockey, memorabilia booths, collectibles, and more including numerous merchandise giveaways, prize draws and fun contests.
Visitors will include the Canucks’ mascot Fin, Canadian rockers Odds, and Hockey Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur. There will also be a Vancouver Canucks Alumni game vesus Richmond Sockeyes Alumni at 4:00pm (tickets are $15 online) with partial proceeds going to support KidSport.
