Lani Russwurm - Vancouver Was Awesome: A Curious Pictorial History

VANCOUVER WAS AWESOME

VANCOUVER WAS AWESOME

Copyright 2013 by Lani Russwurm

Foreword copyright 2013 by Bob Kronbauer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any part by any meansgraphic, electronic, or mechanicalwithout the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a license from Access Copyright.

ARSENAL PULP PRESS

Suite 202 211 East Georgia St.

Vancouver, BC V6A 1Z6

Canada

arsenalpulp.com

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the Government of Canada (through the Canada Book Fund) and the Government of British Columbia (through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program) for its publishing activities.

Vancouver Is Awesomes name, likeness, and associated logo is used with the permission of Vancouver Is Awesome Inc.

Efforts have been made to locate copyright holders of source material wherever possible. The publisher welcomes correspondence from any copyright holders of material used in this book who have not been contacted.

Photographs used in this book remain the property of copyright holders listed in the captions (key to abbreviations on ).

Editing by Susan Safyan

Book design by Gerilee McBride

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:

Russwurm, Lani, 1968-, author

Vancouver was awesome: a curious pictorial history / Lani Russwurm.

Includes index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-55152-526-6 (epub)

1. Vancouver (B.C.)HistoryPictorial works. I. Title.

Contents

by Bob Kronbauer

WHEN I BEGAN BLOGGING ABOUT Vancouver history in 2008, it was a pretty lonely corner of the internet. Several others have since tapped into Vancouvers past as fodder for online content. I would like to acknowledge the following folks for making this endeavour more enjoyable and productive through sharing their finds, insights, feedback, and enthusiasm: James Johnstone, Jesse Donaldson, Jason Vanderhill, Eve Lazarus, Keith Freeman, Rebecca Bollwitt, Stevie Wilson, Jeremy Hood, Blizzy63, Glenn A. Mofford, Diane Makaroff, Scott Beadle, and Will Woods.

Although writing and blogging usually means sitting alone in front of a computer screen, many people have given me encouragement, inspiration, and/or support in some way. A partial list includes John Belshaw, Tom Carter, Aaron Chapman, Mike Cleven, Wayde Compton, David Cunningham, Charles Demers, Robin Folvik, Kim Glennie, David Goodwin, Tom Hawthorn, Terry Hunter, Clint Kay, Mark Leier, Dale McCartney, Gordon McLennan, Irwin Oostindie, Lianne Payne, Juliana Relja, April Smith, Anna Sribnaia, Althea Thauberger, Teresa Vandertuin, and Savannah Walling.

One of the wonderful things about researching history is that the librarians and archivists that make this work possible tend to be some of the nicest and most helpful people on the planet. Thank you to the staff at the various repositories for helping me to track down photographs. The City of Vancouver Archives in particular has gone the extra kilometre to make the raw material of Vancouvers history widely available. Thank you also to Larry Wong, John Atkin, James Loewen, and Paul Yee for providing me with specific photos from their collections.

Brian Lam, Gerilee McBride, and Cynara Geissler from Arsenal Pulp Press have been a pleasure to work with. Susan Safyan deserves a special thank you for her skillful and diligent editing and for saving Vancouver Was Awesome from many of my blunders. Credit for any residual errors belongs solely to me.

Thank you to Bob Kronbauer and Vancouver Is Awesome for proposing and championing the project in the first place, and for staying awesome.

Finally, Id like to thank my family for their encouragement and support over the years. Vancouver Was Awesome is dedicated to my darling daughter, Sophia.

WHEN WE LAUNCHED THE VANCOUVER is Awesome website in early 2008, the concept was simple: celebrate Vancouver and everything that makes it awesome, despite all of the awful crap going on around us. Its mantra of No Bad News took flight when I returned to the city following a five-year stint working in Los Angeles. I was incredibly thankful to be able to come back to this wonderful place to live. But I found it all too easy to find Vancouverites writing about the problems that they had with the citythe web is and will always be rife with various complaints, critiques, and bad news in generalbut for the life of me, I couldnt find an online resource that highlighted and catalogued all the things that ultimately keep us here in Vancouver, and, of course, draw us back. So, on a whim, with a group of volunteers (some of whom are with our organization to this day), I started Vancouver Is Awesome. The rules were simple: 1. Only post stories about what makes Vancouver awesome. 2. No nudity. I didnt want the site to contribute to the deafening howl of general naysaying, nor further the objectification of women; there was already too much of both online.

Over the years, using the same basic but now more refined principles, the website has evolved into a full-fledged media company. We now have a business model in place that will ensure we stick around for the long-term. We publish an annual print magazine for free. Weve launched Is Awesome sites with partners in other Canadian centres like Toronto, Whistler, and Calgary. The blog wins awards year after year and our social media presence continues to grow. And throughout it all, one thing has become readily apparent: its all about people.

In whatever we write about, theres always a human element of sorts. There are the obvious profiles on city-builders, movers, and shapers, but there are also posts about business, fashion, architecture, events, music, and the arts, all of which are driven by individuals. Less obvious is the fact that the stories about Vancouvers pristine natural environment are also about the people who had the foresight not to destroy it. Every one of our articles has humanity built into it, whether or not we say it up frontand besides, PeopleWhoMakeVancouverWhatItIsAreAwesome.com just doesnt have the same ring to it.

Three years ago, when Lani Russwurm agreed to contribute a weekly feature highlighting different aspects of the history of Vancouver, this whole people idea wasnt front-of-mind. But as Lanis column, entitled