Various dates and times
Regular walking tours $16 (incl. tax)
Special event walking tour prices will vary
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2019 Walking Tours with Michael Schwartz
Select Sundays from 10am to 12pm
July 14: Foundations of the Jewish Community in Gastown & Strathcona
Please note this walk is at capacity. If you would like to be added to the waiting list please email or phone 604-264-9642.
Strathcona and Gastown contain some of the oldest homes and commercial buildings in the city and were where many immigrant communities got their start, including Vancouver’s Jewish community. Join Michael Schwartz, Director of Community Engagement at the Jewish Museum and Archives of BC for a tour of these historic areas. Hear about the men and women who made a new home here, started businesses and laid the foundations of a tight-knit community. We will visit the city’s earliest synagogue and learn about schools, social service organizations, and pioneers in business and politics who rose from humble beginnings to make their mark on the city and province.
August 25: Pioneers of Vancouver’s Jewish Community at Mountain View Cemetery
Register Here, $16
The Jewish section of Mountain View Cemetery is the final resting place of over 450 members of Vancouver’s Jewish community, including many early pioneers. Neglected for many years, the cemetery underwent a major restoration between 2012 and 2015. A new plaza was added, headstones were restored and stabilized, and a new landscaping plan was implemented by Landscape Architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. Through this process, much information was learned about the people buried at Mountain View Cemetery, and their roles in building the local Jewish community. Join Michael Schwartz, Director of Community Engagement at the Jewish Museum and Archives of BC for a tour of this city landmark.
Special Event Walking Tours
Fraserview’s Shifting Shores
Sunday June 23, 10am to 12pm
$16
Please note this walk is at capacity. If you would like to be added to the waiting list please email or phone 604-264-9642.
Vancouver’s southern edge was once far from city hall’s prying eyes and thus a loosely-run frontier for farmers, mill owners, and squatters. The Fraserview neighbourhood was tolerant of eccentrics who wished to build giant boats in their backyards or convert chicken coops to dance halls. Life by the river was easy, tough, fun and dangerous – sometimes all on the same day. Join lifelong “South Sloper” Rob Howatson for a walking tour of a foreshore that still offers glimpses of a noisy, smoky, wild past, even as it transitions to a master-planned future.
About Rob Howatson
Rob Howatson is freelance writer and South Vancouver historian. His explorations of the city’s forgotten corner have taken him inside the walls of the old Sunset Community Centre where he helped recover a ”lost” time capsule and into an overgrown backyard where he helped pinpoint the spot where country music star Loretta Lynn was discovered. This location was subsequently recognized as a VHF Places That Matter site.
Lower Mount Pleasant: industry, immigrants and institutions
Sunday July 28, 10am to 12pm
$16
Please note this walk is at capacity. If you would like to be added to the waiting list please email or phone 604-264-9642.
Mount Pleasant is one of Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods and earliest suburbs. Lower Mount Pleasant is the light industrial, mixed use area north of Broadway, bounded by Fraser and Cambie Streets and False Creek. More than just home to several craft breweries, creative industries and nondescript commercial buildings, this distinctive area has long been an integral part of the city’s history and is noted for its unique mix of residential, commercial, industrial, and social heritage. Modern buildings and businesses have long since replaced most of the early houses and industry, but fascinating pockets of the original neighbourhood hang on, including turn-of-the-century houses, brick apartment buildings, and factories. On this walk you will learn from Christine Hagemoen about the families, workers, legacy businesses, and social groups who once called this unique part of Mount Pleasant home.
About Christine Hagemoen
Christine Hagemoen is a Mount Pleasant-based historical researcher, writer, photographer and blogger. A self-identified flâneuse, she is constantly looking around her city and discovering things she wants to know more about. Christine loves delving into Vancouver’s history to uncover the untold or long forgotten stories of the people and places of this region. She is an active member of the Mount Pleasant Heritage Group, which was recently awarded a City of Vancouver Heritage Award of Merit.
2019 Walking Tours with John Atkin
Please note all of John Atkin’s walks are at capacity. If you would like to be added to the waiting lists please email or phone 604-264-9642.
Select Saturdays from 10am to 12pm
‘AN INDUSTRIAL CITY’
In 2019 join John Atkin to explore Vancouver’s industrial heritage and history
July 6: From Creek to Trains
The eastern reaches of False Creek were filled for rail yards, passenger depots and a home for industry in the early years of the 20th Century and change is once again on the horizon.
July 20: Shipyards, Salt and the Olympics
The southeast corner of False Creek has become one of the city’s newest residential neighbourhoods leaving behind its heavy industrial past.
August 10: Beer, Boxes and Tents
Once home to a number of industries including a brewery, Jones Tent and Awning and a host of other firms attracted by the rail access, the district today is an interesting mix of modern construction and heritage buildings.
August 31: Vegetables, Furniture and Flowers
Chinese vegetable wholesalers and retailers rubbed shoulders with other small scale industry on the edge of Mount Pleasant and the fertile valley between Main St and Fraser St.
September 7: Lumber and Telephones
Commercial Street, once the main business section of Cedar Cottage, is an eclectic streetscape of industry, restaurants and new residential development.
October 5: Foundries, Lumber and Baseball
Before the construction of the Granville Street Bridge, the area was home to the Capilano Stadium and the local baseball team. Foundries and lumber yards were mixed in with a collection of houses and churches in the surrounding neighbourhood.
October 19: Take Me to the River
For thousands of years the Fraser River and its shoreline has been an important food source and transportation corridor. It has long been a major industrial artery and is now an emerging residential area.
2019 Walking Tours with John Belshaw
Please note all of John Belshaw’s walks are at capacity. If you would like to be added to the waiting lists please email or phone 604-264-9642.
Select Saturdays from 10am to 12pm
June 22: From Cedar Cove To Port Town
Less than a century ago, the area around the foot of Victoria Street was a humming hive of industrial activity, working class homes and breweries. Now it’s a bustling borough of hip restaurants, old structures and vacant lots ripe for gentrification, and more breweries than ever. Explore these streets for signs of what once was the Port of East Vancouver and see how some patterns have evolved and survived.
September 21: The Narrows
Once upon a time, False Creek was much bigger. The first bridge to cross it did so at what is now Main Street, stretching from one thin peninsula to another. This was the Narrows. The saltmarshes and mudflats of False Creek are long gone, but their imprint remains on the built environment. This walk will explore how the Narrows shaped the businesses and industries of a neighbourhood marked by dive bars, flea trap hotels, scrap merchants, and the city’s morgue.
Each walk earns 2 non-core LUs from AIBC.
About John Belshaw
John Douglas Belshaw is a second generation Vancouverite who lives in the East End. He is a graduate of Douglas College, UBC, SFU and the London School of Economics. John is a history professor with Thompson Rivers University and currently teaches courses online. He is the author and co-author of several histories of BC and Vancouver, including Vancouver Confidential (2014), Vancouver Noir: 1930-1960 (2011) and Becoming British Columbia: A Population History (2009). He is also the author of two truly mammoth histories of Canada, both of which are used in university classrooms across the country.
