In 1986 he was named Vancouver’s “Citizen of the Century” and he was pretty much just a regular guy who happened to spend most of his time saving lives.
You’ve probably seen the restaurant that’s famous for its seafood and that yellow cab out front, and maybe you’ve been to the library named in his honour, but do most Vancouverites these days know much about the man Joe Fortes himself?
VPL Number: 21746. Photographer / Studio: Dominion Photo Co.
Joe Fortes was born in Barbados in 1865 and by way of Liverpool, England he ended up in Vancouver after surviving a shipwreck. He held many jobs – as a bartender, porter, shoeshiner, etc. – but fell in love with English Bay and soon became Vancouver’s first self-appointed, un-paid lifeguard, living in a tent on the beach. Shortly thereafter he was given official lifeguard status and overlooked what soon became known as “Joe’s beach.” He would go on to teach hundreds of children to swim, to save over 100 lives and to become a legend and inspiration for the city.
(Left) 1910 – VPL Number: 39420. Photographer: White, J. Studio. (Right) 1918 – VPL Number: 649
… scarcely a tyke who was raised in Vancouver in the 1890’s or 1900’s but learned to swim with Joe’s ham-like fist gripping the back of his or her cotton bathing suit and that deep, mellow voice ordering, “Kick yo’feet, chile – kick yo’ feet.”…Mothers confidently shooed their children away to the bay for the long summer days with the simple command, ..’and don’t go away from where Joe is..’ ” [History of the West End]
In 1922 when he passed away his funeral at the Holy Rosary Cathedral was the most-attended to date in the city.
The people in Vancouver held Joe in such high esteem that ever since 1926, when a memorial fountain was placed for him near English Bay, we’ve been naming things in his honour. He would later have a branch of the Vancouver Public Library (on Denman) named after him in 1976 and a famed oyster bar restaurant on Thurlow street would open in 1985, bearing his name one hundred years after he came to the city. In 2003 the National Film Board of Canada even produced an award-winning short film called, “Joe”.
The fountain depicted in the photo above resides in the West End’s Alexandra park. It’s the perfect height for youngster and on it is inscribed, “Little Children Loved Him.” Next time you pass by the fountain, the restaurant or the library, now you’ll know about this great man who changed the lives of many in Vancouver – from all walks of life, young and old.
Joe, Jill Haras & Jill Haras, provided by the National Film Board of Canada
Facts from this post were gathered with help from my favourite Vancouver history website, VancouverHistory.ca more can also be read on the Black Historical and Cultural Society’s website.
It’s been several months in the making and now we’re less than two weeks away from the first ever Facebook Awards that will take place at the Vancouver Facebook Developer (and Design) Garage.
The ever-fabulous Megan Cole (who was also named as one of Vancouver’s Tech Women to Watch in 2008) will be moderating the event and the following companies have signed on to do live demos:
Eat-A-Rama by ActiveState
Mixx Maker (V2.0) by Project Opus, Donat Group
(The World’s Biggest) Hockey Pool by Ben Nevile (Mainsocial)
The Snow Report by Jeremy Holland and Dean Halford (MOK Agency) my latest personal app and it’s pretty great
These Are My Kids by Kinzin, Uniserve
All applications are homegrown, right here in BC. Remember, to present a demo your app doesn’t even need to be completed so give us a sample and get some valuable feedback from this test audience of your peers. Sign up here if you’re interested in being a speaker.
One of the most popular applications that was shown at the first Garage was Social Signal speaking about Green Gifts, which was created and designed for BC Hydro as a part of the PowerSmart campaign. Not only can you send friends a gift on Facebook, they include energy-efficient and eco-friendly tips, providing valuable information for those looking to be more environmentally conscious.
Also from Social Signal, Rob’s created a series of Facebook-themed cartoons – check them out on ‘Noise to Signal‘.
And even though they’re not Facebook related per se, I have to include these because they made me chuckle.
This next one is *SO* John and I.
You can read more about Rob and his company’s work with BC Hydro and the Green Gifts application in this bio.
If you have or know of a Facebook application OR a Facebook cartoon that would fit into the new awards category, nominations will be open until the event on January 28, 2008. I previously introduced some nominees for the Facebook Awards and it’s not to late to get your submissions in.
Bloggers have the power to publish their opinions and information to the internet and with a good following and decent readership traffic, they have a lot more influence than you’d imagine. They can promote causes, spread news like wildfire and even catch a thief so why is it that it’s super tough for a respectable blogger to find a corporate sponsor for a contest or event?
First things first, not all bloggers are created equal. For instance if a “monkey knife fight blog” wants to get the SPCA to sponsor an event, that may not be the best idea. However when a Vancouver blogger wants to promote restaurants and businesses in the city, what does it take to get a company to hop on board? For example, I’ve personally been told by at least thirty people that my (unsolicited) blog post recommendation to visit a certain butcher shop/deli turned them into faithful regulars of the establishment – score! Blogging equals links equals customers.
Recently I’ve been asked twice about finding a sponsor for an event. The first being CaseCamp, which you’d think would be an advertising exec’s DREAM. A packed house of marketing professionals all dialed into social media? What better way to get visibility. The second is Duane’s StartupWeekend. Dozens of tech-minded, career-driven entrepreneurs getting together to build a product or even a new company – why wouldn’t you want to have your business or product showcased for these people?
I know I had a heck of a time finding sponsors for my blogiversary contest. Without going into too many details about my site traffic per month (let’s just say it’s probably close to the population of White Rock), why wouldn’t companies want to get their name in there? It would be FAR cheaper than placing an ad in a newspaper and you’d get a) instant traffic to your own website and b) new customers, should people enjoy the product. Also if it’s as a part of a contest, we all know the benefits of a gift card or gift certificate; you get that person in the door and spending and they’re likely to come back and spend.
I’m grateful to Mount Seymour and the Vancouver Giants for embracing this and their openess to sponsor my past contest. Because of such, I feel even more encouraged to go to Giants games and to carve up Seymour. A positive experience with an organization can go a long way.
Now I don’t know the legalities of some situations – I don’t claim to know much about anything, really – and I personally don’t have any contests going on so this isn’t a plea for my own gain. This is pretty much just to find out… why not ? Why are companies so hesitant to sponsor anything to do with blogging when it could mean hundreds or thousands of hits to their website and have the potential for so many new customers (which we all know equals $$).
Leave your thoughts in the comments below. I’m looking for a little enlightenment and a bit of a discussion here although maybe we all just need to sit down and read the Social Media Marketing Playbook.
Every so often while walking the streets of Vancouver you’ll have the chance to buy something. It may be a hot dog, fresh roasted chestnuts, a print from that guy who draws black and white sketches Tupac and Wayne Gretzky, or perhaps a daily newspaper.
On Tuesday February 5th, volunteers will take to the streets of Vancouver, Surrey, New Westminster and Burnaby with toques and baseball caps for sale – all proceeds going to local programs that will help out the homeless population in those areas.
As this is a nation-wide program I contacted the local rep for “Raising the Roof” (and no, I’m not talking about Raising the Roof at the Olympic speed skating oval in Richmond) to find out how our region will specifically benefit from this campaign.
This year the proceeds from toque and cap sales in BC will benefit two Lower Mainland charities. Progressive Housing Society is a charitable society located in Burnaby that provides affordable housing and support services for adults with mental illness to enable them to live independently.
The second recipient is Bladerunners, an organization committed to providing unemployed, marginalized at-risk-youth with support, job readiness skills, and work-place training so that they can overcome their barriers to employment and achieve long-term attachment to the workforce.
Almost all of the funds raised from the sale of the toques and caps, that are $10 a piece, will stay in BC and support these local programs. If you don’t spot a toque campaign on February 5th in your area, you can also donate or purchase a toque online. The toques come in various colours (black or khaki) or you can grab a black baseball cap or a lovely fleece scarf.
Raising the Roof is currently looking for volunteers, in particular to help out on Toque Tuesday. If you would like to get involved, contact bc_toques [at] yahoo [dot] com or visit www.raisingtheroof.org.
They say, “those who blog together, stay together.” Actually, I’m not sure who says that but I hope it rings true for my husband and I. The man who calls me his partner in crime was one of my inspirations to begin blogging in the first place and his blog is celebrating a blogiversary right now.
In January of 2004, John Bollwitt started blogging in Iowa about anything from tech news to being a small-town family boy working for a radio station “We fried a computer at the station the other day. I say this literally. There was a snap, and the smell of burning components filled the room…” [jan 22, 2004]
Ten months later he published his first podcast on RadioZoom he would then go on to be the producer of The Crazy Canucks podcast.
Since getting his big time day job here in Vancouver he hasn’t had much time to blog as much as he’d like so I’m going to promote his works a bit with some ultimate link love. He’s come a long way from his blogspot blog (and a long way from Iowa) but he’s still my inspiration for every single post I write.
My Audihertz.net blog all time “best of” moments:
John seeing Kerouac’s Scroll. [jan 25, 2005]
John meeting a drunken Ira Glass [dec 5 2005]
John needing better music at hockey games (and getting some flack for writing this post) [dec 6 2006]
John complaining about his wedding ring [march 1 2006]
And it says a lot that John’s categories with the most posts under them are “podcasting“, “adventures“, and “rock and roll“. Also to his credit, his “hockey” category is rather impressive.
I know he misses having an outlet for his mad writing skillz, but it’s okay, I’m still a subscriber. He seriously also deserves a medal for putting up with me through a host change AND a Blogger to WordPress change all in the SAME week (and later from a PC to Mac). Head to John’s site and explore his archives (start at October 2005 in particular to see his impressions of Vancouver when he first moved here) and check out his various projects. Here’s to many more years of blogging and podcasting, babe.
