The following photo essay was experienced and contributed by John Biehler exclusively for Miss604.com.
After a full day of travelling around Kelowna, we arrived at the Hotel Eldorado. After checking in, our group met for dinner and we were treated to a special menu from the hotel’s Executive Chef, Michael Lyons.
We started with scallop and bacon potstickers:
I opted for the Alberta AAA reserve beef tenderloin with Alaskan King Crab, bernaise sauce, whipped potatoes and vegetables:
The meal wrapped up with a ridiculously decadent Hot Chocolate Soufflé:
Michael is one of the hosts of Food Network’s “Chef Off!” television show. Rumor has it that he runs regular Iron Chef-style competitions with chefs from surrounding hotels in Kelowna. I certainly wasn’t expecting this calibre of food in Kelowna and the Hotel Eldorado certainly impressed me.
You can follow this unique lakeside boutique hotel on Twitter @EldoradoKelowna and browse their package deals (spa, wine, golf, or romance-themed) if you would like to book a trip there yourself.
Related posts from the trip: Kamloops BC Wildlife Park, Wine: Quail’s Gate & Tantalus, Beer: Tree Brewing, Noble Pig, Frick and Frack
John is an avid photographer, gadget geek and traveller. You can find him on Twitter and at johnbiehler.com where he discusses photography and all sorts of technology. All photos in this post were taken by John.
Disclosure: Activities, services and dining experiences during the trip were compliments of Thompson-Okanagan Tourism.
If you have ever wanted to know about the history of your home and the people who occupied it before you, James Johnstone is who you want to track down. Over the years he has researched background information for over 800 houses in Vancouver and 300 of those in East Vancouver alone.
1891 – Mount Pleasant. Vancouver Archives Item# LP 189
His research is extensive and includes the creation of information booklets that you can even display in your home. These information kits include a historical demographic overview of your home, an explanation of nearby street names, how the house was built (and by whom), a year-by-year outline of who lived in your house (including their occupations), and where they were born.
I caught up with Johnstone over email and asked him a few questions about his very unique occupation.
How did you get into this line of work?
“For most of my life I have worked in Japanese tourism. I majored in Asian Studies (Japanese language and history) at UBC and actually studied at Okayama University in western Japan for a total of two and a half years, part of that time on a Japanese Ministry of Education (Mombusho) Scholarship. While in Japan, my area of study was the development of Castle towns in the 16th and 17th century. I had to learn to read 500 year-old, brush-written primary documents called Komonjo. It was really interesting. When I came back to Canada, I chose to work in tourism, rather than do post graduate studies. After years of living in apartments in the West End, I moved into an old Edwardian house on Odlum Drive in the East End. The basement stairs whispered when you walked on them. The basement walls were incised here and there with cryptic graffiti that hinted at the stories of past residents. It was obvious to me that the house had tales to tell. To find out what they were I trundled off to the City of Vancouver Archives and dove into the wonderful world of house history research. Well, my first forays weren’t dives so much as enthusiastic wades into a pool of knowledge that got deeper and more rewarding the further I explored its depths.
After I had finished my first draft of the history of my house, I got curious about context and wondered what connection my house and the people who lived in it had with the histories of the neighbouring houses. So next I researched all the houses on my side of the street. When I was finished that, I researched the houses on the other side of the street. This entire process was repeated after I moved to our present home on Hawks Avenue in Strathcona in October of 2000.
When September 11 happened, Japanese tourism to Canada tanked. My consulting contract with the tour company I worked for was terminated. I was left with no income and nothing to give my new friends and neighbours on our block for Christmas. The only thing I had to give was a copy of the house history research I had done for the block. It was when one of my neighbours commented while thumbing through the pages I had given her, “You know, you could do this sort of thing as a business,” that I began to look at what had been my hobby as a possible career path.”
209 Harris Street (Georgia Street) Vancouver Archives Item# SGN 342
Have you always been passionate about local history?
“I have always loved history, period. When I was very young I was into ancient Greece and Rome. I was born in Victoria and brought up in Kamloops and Richmond. I suppose my appreciation for old houses got its start in Victoria. In my teens and twenties I began to read about Vancouver’s history. I loved Chuck Davis‘ history columns in The Province and bought all his subsequent books. I would have to say that it was Chuck’s passion for Vancouver’s history that really made me appreciate what we have here in our city. (In 1985, I had the honour of escorting Chuck and a group he organized on a trip to Japan for the Expo in Tsukuba.) Eric Nicol and Michael Kluckner’s books were also influential. After I moved to Strathcona, I read Daphne Marlatt and Carole Itter’s collection of East End oral histories called OPENING DOORS and from that moment on I have become particularly passionate about Vancouver’s East End’s history. It’s like I have always been an East Ender… …People who come on the tours are always blown away at the richness of the history here and its not just about our Victorian and Edwardian architectural legacy, its the stories of the people who lived in them that makes a visit to Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhood so compelling.”
What are some of the interesting facts that you discover when researching homes?
“When I do a house history I go pretty deep. It’s like I feel I owe it to the ghosts of residents past, somehow. When I am slogging through the hundreds of birth, marriage and death records I have to go through to research any given house, sometimes I wonder, Am I the only one who is remembering you right now? And even though I know I have gone way overtime on a project with a limited budget, I can’t stop or leave things out. There’s almost a spiritual aspect to the work.
On a basic level I find it fascinating to see just to what ends people would go to keep a roof over their head and look after their families. Particularly in the working class East End, there was no such thing as job security in tough times, and people changed jobs often. It totally blows me away how fragile life was back then, particularly for women. I can remember hundreds of instances of women dying during childbirth or shortly afterwards from infection. The number of people who died from TB, whole families in fact, one after another, was a huge shock.
When you come right down to it, it’s not the earth shattering big events of history I find compelling so much, rather the fact that sometimes just making it here to Canada for a new start, staying alive and feeding your family, was a huge triumph. The more I learn about the people I am researching, where they came from, what propelled them to come here, who they married, and how they ended up, the more I want to know. With every piece of history uncovered, another mystery is revealed. I think that is what is so fascinating about working in this field.”
If you could live in any house in Vancouver, which would it be?
“That’s an interesting question. I have to say I actually love where I live. I have only lived here in Strathcona, the old East End, for ten years, but I consider myself an East Ender. Even with all its problems and challenges, Strathcona is a real neighbourhood, deeply rooted in its history and proud of its diversity. It’s not for everyone, but I love it… and maybe that’s part of why I love it…. and the more I love it, I find the more it loves me back.”
This week you can attend a workshop with James Johnstone at the Vancouver Museum that will focus on Strathcona, North of Hastings.
Where Vancouver Museum, 1100 Chestnut Street (Vanier Park)
When Thursday, November 18, 2010 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm
Admission $5.00 Non-members; Heritage Vancouver members free
Johnstone also offers neighbourhood walking tours and runs a blog. You can connect with him on Twitter @HouseHistoryBC.
On the heels a very successful seminar this summer, Marc Smith of Amuse Consulting is hosting another day of workshops this week.
Marc’s topic this time around is “How To Use Social Media to Raise Your Profile & Increase Business for $0” as he once again shares his experience of using social media for his own small business.
My company is proud to be a media sponsor of this series and I have worked with Marc on a few projects (thanks to him I was able to explore the clock tower at Sinclair Centre). He was also invaluable part of the Vancouver Twestival organizing committee last spring that raised over $9,000 for Concern Worldwide.
What makes this seminar different from others is that Marc is a business owner, he’s not a professional speaker or self-professed “social media guru”. He’s one man with one company who has used social media to grow his business and make connections. He’ll tell you real-world examples of what worked — and what didn’t.
There will be two sessions on Wednesday, November 17th 2010:
The Breakfast Session (for beginners) runs from 7:00am – 9:00am and includes coffee and wifi for all attendees.
The Lunch Session (for intermediate users) runs from 12:00pm – 2:00pm and will also have coffee and wifi so you don’t have to miss a big chunk of your workday.
Tickets are still available for $25.
WordCamp Fraser Valley returns for its 3rd year of talks and workshops in Surrey on November 20th, 2010. WordPress is the top blogging platform in the world however it is also used to power millions of websites that you visit each and every day. Its endless theme and plugin capabilities make it one of the reasons why I have been building a business around the platform since 2008.
My company develops WordPress websites, specializing in social media newsrooms that tie blog and multimedia functions into a much more robust website platform. Along with Brave New Code, we hosted WordCamp Vancouver this year and received a fantastic response. I’m hoping that those interested in WordPress, from design and code to using it as a writing tool, will check out WordCamp Fraser Valley this weekend as well.
Speakers include my husband (and business partner) John Bollwitt who is an engineer at CHUM Radio Vancouver. He’ll be talking about how companies can built intranet sites using WordPress to keep their teams informed and in the loop. John has been using WordPress since 2005 and got me hooked on the platform in 2006.
He’ll be joined on the roster by Tris Hussey (author of Using WordPress), Dave Zille, Lynn Robson, and Kulpreet Singh. Raul Pacheco, Danny Bradbury, and Leah Cross will also address how to write and publish your various forms of content using WordPress.
Tickets are still available for $45 so if you’ve ever been curious about WordPress as a user, writer, or developer, these sessions and networking opportunities can’t be beat.
I have profiled the Hycroft mansion before but have not had the chance to visit until this week. I was invited by the University Women’s Club who has occupied the luxurious and majestic heritage home since the early 1960s.
1927 – Vancouver Archives Item #Bu P688 Photographer Leonard Frank
Found just off Granville & 16th on McRae Avenue, named for the mansion’s builder Brigadier General Alexander Duncan McRae, Hycroft sits atop Vancouver’s prestigious Shaughnessy neighbourhood. In 1909 the 30-room home on 5.2 acres (complete with bowling alley, pool, and coach house) was built for $109,000 — an enormous sum at the time. Due to rising costs and need for up-keep, the McRaes donated the mansion to the government in 1942. During the war it became Shaughnessy Military Hospital, serving as an auxiliary facility for 18 years. It was eventually taken over by the University Women’s Club in 1962, who occupies it to this day. [source: VancouverHistory]
1942 – Sitting room. Vancouver Archives Item #CVA 586-2048 Photographer Don Coltman
I did not know what to expect upon entering the mansion but one word I can use to describe the air and energy is warm. The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee tickled my nostrils as I tread across hardwood floors covered in intricately woven tapestry. The house was a hive of activity with a lecture in one room, club administrators typing away in their offices, a gallery curator putting finishing touches on a hallway exhibit, and visitors picking up lawn signs for Christmas at Hycroft.
1942 – Ballroom. Vancouver Archives Item #CVA 586-2051 Photographer Don Coltman
With Louise Carroll as my guide I explored many corners of the manor. Rich wood panels, marble mantles, and Italian tile work sat beneath ornate chandeliers in bedrooms, dressing rooms, and solarium upon solarium. From the wallpaper to the curtains, each item in Hycroft has a story — and Louise could probably tell you what that is. While not every piece is original, contributed items are of the mansion’s original period and are often donated by club members or their families.
Hycroft has a few hidden secrets, from a full bar (from the time of prohibition in Vancouver), to hidden tunnels, a wine cellar, and passageways that used to lead to other buildings on the property. While I have heard a ghost story or two about the mansion over the years (and it was a set for the X-Files), I did not experience anything uncomfortable or feel spooked (even when we ventured up the back stairs into the servants’ old quarters). However, I may believe the rumours I heard about Blanche McRae (mother, wife, and matron of the home) making appearances at joyous occasions such as dances and weddings.
The mansion is much more than a grandiose legacy of a well-to-do family, it’s a living piece of Vancouver history that in itself contains another historically important element – the University Women’s Club. In the spring of 2011 the club will celebrate 100 years of Hycroft as a living space, a hospital, and a thriving centre for education and community.
You can view all of my photos from Hycroft on Flickr and don’t forget to get your tickets now for the 38th annual Christmas at Hycroft holiday event.
