Wednesday, February 17, 2010
An Awning For You and An Awning For Me

The one storey house with its attached garage at 3764 Mountain Highway was built in 1947  for $6000.  Don M. Dunwoodie is listed as the owner.  In 1950 both Don and his wife Georgina F. were living in the house.  Don was retired.  By 1960 Gertrude and Douglas A. Hill  had bought the house.  Douglas was a branch manager at British Pacific Insurance.  By 1971 he was partners in his own company, Wyllie and Hill Transportation, and he was the director.  In 1980 only Gertrude, retired, was listed as living there. In the 1995/96 City Directory Gertrude, still retired, was joined by Lawrence D. Hill, the service manager at North Shore Taxi Automotive Repairs.

It is not known when the white awnings were added to the windows on either side of the front door.  The black horizontal border stripe on the awning matches the black paint on the garage door and trim on the white window moldings. Aside from preventing the afternoon sun from streaming into the house, they provided a welcoming facade to the dark taupe clapboard siding.

The 3600 block of Mountain Highway is north of Lynn Valley Center at the intersection with Lynn Valley Road.  It is also in walking distance to Lynn Valley and Fromme Elementary Schools, Argyle Secondary School, the North Vancouver Community History Center, Lynn Valley United Church, and Lynn Valley Library.

Demolition Permit: Applied for October 2009.
Photo: Taken December 2009 by SW.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Capilano Road Oldie

The house at 2840 Capilano Road is older than the Building Permit book listings. The first listing is already for a $2500 house addition in 1952. The next listing is for a $500 garage in 1956. The owner at both of these times was R. Beachtold. In 1960 there is a listing in the City Directory for probably the same person, but the spelling of the name is different. It changes the "a" to "r" resulting in Berchtold. Rudolph Berchtold was employed as a structural iron worker. His wife Bertha was employed as a stenographer by the Canadian Government. By 1971 Rudolph was a structural iron worker for Kootenay Engineering.

In 1980 Phillippi Brunelle owned the house. He was retired. In 1991 there was another new owner, L. Groenendyk and his company Artistic Gardening and Landscaping. In 1991 the spelling of the last name is again reported differently. Now the final "k" has been dropped, resulting in Groenendy. However, the business of Artistic Gardening and Landscaping is the same. The 1995/96 City Directory and the year 2000 phone book continue to list L. Groenendy and Artistic Gardening and Landscaping at being at 2840 Capilano Road. Today the internet lists Artistic Gardening and Landscaping and L. Groeneny on West 25th Street in North Vancouver.  Between the house at 2840 Capilano Rd. and Artistic Gardening and Landscaping they have travelled the record keeping highway from Building Permit to City Directory to phone book to the internet.

Capilano Road is the western border of North Vancouver District. It runs from the Native Lands in the south up to Montroyal Blvd. where it turns into Nancy Green Way. From there it goes a short way to the base of Grouse Mountain. On its way up the mountain side it passes several other prominent North Vancouver tourist attractions. First is the Capilano Suspension Bridge, next is the Capilano Salmon Hatchery, then the Cleveland Dam, and finally the Grouse Mountain Skyride. Viewing of the Salmon Hatchery and the Cleveland Dam are free. 

Demolition Permit: Applied for November 2009.

Photo Taken: November 2009.

Link: http://www.capbridge.com/index.html

Link: http://www.vancouverplus.ca/vancouver/venues/capilano-salmon-hatchery

Link: http://www.seethenorthshore.com/capilano/capilano.htm

Link: http://www.grousemountain.com/Winter/

Monday, February 15, 2010
To the Bridge, To the Mountain

The house at 2832 sits about half way up Capilano Road. It is huddled among the cedar and maple trees and fronted by an over sized rhododendron bush. Few people are recorded as residents. A Building Permit  was applied for August 6, 1958 by the owner Don Hall. The contractor was the Hall Brothers and it cost $13,000. However, the 1960 City Directory lists it as vacant. In 1971 Mrs. Dorothy E. Morrison, a widow, owned the house. In 1980 another Dorothy moved in. This Dorothy was named Herbert and her husband was Euclide J. He was listed as retired in both 1980 and 1991. The response to City Directory inquiries for the 1995/96 edition were "not verified".

Capilano Road lies at the western boarder of the District of North Vancouver. It starts at Welch Street in the Native Lands on Burrard Inlet and climbs the mountain side to end at Montroyal Blvd. Although its name ends there the road continues as Nancy Greene Way leading to the Grouse Mountain Chair Skyride. Three other well known sights are along the way: The Capilano Suspension Bridge, the Capilano Salmon Hatchery, and the Cleveland Dam on Capilano Lake. Capilano Lake supplies approximately 40% of the Lower Mainland's fresh drinking water.

Thank you to Elaine Oakes, RM Clerk Admin. Svcs. NVD.
Demolition Permit: Applied for from North Vancouver District October 2009.
Photo: Taken in November 2009 by SW.
Link: http://www.capbridge.com/index.html
Link: http://www.grousemountain.com/Winter/
Link: http://www.greatervancouverparks.com/ClevelandDam01.html

Sunday, February 14, 2010
Sunday Church Feature
Valentine's Day
Happy 100th Birthday

2010 is the 100th birthday year of St. Agnes Anglican Church at 530 East 12th Street in the City of North Vancouver.  This "country church in the city" was started as the second mission church of St. John's Anglican Church. The name St. Agnes was chosen December 8, 1909. The church was built in 1910 by contractor H. W. Young.  In 1927 the church hall on the lane behind the church was built by the H. W. Young as well. 

The original entrance to the church sanctuary was through a door on the south west face of the building.  The altar was in the alcove on the east wall and the dark wood pews lined a center aisle in a traditional manner.  Beautiful stained glass windows decorated  the north, south and east  walls of the sanctuary.  The church hall was only accessible by going outside and entering through the hall's west facing door.  In the 1970's the alter was moved into the body of the church and the alcove was fitted with pews for the choir.  In the 1990's the entrance door to the church and sanctuary was changed to the south east side of the building.  The altar was moved to the west side of the sanctuary with a middle aisle and traditional pew placement. The new south east door made possible an entrance hall not only to the sanctuary, but also to the church office and church hall.  It was no longer necessary to go outside to go to the church hall for "coffee hour".  Around 2002 the configuration of the sanctuary changed again.  Now the altar was placed on the north wall of the sanctuary, between two of the stained glass windows.  The pews were arranged around the altar in a  horseshoe pattern.  The average Sunday Worship attendance is 54 and the number of households that are members is 72. The priest is the Rev. Keith Gilbert.

St. Agnes was a 13 year old girl of  Rome who was put to death because she refused to renounce her Christian faith. There is a church built over the spot where she was buried in Rome.  It can still be seen today.  Keats wrote a poem about her life "The Eve of St. Agnes". 


On Sunday mornings  a rope hanging on the south wall of the  sanctuary is pulled, and the church bell signals to the community that it is time for worship.  The congregation of the "country church in the city" is ready to greet its neighbors.

Thank You: To Shirley Marcino for confirming my memories of the 
              church sanctuary.
Photo: Taken January 2010 by SW.  (Note the peaked roof of the church hall
              can be seen behind the church.)
Resources: City of North Vancouver Heritage Inventory 1994.
             Sunday January 24th St. Agnes Anglican Church bulletin.

Saturday Travel Feature

A Castle in the Sand

This Castle in the Sand was built in 2006 during the Harrison Hot Springs, B.C. Sand Castle Competition. On the shores of Lake Harrison with the mountains looming behind not only sand castles but mermaids, lions, pirates, dragons, gargoyles, and even a whole army was sculpted. Builders came from all over the world to this the World Championship of Sand Castle Competitions.


Although the Competition starts each September, the Tuesday after Labor Day, an exhibition of sand sculptures is on display during the summer. The display may sound small, about a dozen displays, but it packs a punch since there is nothing like it.


Harrison Hot Springs is of course well known for its hot springs that not only give the town its name, but are available for bathing and help to warm up the lake water for swimming. The other big attraction of the area is the possibility of seeing a Sasquatch. This is a legendary ape like creature that is hairy, twice the size of a man, and has been reported to have been seen a dozen times. In fact, if you take a tourist boat cruise out onto Harrison Lake they guarantee you will see one.

The Sasquatch has been chosen as the model for one of the mascots for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games to be held in the Vancouver and Whistler. The fuzzy brown fellow is called Quatchi. He comes in different sized stuffed animals as well as appearing on other official Olympic products. In fact, you can even seen larger than life sized ones dancing around at Olympic Festivities.


To get to Harrison Hot Springs from Vancouver you need to drive about one hour and forty minutes east on the Transcanada Highway. There sits the town of 1,473 and one Sasquatch.

Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/instamarv/sets/72157607549204123/

The Castle in the Sand was demolished in the fall of 2006.

Photo: Taken Mother's Day 2006 by SW.

Special Friday Feature
Special 2010 Olympic Feature
Let the Olympics Begin

On this the first day of the 2010 Olympic Games downtown Vancouver is dressed up and ready for them to begin. The Hudson Bay, The Private Residences at Hotel Georgia (See blog post Friday, January 1, 2010.) and even the eagle sculpture in the bottom left of the photo are wearing their best gowns.  These "gowns" will be worn through out the 2010 Olympic Games, February 12 to the 28th and the 2010 Paralympic Games, March 12 to the 21.

Where as The Private Residences at Hotel Georgia is wrapped in a Canadian Flag, The Hudson Bay features four storey banners of tones of blue and white. Doing their stuff on the banners are: a ski jumper, a speed skater, a bob sledder, a free style skier, a figure skater, and even spectators in Oylmpic hoodies and Olympic toques. Specific athletes pictured include: Canadian medal winning speed skater Clara Hughes, bobsledder Pierre Lueders, the American Lindsay Jacobellis, and a 2006 Olympic silver medallist in snowboarding. Almost 40 banners are mounted on the building’s upper exterior panels facing Seymour and West Georgia Streets. Each banner is 16 meters high and approximately five meters wide. with almost 40 banners celebrating the Games and Canadian Olympic and Paralympic athletes.


"Hudson Bay's Vancouver flagship store is a six-storey building in Downtown Vancouver. Located at 674 Granville Street, on the corner of Georgia, the cream terra cotta building with Corinthian columns was built in 1927. The current store was built on the site of another HBC store from 1913. The last additions were made in 1949. The original HBC store in Vancouver was a small storefront on Cordova between Carrall and Abbott. Another HBC building, the stone-trimmed brick Fur and Liquor Warehouse, was built on the railway side of Water Street during the warehouse construction boom in Gastown of the 1920s." Wikipedia.

As to the eagle it is part of this years B.C. Lion's Society Charity for Children with Disabilities public art project. The 135 sculptures of "Eagles in the City" were place through out B.C. in April 2009. Each eagle is individually decorated and will be auctioned off in April 2010. A tour map of the sculptures is available through the link http://www.eaglesinthecity.com/default.aspx?PageID=1001. Previous years the Orca-killer whale- and Spirit Bear have been the sculptures that have decorated the city, celebrated the spirit of B.C., and raised money for Children with Disabilities.

Photo: Taken January 2010 by SW.

Thursday, February 11, 2010
A Mountain and a River

From the front yard of 4020 Glenview Crescent you can see the North Shore mountains. A short block away are the waters of Mosquito Creek. Glenview Crescent is an idyllic street tucked away west of Highland Blvd. in the District of North Vancouver.

In 1954 this is the area on the corner lot that is 4020 Glenview Crescent where F. Hall decided to build his house. The construction of this house with four windows and a fireplace in the living room cost him $14,500. From around 1955 to at least 1960 Alberta and Doug Jackson owned the house. Doug was the vice president of Industrial Equipment. By 1971 George and Margery Bentham had moved in. George worked as an assessment officer at the Workman's Compensation Board. In 1980 and 1991 when the City Directory representative tried to contact the residents at 4020, there was no response. There was a response in 1995, from Marc Verschueren. The year 2000 phone book lists Marc as continuing to be at that address, with a view of the mountains and a short walk to the waters of Mosquito Creek.

Demolition Permit: Applied for December 2009.
Photo: Taken in January 2010 by SW.