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by Rebecca BollwittDisclosure: Unpaid, Personal Opinion — I was not paid or offered any compensation for this post. I saw the date of the first store opening on VancouverHistory.ca and ran with the theme. Images are courtesy of the Vancouver Archives and the Vancouver Public Library. Please review the Policy & Disclosure section for further information.
It was on this day in 1893 that the Hudson’s Bay Company opened a store at the corner of Georgia and Granville streets. 118 years later, the company is still in the same location (albeit in a different building). It’s been a shopping destination, a meeting place, and a gleaming beacon of Canadian pride during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games.
The first Bay store in Vancouver actually opened in Gastown, on January 17, 1887. It sold things like saws, axes, and lanterns. The following collection features the Hudson’s Bay Company in Vancouver over the years.
1893 – Hudson’s Bay Store (on the corner) at the 600 block of Granville. Archives item# Str P170.
1901 – Hudson’s Bay Store decorated for the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall. Archives item# Duke of C and Y P7.
1917 – Roof of the Hudson’s Bay Store. Looking at Granville. Birks Building, Vancouver Block, and the 2nd Hotel Vancouver. VPL Accession Number: 20150
1917 – Policeman at the intersection of Granville and Georgia. VPL Accession Number: 20388
1923 – Hudson’s Bay Store on the right. Looking North on Granville from Georgia. Archives item# Str P428.
1923 – Hudson’s Bay Store decorated for US President Harding’s visit. Looking North on Granville. Archives item# Port P942.10. Photographer: W.J. Moore.
1927 – Hudson’s Bay Store. VPL Accession Number: 11261. Photographer: Leonard Frank.
1935 – Hudson’s Bay Store. Archives item# Bu P217.
1936 – Hudson’s Bay Store. Archives item# Bu N520.3. Photographer: W.J. Moore.
1956 – Hudson’s Bay Store. VPL Accession Number: 43364. Photographer: The Province Newspaper.
The pages were flipped with each new month until I lazily tacked up the completed calendar displaying its cover image for an extra 10 months. The black and white photo of three children with arms linked together hung on our wall until I realized it was no longer 2010 and we hadn’t picked anything up for 2011. This week I’ll be heading out into downtown Vancouver to find a vendor for the 2012 Hope in Shadows calendar to replace my old edition.
Catherine sold me the 2010 calendar outside Waterfront Station.
The images featured in 2012 the calendar are among 4,000 submitted to this year’s campaign. Disposable cameras were handed out to residents in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and communities impacted by poverty. The photos were printed and 40 finalists were selected, including the winning images that don the pages of the calendar. One thing that struck me this year (I realize I missed last year’s print) is that the calendar used to be solely black and white but now it’s in colour. I spoke with Paul Ryan, Project Director at Hope in Shadows, about the change.
“Every year since 2006 the cameras have been colour cameras because they don’t make disposables in black and white,” Paul explained. “We were able to see some [photos] in colour and they were amazing.” They did a survey about 18 months ago and found that people were receptive to the idea of doing both colour and black and white shots. The decision was a popular one last year so they did the same for the 2012 calendar. “It’s a good thing to keep innovating,” he added. “A lot of people feel the colourful photos are a little more hopeful.”
The Hope in Shadows calendar project, now in its 9th year, allows homeless and low-income individuals in Vancouver to become vendors. They pick up the calendar from head office for $10 each and sell them for $20 around the city. Paul told me that last week 39 vendors were trained and they have additional training sessions all week at the Portland Hotel Society‘s Life Skills Centre. “I think we’ll probably train about 200 people based on the demand from the last two years,” said Paul. They currently have 140 active vendors who are purchasing more than one calendar so they can go out and sell.
Paul told me that selling calendars is a stepping stone for a lot of people. “It helps them gain self-esteem and build confidence. It’s a way that they can feel good about earning money again.” Some of the vendors use the program to compliment a low-income for their household as well, especially with the holidays around the corner.
Look for vendors outside high-traffic areas like SkyTrain stations, Canada Line Stations, Chapters on Broadway at Granville, or Chapters on Robson and Howe. There are some retail outlets as well such as Banyen Books, Book Warehouse, Vancouver Special, and Red Cat Records.
There will be a photography exhibit with the 40 finalist images from October 11th to the 29th at the Pendulum Gallery (West Georgia at Hornby). Follow Hope in Shadows on Twitter for more information and view past exhibitions online.
Update December 27, 2011: A record-breaking 14,000 calendars have been sold, one thousand more than last year! [source]
The 7th annual Taste of Yaletown is coming up October 19 to October 30, 2011. This campaign is your chance to explore the best Yaletown restaurants and bistros have to offer through fixed-priced 3-course menus.
Aside from exploring new-to-you dining options in this downtown neighbourhood you can also support a cause. When you order off the Taste of Yaletown menu at participating restaurants partial proceeds will be donated to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society.
Follow Taste of Yaletown on Facebook and Twitter to learn about more special offers. Miss604.com is proud to sponsor the Taste of Yaletown for the second year.
GigaLinc photography exhibition at the Shangri-La Vancouver. This free showcase is open to the public and will feature large-scale panoramic images captured with the help of the GigaPan apparatus.
Photo by Ronnie Miranda www.gigapixel.com. First game at the renovated BC Place.
The image is made up of 600 photos (30 across by 20 down) stitched together and taken over a 40-minute span. The final hi-res file is 100,127 X 48,377 pixels or 4,843 megapixels.
Ronnie also created this timelapse of the BC Place grand re-opening event. Watch for the roof to open.
What GigaLinc Photography Exhibit. When Thursday, October 13 to Friday, October 14, 2011 from 10:00am to 6:00pm Where Shangri-la Hotel Vancouver, Blue Moon Theatre,1128 West Georgia, Vancouver
From the organizers: GigaLinc is an exhibition that allows participants to interactively explore large-scale panoramic images. Gigapixel images (100 times the information captured by a 10 megapixel digital camera) are digitally projected onto a large screen that allows viewers to navigate and explore the image in detail using Kinect-based hand-gestures, zooming in and out of areas of particular interest. Surround-sound adds to the multi-sensory experience. GigaLinc was developed by Samuel Cox for his Master’s degree in Digital Imaging and Photography at the University of Lincoln, UK.
Massive screens will display images captured using GigaPixel technology and the exhibit will include the Stanley Cup Game 7 crowd photo that has millions of online views to date. The instrument itself allows you to attach your camera (Canon, Nikon, Olympus, pocket camera, SLR etc.) and does all the panning work for you.
In honour of this exhibit Ronnie Miranda, CEO of Active Computer Services and Gigapixel.com, is offering up a GigaPan EPIC 100 to one of my readers. This instrument, a $449 value, will help you capture amazing panoramic images with your camera. I gave away a GigaPan last January so if you didn’t win then, here’s how you can try again:
Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
I entered to win a GigaPan EPIC panorama photo instrument from @activecomp & @Miss604 http://ow.ly/6NhEs
I will randomly draw one winner at 10:00am on Wednesday, October 12, 2011. Update The winner is Andrew S!
The Vancouver Art Gallery is marking their 80th anniversary Wednesday, October 5, 2011. It first opened in 1931 at 1145 West Georgia, a few blocks away from its current location in the old courthouse building, where it moved in 1983.
1931 – Vancouver Art Gallery’s original location under construction.
Archives item# Bu P401.1. Photographer: Stuart Thomson
1931 – Vancouver Art Gallery’s original location under construction.
Archives item# Bu P401.3. Photographer: Stuart Thomson
October 5, 1931 – Opening day of the Vancouver Art Gallery at 1145 West Georgia.
Archives item# CVA 99-4061. Photographer: Stuart Thomson
To celebrate this milestone, admission is by donation all day tomorrow and cake will be served at 11:00am. The current exhibitions are:
The Distance Between You and Me: “The Distance Between You and Me presents the work of three notable contemporary artists from Vancouver, Los Angeles and Guadalajara. Thematically, the exhibition revolves around the ideas of location and dislocation, not only in the geographical sense, but also in terms of psychological location.”
An Autobiography of Our Collection: “What is a museum collection? How does it reveal the personalities and particulars of an institution? For eighty years, the Vancouver Art Gallery has been acquiring artworks, and drawn exclusively from this permanent collection, An Autobiography of Our Collection considers the fascinating history of collecting at the Vancouver Art Gallery.”
The Vancouver Art Gallery boasts the largest collection of Emily Carr’s works and is the fifth largest gallery in the country. In recent years they have been pushing to relocate downtown. Follow the Vancouver Art Gallery on Twitter or Facebook for exhibit and special event information.
