PRIDE OF NORTH ‘VANCOUVER in the early pioneer days was Pete Larson's 30-room Ca-

nyon View Hotel on the Capilano, completed in May 1909.

RE THE AUTHOR

THESE HIGHLIGHTS of
the North Shore's birth
and childhood from the
closing decade of the
nineteenth century on-
ward were written by
North Shore News colum-
nist Eleanor Godley in
1956 for the B.C. Centen-
nial Committee in charge
of the province's 100th
birthday celebrations in
that year. Today, as we
celebrate the further
achievements of “Our
Town” 27 years later, we
feel many of our readers
will enjoy Eleanor’s
fascinating and
sometimes hilarious
cameos of our North
Shore origins - ED.

FROM PAGE B6

construction of this
tremendous undertaking,
which wandered around
seeking the easiest grades
and narrowest crossings of
the many creeks. (Council
insisted too that there be a
“good view” from any part of
it.) The whole cost was in the
neighbourhood of forty
thousand dollars, but Mr.
Keith, the second Reeve,
was a solid landowner and
one of the founders of the
original Bank of British
Columbia, which had a
steady customer in the North
Vancouver District.

Besides internal com-
munication, the movers and
shakers of the newly-born
municipality must look to
linking its people and their

Photo submitted

material desires with the
communities across. the
water. Navvy Jack, who

lived in dignified seclusion
out near Caulfeild, had done
neighbourly service for some
years, tooling along the
shore on his way from west
to east and obligingly taking
note of hails from less
mobile citizens who needed
their beans or coal-oil
replenished.

But business got too big
for him and he yielded to the
Etta White, a busy little ship
that had been hi-jacked out
of the United States by her
captain and chief engineer
who were using this method
of equalizing unpaid salaries.
Then there were the
Seafoam and the Chinaman.
belonging to Captain J. Van
Bramer, who even set up a
sort of twice-weekly

schedule to Hastings Mill.
They were superseded by the
Lily which had a proper
licence for hauling
passengers and freight, and
the Leonara, which had
come out of yards in Vic-
toria.

Burrard Inlet was further
churned up during these
years by the Sudden Jerk —
she had been formally
christened the Union, but
personality defects thrust the
nickname on her — and
Colonel Nelson's Senator,
both of which berthed at
Moodyville and made
themselves useful for
passengers and freight.

Formal ferry service was
instituted by council's by-law
of 1896, whereby they
agreed to accept the Union
Steamship'’s tender to
provide scheduled passenger
service for sixty dollars a
month for the ensuing three
years.

$5 A MONTH

The sixty dollars a month
was not the whole cost. They
had to supply a waiting-room
on the wharf, and also had to
give time to hear the
complaints from angered
citizens left in the lurch by
the steamship company’s
carefree disregard for
clocks. The waiting-room,
material and labour, set
them back forty-five dollars
and twenty-five cents, and
that in turn entailed
provision for a light and a
caretaker for same. The

—\
S

B7 - Sunday, June 29, 1983 - North Shore News

caretaker received only five
dollars a month for lighting
the lamp at dusk and ex-
tinguishing it at daylight, but
he had a paying side-line —
when it was foggy he rode
back and forth on the ferry
blowing the fog-horn, . and
this netted him fifteen cents
a trip. In February of 1902
he reaped an extra harvest of
forty-five cents.

Dissatisfaction
haphazard obedience to
schedule on the part of
Union steamships, plus a
growing conviction towards
independence, persuaded
the councillors to get into
the ferry business themselves
in the fall of 99.

North Vancouver Ferry
Number One was launched
in May 1900 at the crippling
cost of twelve thousand
dollars. Certainly the
travelling public wasn't
expected to contribute much
to this debt — the fares were
modest“in the extreme. All
the children of school-age in
one family were charged a
flat one dollar a month,
while Sunday School
teachers and baby-carriages
were carried free. The adults
in a family, exclusive of
lodgers and servants, bought
tickets at thirty-eight for a
dollar, and grocery wagons
making free delivery from
Vancouver to bona fide
residents on the North Shore
paid a cash fare of twenty-
five cents. The tariff for
shingles shipped by Hastings
Mill was a dollar and a half

with a

Be Water Wise. Play it Safe.

When boating, follow’the rules and learn
about local hazards such as tides and currents.

. dp The Canadian Red Crass Saciety

per ton.

But until North Vancouver
was the site of a railway
terminus, any railway ter-
minus, the founders and
their successors were not
going to be happy with their
baby. Great hopes were
pinned on the “Vancouver,
Yukon and New West-
minster Railway”, which was
to bring “the Omineca and
Cassiar areas within a few
hours of this Western outlet
of the Dominion”. One must
conclude either that the
speech-makers didn't know
what they were talking about
or else that they were
purposely blindfolding
themselves to the truth when
one reads how they kept
harping on the railway being
“open all year without undue
expense.” traversing as it
would “thirteen hundred
miles of easy country” with
* Dawson to be the northern
terminus”. But hope is a
heady stimulator and they
lived on the fumes for years.

RAILWAY THE KEY

By 1912, the year when
anything seemed possible,
they had no less than seven
railways reported to be
fighting for a terminus in
North Vancouver. The
Canadian National, the
Canadian Pacific, the Union
Pacific, the Grand Trunk,
the Chicago Milwaukee and
the perennial Vancouver,
Westminster and Yukon
were all represented as

CONTINUED ON PAGE B22

They said, “It'll never
get off the ground...”

Many peopte shook their heads an they passed
the construction aite of Canada's firat ahapping

centre in 1949

Located on the thon aparsoly populated North
Shore the skeptica were adamant

“Who 8 going !o shop hare when they can shop

downtown?

Thirty yoars tater Park Royal nas blossomed to
accommModato over one hundred and Tpeventy
shops and services to the dolignt of ail hose who
enjoy relaxed gracious shopping

PARK