Highlights ( and some lowlights ) in this city ’ s history By Louise Phillips
Clockwise from top left : Giant trees in Stanley Park . Teetotal Hastings Sawmill . “ Portuguese ” Joe Silvey , an early arrival who married the granddaughter of Chief Capilano . Water Street saloons including Joe ’ s and rival Gassy Jack ’ s . A re-enactment of City Hall after the Great Fire . Images are from “ Early Vancouver ” ( City of Vancouver , 2011 ) by Major James Skitt Matthews , Vancouver ’ s first City Archivist
Gastown 150 +
Pre- Contact
1867
1869
Highlights ( and some lowlights ) in this city ’ s history By Louise Phillips
Along the south shore of Burrard Inlet — today ’ s urban waterfront — several large Coast Salish villages and seasonal camps flourish before European contact : Khwaykhway in what is now Stanley Park ; Ee ’ yullmough on the south shore of English Bay ; Sun ’ ahk on False Creek ; Luk ’ luk ’ i on the site of present-day Gastown . The First Nations residents are forced out by the arrival of European settlers and eventually resettled on reserves .
The initial Canadian confederation of provinces under British rule unites the eastern colonies of Ontario , Quebec , Nova Scotia and New Brunswick . That year , in the far-off Colony of British Columbia , a loquacious Yorkshire river pilot named John Deighton sees an opportunity in the teetotal logging camp at the new Hastings Mill on Burrard Inlet . Deighton and his First Nations wife , Qwahalia , pack her family , their belongings , a yellow dog , two chairs and a barrel of whisky into a canoe , and paddle from the colonial capital of New Westminster into Burrard Inlet . Beaching the canoe on a strip of clamshell-covered beach near the mill , Deighton wastes no time in persuading the thirsty loggers that if only he had a saloon , he could broach a cask . Out come the saws and axes , and so “ Gassy Jack ,” as the roguish windbag is known , founds the shantytown named Gastown in his honour .
The townsite around Deighton ’ s Globe Saloon expands towards False Creek and is surveyed as Granville , considered a more dignified name by the merchants . Its boundaries are the shore , Hastings Street , Cambie Street and Columbia Street . Waterfront Gastown remains the place for raucous nightlife . Its business district consists of eight small buildings . About 600 First Nations people and 400 whites live on the Inlet , most employed in logging , sawmilling or related service industries .
1871 British Columbia joins Confederation . Life continues as usual in the isolated West Coast settlement . Almost everyone speaks Chinook , the First Nations trade language ,
and most of the men marry or live with First Nations women . The men hail from all over the U . K ., Mediterranean and Central Europe , Scandinavia , Russia , China , South America , Hawaii and mainland America . The mill lands are teetotal , so the mill hands flock into the four Gastown saloons to drink and gamble .
PhotoS : ( Background ) denkuvaiev / iStockPhoto . com . archival imageS © 2011 city of vancouver
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