EAST END VANCOUVER/STRATHCONA HISTORY WALK
Departs: 696 East Hastings (at Heatley) at
Time: 10am.
Duration: 2.5 to 3 hours depending on the size of the group.
Cost: $25 per person
My East End Vancouver/Strathcona walking tour is by far the most popular of my History Walks. It is no wonder... The East End is Vancouver's oldest and most fascinating neighbourhood.
The humble East End was the first Vancouver home to thousands of people fresh off the boat or train arriving from all over the world. Street by street, block by block, the East End developed ethnic enclaves. This neighbourhood boasted the first Synagogue and first Jewish neighbourhood, Vancouver's first Little Italy, Japantown, and Vancouver's only Black identified neighbourhood, Hogan's Alley.
Some blocks were dominated by Scandinavians, others by Yugoslavs, Russians and Ukrainians. Over the years the East End became Chinatown's residential district, home to renowned authors Wayson Choy (The Jade Peony/Paper Shadows) and Paul Yee (Salt Water City/Ghost Train).
Home to three historic red-light districts, an unsettling mix of non-British, mostly working class immigrants, three of Vancouver's four Depression era hobo camps, innumerable bootleg joints, even gangs. Vancouver's East End was often viewed by outsiders as an unsavoury, even dangerous place where "those people" lived.
But it was also home to Angelo Branca, who went on to become Supreme Court Justice for British Columbia, Canada's "Amelia Earhart" Tosca Trasolini, boxing legends Jimmy McLarnin and Phil Palmer, NDP Premier Dave Barrett, media personality, musician, filmmaker and actress Sook Yin Lee, CBC programmer, poet and author Bill Richardson, Canadian singing legend k. d. lang, and the Montreal Bakery where the "royal buns" were baked for the 1939 visit to Vancouver by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. And that is just scratching the surface!
Every one of Strathcona's houses has a story to tell. Want to time travel? Come for a History Walk through Vancouver's oldest and most fascinating neighbourhood, the East End.
Parking: There is plenty of free parking along Heatley Avenue, Hastings Street, and Keefer Street further South.
E-mail: historywalks@gmail.com to reserve a space on my regularly scheduled tours, or for more information on how to book a private History Walk.
Saturday, April 13
WEST END HISTORY WALK
Departs: SE corner of Bute and Robson Streets at
Time: 10am
Duration: Approximately two and a half hours and
Finishes: At English Bay near Denman & Davie.
Cost: $25.00 per person
My interest in Vancouver neighbourhood history was born when I moved into my first apartment in the West End. Walking to and from my workplace downtown I would choose a slightly different route each time and I was fascinated by what I saw.
Back in the 1980s, the West End had many more of its original houses. Sadly, most but not all of the West End’s early buildings have been demolished, but you can still find some unexpected jewels hidden here and there among the high-rises and hidden behind storefronts.
This tour, which lasts usually just over two and a half hours, snakes its way through the West End from Robson Street to English Bay. On the way you will see the site of an unusual roof-top airplane crash, the location of the mansions of two of Vancouver’s mayors, the house in which the first English version of "O Canada" was written, the Gustav Roedde House and the beautifully restored houses of Barclay Heritage Square, the site of North America’s first Fire Hall designed for mechanical fire trucks, the location of X-Files’ Agent Dana Scully’s apartment, the apartment building where actor Errol Flynn died, Sugar magnate Benjamin Tingley Roger’s magnificent stone mansion Gabriola, the home of one of the British Empire’s most renowned sharpshooters, the location of English Bay’s first life guard Joe Fortes’ cabin, and much much more.
As with all of my history walks, I supplement what we are able to see today with peeks back into time using archival images to help recreate the lost Victorian and Edwardian streetscapes of the West End.
E-mail: historywalks@gmail.com to reserve a space on my regularly scheduled tours, or for more information on how to book a private History Walk.
Saturday, April 20
CEDAR COTTAGE HISTORY WALK
Departs: SW corner of Commercial Drive & East 18th Avenue
Time: 10am.
Duration: 2.5 to 3 hours depending on the size of the group.
Finishes: near Victoria Drive & Stainsbury Avenue
Cost: $25 per person
You have been to Cedar Cottage before, no doubt. It’s the hip East Side neighbourhood that hosts the very popular Trout Lake Farmer’s Market and the enchanting midsummer Illuminares Lantern Festival. It is a wonderful neighbourhood with a lot of interesting little streets laid out at odd angles with a nice mix of old houses.
I have been wanting to do a History Walk for this neighbourhood ever since I did a house history research project on the Thomas Bell House on East 15th Avenue near Fleming Street. This beautifully restored Arts and Crafts bungalow has an intriguing history which I will be sharing on the walk. The house is located just across the street from Clark Park—Vancouver’s second oldest civic park, after Stanley Park—and was home of one of Vancouver’s most notorious gangs. If you haven’t read it already, I highly recommend Aaron Chapman’s THE LAST GANG IN TOWN. I can only imagine what the occupants of the Thomas Bell house thought about their neighbours.
During our walk we will tour what I think is one of the most interesting little business enclaves in Vancouver, the two blocks of Commercial Street (Not Commercial Drive!) between Victoria and East 22nd.
Later we will explore the streets around Trout Lake, once the source of water used in the boilers at the Hastings Saw Mill with which it was connected by a wooden flume. On our walk around Trout Lake I will show you a house that has a connection to the infamous Chicken Coop Murders that took place in Wineville, California in 1928. These horrific murders were the basis for the 2008 movie CHANGELING with Angelina Jolie and directed by Clint Eastwood.
E-mail: historywalks@gmail.com to reserve a space on my regularly scheduled tours (See current tour schedule), or for more information on how to book a private History Walk.
Saturday, April 27
GRANDVIEW HISTORY WALK
Departs: SE corner Commercial Drive & Venables at 10am.
Duration: 2 to 2.5. hours depending on the size of the group.
Finishes: Near Commercial Drive and Graveley Street
Cost: $25 per person
HISTORY, HORTICULTURE, HERITAGE & CAFFEINATED HIP - Come along on a History Walk through Vancouver's hippest, historic, neighbourhood, “Grandview”. Vancouver’s Grandview is a neighbourhood unlike any other. Originally promoted as a middle class alternative to the West End and Shaughnessy, Grandview, which straddles both sides of Commercial Drive, is a fascinating mix of elegant Edwardian mansions, and edgy Bohemian chic, interspersed with interestingly repurposed heritage churches, monasteries, beautiful gardens and some of the best affordable restaurants and hippest coffee shops in the city.
You will see the mansions of theologian, scientist, comparative ethnologist and British Israelite Professor Edward Odlum; Kurrajong—the elegant turreted home of Australian-born realtor and PNE founder John James Miller; the former home of author Joy Kogawa; the one-time home of Canadian rockabilly legend Ray Condo; a pre-fabricated Presbyterian church building; the site of Jeff Walls “The Pine on the Corner”; as well as what have to be Vancouver’s shortest and cutest streets, Lily and Rose Streets, and much much more.
The tour departs from the SE corner of Commercial Drive and Venables near the site of the neighbourhood’s first electric light and ends near Commercial and Gravely in front of the site of Grandview’s first house.
For more information or to book a place on the tour, please e-mail historywalks@gmail.com
Saturday, May 4
EAST END VANCOUVER/STRATHCONA HISTORY WALK
Departs: 696 East Hastings (at Heatley) at 10am.
Duration: 2.5 to 3 hours depending on the size of the group.
Cost: $25 per person
My East End Vancouver/Strathcona walking tour is by far the most popular of my History Walks. It is no wonder... The East End is Vancouver's oldest and most fascinating neighbourhood.
The humble East End was the first Vancouver home to thousands of people fresh off the boat or train arriving from all over the world. Street by street, block by block, the East End developed ethnic enclaves. This neighbourhood boasted the first Synagogue and first Jewish neighbourhood, Vancouver's first Little Italy, Japantown, and Vancouver's only Black identified neighbourhood, Hogan's Alley.
Some blocks were dominated by Scandinavians, others by Yugoslavs, Russians and Ukrainians. Over the years the East End became Chinatown's residential district, home to renowned authors Wayson Choy (The Jade Peony/Paper Shadows) and Paul Yee (Salt Water City/Ghost Train).
Home to three historic red-light districts, an unsettling mix of non-British, mostly working class immigrants, three of Vancouver's four Depression era hobo camps, innumerable bootleg joints, even gangs. Vancouver's East End was often viewed by outsiders as an unsavoury, even dangerous place where "those people" lived.
But it was also home to Angelo Branca, who went on to become Supreme Court Justice for British Columbia, Canada's "Amelia Earhart" Tosca Trasolini, boxing legends Jimmy McLarnin and Phil Palmer, NDP Premier Dave Barrett, media personality, musician, filmmaker and actress Sook Yin Lee, CBC programmer, poet and author Bill Richardson, Canadian singing legend k. d. lang, and the Montreal Bakery where the "royal buns" were baked for the 1939 visit to Vancouver by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. And that is just scratching the surface!
Every one of Strathcona's houses has a story to tell. Want to time travel? Come for a History Walk through Vancouver's oldest and most fascinating neighbourhood, the East End.
Parking: There is plenty of free parking along Heatley Avenue, Hastings Street, and Keefer Street further South.
E-mail: historywalks@gmail.com to reserve a space on my regularly scheduled tours, or for more information on how to book a private History Walk.
