Over the last few of years I have featured themed collections of photos from the City of Vancouver Archives on my site. However, this month I thought I would change things up a bit and issue a challenge to my readers and local photographers. The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to create […]

The Lower Mainland received a healthy dose of snowman-worthy snow over the last few days and although much didn’t stick downtown, I found evidence in the Vancouver Archives that such wasn’t always the case. Downtown Vancouver has definitely seen its share of snow days over the last century: Vancouver Snow Photos 1937: Courthouse (now Vancouver […]

1933: W. Moffitt Service Signs Limited. Archives #CVA 99-4382. Photographer: Stuart Thomson. 1930s & 1963. Main Street signpost & Granville Bridge signs. VPL# 30930 & 43359A. 1944: Peace Arch International Boundary sign. Archives #CVA 586-2822. 1948 & 1972. Plaza Theatre, Buick automobile, Kingsdale Motors promotion & signs on Cordova Street. VPL# 80635 & 85872K. Photographers: […]

1907: View of Granville Street, north of Dunsmuir Street, in the rain. Photographer: Philip T. Timms. Archives# CVA 677-525. 1907: Hastings and Richards Streets, in the rain. Photographer: Philip T. Timms. Archives# CVA 677-584. 1931: Georgia Street. Photograph shows parts of the second and third Hotel Vancouver and the Birks’ clock. Photographer: James Crookall. Archives […]

Vaudeville in Vancouver was huge given the age of the city and the era in which the theatrical genre thrived. From about the 1880s until the 1930s (when Vancouver was just growing up as a city) Vaudeville theatres around town — like the Pantages and the Orpheum — attracted popular traveling acts and kept locals […]