May 25 is National Missing Children’s Day. Two hundred and thirty children, from infants to age 17, dating back to 1953, are featured on Canada’s Missing website – The National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains (NCMPUR) administered by the RCMP. While these are not Canada’s only missing children, the ones on the site come from… Continue reading Canada’s Missing Children

The 1913 Card House deserves to be restored as part of the new Lynn Valley development and the provincial government needs to keep its nose out of municipal affairs. Here’s why:

I’m excited to be travelling to Quebec City this week to have a conversation about my book Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck at the Imagination Writers’ Festival. One of the best things about writing this book has been meeting people like Guy D’Astous who have long reaching connections to the ship.

Presentation House sits on a Canadian football field-sized chunk of land at Lower Lonsdale in North Vancouver. Should we love it or list it?

I walked by the Navvy Jack House in West Vancouver just before Christmas and was delighted to see the amount of progress made since summer.

Urban Repurpose is a hoarders delight. It’s crammed full of furniture, books, music, art, books and panels from the St. Alice Hotel

SkyTrain officially opened for business on January 3, 1986. The first train left New Westminster station at 5:20 am. Angus McIntyre tells me that the initial test section opened in June 1983. “You could take a free ride from Terminal and Main Station.” He has the First Riders Club certificate to prove it.

You can watch my 2 minutes and 13 seconds of fame here: The Empress of Ireland’s BC Connection Global News – This is BC: It was great to chat to Jay Durrant about the Empress of Ireland on Global News this week. One of the biggest surprises for me while doing the research for Beneath… Continue reading Beneath Dark Waters on the 6 pm News

North Vancouver’s Maplewood Flats is a wildlife sanctuary about one-third the size of Stanley Park. In the 1970s, it was home to a group of artists and environmentalists, and for a couple of weeks, it hosted the Dollarton Pleasure Faire.
Warning: some of Bruce Stewart’s photos contain nudity (and maybe your grandparents)

How does a house with a view and a West Vancouver postal code for under a million bucks sound? How about a third of an acre for under $250,000, minutes from the beach? Welcome to Passage Island, a 32-acre paradise sitting at the entrance to Howe Sound.

I was thrilled to receive an email from Paul Fletcher last week. He wrote to tell me that he had read Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck and that his maternal grandfather was Tracey Harley Archer. Lost wife and son: In May 1914, 33-year-old Tracey Harley Archer was travelling on… Continue reading Remembrance Day: Honouring Tracey Archer

In 1965, George Klippert was arrested and charged with four counts of gross indecency. He admitted to having consensual sex with four different adult males. A psychiatrist assessed him as “incurably homosexual.” Klippert was labeled a dangerous offender and sentenced to life in prison.

When Sharilyn Kuehnel worked at Opus Art Supplies on the ground floor of the Dominion Building, she had a couple of ghostly encounters. The store had occupied what was once a bank. The manager’s former office had been repurposed into the store’s community classroom, while the bank’s vault became the inventory room.

When the Grays bought the house on Heritage Lane in Saanich in 1990, they didn’t know that it came with a few ghosts.  

Between 1869 and 1948, Britain shipped more than 100,000 boys and girls, some as young as four to Canada to work on farms and as household servants. These kids were either orphans or from poverty-stricken families, and the thought was that they’d be better off in countries like Canada, Australia and South Africa. They weren’t.

Bruce Stewart sent me an email a couple of weeks ago, saying that he had come across some photos of store windows that he’d taken in the 1970s, was I interested in seeing them. Of course I was, and I think you’ll love them as well. Where most of us will see a jumbled store… Continue reading Vancouver’s Store Windows – an Essay in Photos

October 3, 1975, marks the 50th anniversary of the fire at Burrard Terminals which killed five men, severely burned twelve others, caused $8 million in damages, and destroyed the workhouse, track shed and a large part of the shipping gallery in the former Moodyville area.

September 25 is World Maritime Day, and this year’s theme is “Our Ocean, Our Obligation, Our Opportunity.” It’s a theme that could easily apply in 1914 when the Empress of Ireland sank, killing four more passengers than the Titanic. Oliver Mardall: One of those passengers was 31-year-old Ensign Oliver Mardall of Vancouver. Mardall was a… Continue reading The Empress of Ireland and Oliver Mardall

The Lonsdale Quay fountain broke down in 2020 and cost $300,000 to fix. So we didn’t. Now we can gaze upon the $200 million Superyacht instead

I’m hitting the road this month and next, and I’ll be in Kelowna, Nelson, Trail and Abbotsford with stops back in North Vancouver and Vancouver. If you’re in the area, please stop by and say hello, I’d love to see you! Thursday Sept 11, 4:00 pm:    Mosaic Books, Kelowna Thursday Sept 11, 6:00 pm:   … Continue reading On Tour!