Tuesday, February 9, 2010
$10,000 Buys Cheviot Rd. Home

That's right, the house at 4373 Cheviot Road was built for $10,000, but the year was 1954. L. Nelson was the owner at the time of its construction.  In 1960 the owners of this one storey home were Donna and Thomas Dybhavn.  Thomas worked for Link-Belt as an engineer.  In 1971 Olga and Ronald Tainton owned the house.  Ronald was a personal administrator in a Canadian Government office.  However, in 1980 no one returned the calls for information from the offices of the City Directory.  But they did in 1991.  And that was Sandra and Henry Ducharme, retired.  That means it was the first year that they lived there.

Cheviot Road is in the Forest Hills area of the District of North Vancouver.  It edges the east side of MacKay Creek.  This short "Road" is just a stones throw from both Canyon Heights Elementary School and Handsworth Secondary School.  However, Handworth is on the west side of the Creek and MacKay Creek Park.  The Creek runs south through Murdo Fraser Park and Heywood Park and empties into Burrard Inlet at the slough on the west side of the Automall. South of the Upper Levels Highway the adjacent Mackay Avenue forms the western boarder of the City of North Vancouver.


Demolition Permit:  Applied for in November of 2009.
Photo: Taken in December of 2009 by SW.

Monday, February 8, 2010
On the Way to School

The house at 866 East 13th Street is indeed on the way to school.  It is on the block leading to Brooksbank Elementary School in North Vancouver District east of Grand Boulevard. It is also a very active street construction wise.  A second  house on the street has been demolished and a new one is under construction. Another is being extensively renovated by the North Vancouver construction company A Carpenter and a Gentleman. Two more houses  in the 900 block of East 13th Street, the block the school is actually on, are also under construction.


866 East 13th Street was built in 1952 for $6000 by J. A. Armstrong. In 1960 Lillian and Alfred A. Lewis a tin smith for T and G Roofing lived in the house. By 1971 Elizabeth and L. M. Shuttleworth had moved in. L. M. was a clerk at B.F. Goodrich. The 1980 and 1990 City Directories report that Elizabeth was living in the house and retired in those years.

It is interesting that the 700, 800, and 900 blocks of East 13th Street are in North Vancouver District where as the 600 block is in the City of North Vancouver. The 700, 800, and 900 blocks of East 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Streets are in the City of North Vancouver as are all those at East 14th Street and above. But the City takes a jog at the 700 block of East Keith and the 8th,  9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th Streets suddenly become part of North Vancouver District. This area of streets form a North Vancouver District rectangle at the eastern edge of the City. It is in this rectangle with the City to the North and the South that 866 East 13th Street and Brooksbank Elementary School are situated.  If this all sounds confusing think of the City as a  patch work quilt with a square patch of District inserted about 1/3rd of the way up on the right hand side.


Permit for Demolition: Applied for November 2009.
Photo: Taken November 2009 by SW.
Link: http://www.carpentergentleman.com/tour1/hb5.html

Sunday Church Feature
The Walrus Capital of the World

"The Walrus Capital of the World" is Savoonga, Alaska on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. To get there you must first fly to Anchorage then 449 miles north west via Nome and weather permitting, to Savoonga. There in the land of the midnight sun where it snows September to May live 643 people, mainly Yupik Eskimos with relatives in Siberia. Those who aren't Yupik are the teachers mostly from "the lower 48" at the Hogarth Kingeekuk Memorial School for students kindergarten to grade 12.  In 1900 reindeer were introduced to St. Lawrence Island. The herd grew to over 10,000 by 1917. The town of Savoonga grew from a reindeer camp established in 1916 to a village in 1930. Under the Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 it received joint title to St. Lawrence Island with its only other town, Gambell. The main subsistence livelihood is hunting of whales and walrus and carving of figures from walrus ivory and whale bone. The main outdoor sport is snowmobiling.


The Savoonga Presbyterian Church has been there as long as April, the Kingeekuk Memorial School secretary remembers. A large bell sits  to the left of the church doors. April also remembers that it would ring during church services when she was about 10 years old.  That was 28 years ago. She said today there are about ten people in church on a Sunday morning. The present minister of the church is Jacob Meadows. However, there isn't always a minister and then members of the community lead the Sunday services.  Buildings other than the school, housing, and the two churches are: the store, the post office,  a coffee shop, a medical clinic, a bingo hall with a snack shop, an airplane hanger, and a government building. 

Research: Thank you to April, school secretary at Kingeekuk Memorial School 
          in Savoonga, Alaska. 
Link:http://savoongapresbyterianchurch.blogspot.com/
Link: http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Savoonga,_Alaska
Photo: Taken by teacher Laura (Wilson) Misner 2006.

Choo Choo Britannia

Head north on the Sea to Ski Highway (#99)  from Vancouver B. C. for 30 kilometers and you will come to the  Britannia Beach.  Looming over this community of about 300 people is the B. C. Museum of Mining.  Britannia Beach was started in the early 1900's by the staff of the Britannia Mining and Smelting Company.  The ore they mined and smelted was copper.  The British Columbia Museum of Mining opened in 1975.  Today the mine is a tourist attraction.  It has been closed for renovations but will reopen February 1, 2010 as part of the Britannia Project.

The railroad runs along the waters edge of  the Britannia Beach.  Three tourist trains have used these rails in recent years.  In the 1970's the Royal Hudson Steam train ran a round trip excursion to Squamish.  Next came the Pacific Starlight Dinner Train.  Since then the Rocky Mountaineer's, Whistler Sea to Sky Climb with its dome car has run May to September.  Passengers over the past forty years  have gazed at the B.C. Museum of Mining climbing up the hillside as their train has "choo choo-ed" through the community of Britannia Beach.

Photo: Taken in 2006 by SW.
Link: http://www.bcmm.ca/
Link: http://www.bcmuseumofmining.org/
Link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britannia_Beach/
Link:  http://www.findfamilyfun.com/mining.htmhttp://www.findfamilyfun.com/mining.htm

Friday, February 5, 2010
Lloyd on Lloyd

What are the chances of building a house on a street with the same name as yours?  Well Robert and Wilma Lloyd did.  They built it at 2015 Lloyd Avenue  in 1949 for $6,500 and in 1954 a $400 addition.  This was the typical North Vancouver home of the time and many can still be seen throughout the area.  The houses are basically stucco with horizontal wood clapboard covering the lower front of the house. A large picture window with an opening side section sits on one side of the front door, the living room side of the entrance hall.   The high triple windows sit on the other side of the front door, the bedroom side of the entrance hall.  Even the bright blue painted cedar siding is reminiscent of the times.

The Lloyds continued to live on Lloyd Avenue at least until 1960 when Robert was working as a cat operator for General Construction. In 1971 Jack and Florence Morton owned the house.  In 1980 Jack had his own company, Jack Morton Realty and Insurance. In 1990 the City Directory lists Jack as president of that company. And when the new millennium rolled around, the phone directory indicates that Jack was still owner of the white stucco and blue shiplap house on Lloyd Avenue.  He had lived the house for over 30 years.

Lloyd Avenue was named for Arthur Henry Orland Lloyd, a trustee for Lonsdale Estates.  It is a block west of Mackay Avenue which is the eastern border between the City and District of North Vancouver.  This District area street starts at West 1st Street and runs north across Marine Drive, through Pemberton Heights, and across the Upper Levels Highway to end at Murdo Fraser Golf Course.  The house at 2015 Lloyd Avenue is in the Pemberton Heights area.

Research: Thank you to Dick Lazenby for information on Arthur Henry
             Orland Lloyd.
Demolition Permit: Applied for November 2009.
Photo: Taken December 2009 by SW.

Thursday, February 4, 2010
At the Water's Edge

The house at 1675 Edgewater Lane sits on the eastern bank of the Seymour River. A canopy of trees stretches out over the roof to block the house from even being recorded in an aerial view map of the area. Edgewater Lane is parallel to Riverside Drive north of Mount Seymour Parkway. The building of the house is not listed in the Building Permit book at the North Vancouver Archives. However, in 1957 a permit for a $2000 addition is. The owner in 1980 was George Anderson, a sander at A and W Floor Company. The address of the house at this time was 1625 Riverside Drive. Edgewater Lane was established as a subdivision in 1974. A Riverside Drive neighbor reports that the 1675 Edgewater Lane house was on sale for $120,000 in 1984. Following that it was a rental property for several years. In 1991 and 1995 the house was vacant. In 1998 the owner was P. Gadon.


The roof of this one storey  house is covered in cedar shakes. Cedar shakes are a favorite of home owners in North Vancouver. They are indigenous to the area and reflect the wild wooded and bush nature in the west coast rain forest that is North Vancouver. However, they are not always a friendly material to use. The slope of the roof must be steep enough to quickly shed the water of the many rainy days here. And it must always be remembered that "wood rots" is a constant chant of North Shore home owners. A shake roof in North Vancouver may last for as little as 15 years and for the size of the Edgewater Lane home may be around $20,000 to replace. For whatever of these reasons the shakes on the Edgewater Lane home looked like they had been rotting for some years. Shakes are mounted on wood slats with spaces between. When a shake roof rots the roof leaks. The amount of water damage to the inside of this home is probably extensive.


The Seymour River running along the yard in the back of the house starts north of Seymour Lake which is to the east of Cathedral Mountain. At the south end of the lake is the Seymour Falls Dam on the west side and on the east side the Seymour River Fish Hatchery and Education Centre. Both of these are at the north end of the Lower Seymour River Conservation Reserve. The river then runs south past Maplewood's Farm Park to empty into Burrard Inlet just east of the Iron Workers Memorial (formerly the Second Narrows) Bridge. Sports fisherman can often be seen at the mouth of the river.

Research: Thank you to Elaine Oakes at the CDNV District Hall.
Link: http://www.seymoursalmon.com/how%20to%20find%20us.htm

Link: http://www.cedarbureau.org/faq/maintenance.htm

Demolition Permit applied for in November 2009.

Photo: Taken by Suzanne Wilson December 2009.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The Day They Tore the School House Down

Several schools, in fact 6 schools, in North Vancouver School District 44 have been demolished in recent years. District 44 includes approximately 7 secondary and 30 elementary  schools from the Capilano River in the west to Deep Cove in the east.  It includes all the schools in both the City of North Vancouver and North Vancouver District. Most of the new schools have been built on the school property and ready for the students to move into before the old school was torn down.  This is true of the pictured Highlands Elementary School at 3150 Colwood Drive in the District of North Vancouver.

Highlands Elementary School serves the community of the Edgemont Village area in the Capilano Highlands.  There are 429 students at the school that at one time also offered a Community School program.  The old flat roofed school was built in 1959 for $194,000. Part of  it can be seen in the right hand side of the photo. The new school was built at a cost of $13,000,000.  The grand opening  was October 16, 2010.  This school  can  be seen in the rear of the photo.  It has a slant roof in the front.  In the second floor concrete pillars are clad in wood, making them look like trees.

The other North Vancouver schools that have  built next to the original buildings are Sutherland Secondary School at 1860 Sutherland Avenue, Westview Elementary School at 1660 Bewicke Avenue, and Lynn Valley Elementary School at 3250 Mountain Highway.  Lonsdale Elementary School at 2151 Lonsdale Avenue was demolished and the property is being developed for other than a school.  Sutherland Secondary School was demolished in 2009.  Westview Elementary was demolished in 2007.  Lynn Valley Elementary School was demolished in 2004 however the part of the school that was the 1920 building was retained and renovated as the North Vancouver Community History Centre housing the Archives and offices of  the Museum. 

Carson Graham Secondary School is presently in the process of being demolished and rebuilt, all at the same time.  Since there is no land available to completely build a new school at the same time the old school is standing, the school is being replaced in sections.  The south west and west sections housing the cafeteria, music, and shop areas will be demolished and rebuilt first.  During this process students that would use these areas are being bussed to the nearby vacant Balmoral Junior  Secondary School for classes there.  Secondly the north section of Carson Graham will be demolished and then rebuilt.  A remaining and newer part of the school on the east side and containing the theater  will remain part of the new school.


A school that looks like it is being torn down, but isn't is Ridgeway Elementary School at 420 East 8th Street.  This school is undergoing a seismic upgrade.  While construction is going on the classes are being held in the old Cloverley Elementary School building at East 4th Street and Hendry Avenue.
 
Photos taken by SW of all the schools in North Vancouver are available at the North Vancouver Archives.
Link: http://www.nvsd44.bc.ca/schoolsites/highlands.aspx
Photo: Taken January 3, 2010 by SW.