8 - Wednesday, November 27, Doug Collins 1985 - North Shore News ° get this straight | A HUNDRED years isn’t a long time. Not real- ly. Ask any European cathedral. Heck, ask me. I’m on the wrong side of 50 myself! Still, 101 | summers ago Vancouver didn’t exist as Van- couver and the Lower Mainland was all trees. These profound | thoughts crop up because I’ve just been flipping through a new edition and updating of Vancouver's First Century, a fine com- pendium of photos and text that would make a great ad- dition to your coffee table. Actually, the title is an understatement, because the period covered is 1860 to 1985. And the book is fascinating. They’ve even included a few paragraphs of my less-than-memorable prose from A.D. 1959. (Look, Ma! Your boy has become a fossil and is preserved in the history books.) I'll bet you an 1885 flap- jack that this glossy, loveable tome contains all kinds of stuff you never knew. Were you aware, for instance, that Stanley Park | would now be a forest of high-rises if Captain Ed- ward Stamp’s original sawmill had been a success? Fortunately, the First Nar- rows was too swift for good anchorage, and the old sod had to move on. O.K. So you did know. But I didn’t. And ! didn’t know, either, that in the early days the white women hardly ever gave birth in Gastown, or Granville as Vancouver was once called. Reason was that there weren’t any doctors. They knew better than to wade through mud. The nearest medico was in New Westminster, which was 12 hours away, but most ladies took the boat to Victoria, almost two days away. The Indian girls didn’t need any of that pretentious stuff, naturally. .. North Vancouver history buffs will be interested in the shot of a shaky- looking log bridge over the lower Seymour River.”’ It’s the photos that make this book, though, and North Vancouver history buffs will be interested in the shot of a shaky-looking log bridge over the lower Seymour River. It was taken in 1919 and shows a log contraption on which two tracks of wooden planks had been taid to take the wheels of a Tin Lizzie. | would have been too scared to walk over the damned thing. The pictures cover the whole period, but it’s the oldies that fascinate me: a “you'll be pleased to hear. rural Water Street in 1870; Granville and 37th in 1895 -- just a dirt buggy track and trees, trees, trees; the first’ switchboard girls, glowered over by a Simon Legree guy with a handlebar mustache. Those were the days! Today, it’s the gals who are wearing the mustaches and doing the glowering. Politics, spelling and syn- tax were about on a par with what they are. now. After the first meeting of Vancouver City Council it was reported that there was no gold in the treasury, However, ‘‘some money was collected from fines in- flicted on disorderly or drunket persons, but they were small amounts, two dollars and fifty cents, went to pay the police salaries’. “Tf, like me, you are heading toward the centruy mark yourself, some of the more recent Photos will shock you into realizing that time’s winked - chariot is driving over the speed limit.’ CAEL The arguments over pro- stitution sound bang on and have lasted a whole century, By-law No. 11 stated that no owner or driver of any open cab should convey any notorious bad characters, | or women of ill-fame, § unless they were driving from or to the railway sta- tion, wharf or steamboat landing. Was it all right if they | were in a closed cab, | wonder? If, like me, you are heading toward the century mark yourself, some of the more recent photos wiil shock you into realizing that time’s winged chariot is driving over the speed limit. Can it be 23 years since Hurricane Frieda, when Gray Eyes and I stayed up all night by candlelight and got out our insurance policy to find out whether we were covered for trees crashing § into the roof? Or 27 years since the Second Narrows Bridge went down? Of course not. The editors | must have got it wrong. My only criticism of this book is that it doesn’t have a picture of Bob Hunter in his hippie days. God, what lovely long hair that boy had. Never mind, maybe someone will put up a statue to him in Gastown. Vancouver's First Cen- tury is published by Douglas & McIntyre and costs $24.95. Not a lot, con- sidering alf the work that went into it. ocks in 3 cut tlades furnished. handle (othe Coast @ 13%% mortgage bond December 2, 1985 December 4, 1985 sophisticated investors. © vials. 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