31.1.14
Cottage Option No. 5: A camper does not require a truck to support height and mobility. Fog chill and high of 5 C.

Cottage Option No. 6: Simulacrum of shelter blown out. Mildly evocative. Looking east along 6th Ave.

30.1.14
While at a picnic on Bowen Island employees of the Liquor Control Board share laughs and adventure while climbing a water tower. How we do enjoy the view. 1931 (CVA)

Thirst and patience. Wartime beer rationing. Citizens line up for blocks to get into the Liquor Control Board outlet on Davie St. We do get thirsty ourselves on occasion. An anti-derive. 1942 (CVA)

29.1.14
New neighbors. BC Electric Railway gas tanks under construction near Woodland and East 3rd. Imagining little or no public concern: 1960. (CVA)

Looking east across False Creek flats. More gas tanks only further south. Closer to East 4th according to archives and much earlier; before Terminal Viaduct was built: 1940's. (CVA)

Between Clark and Woodland. Less lethal modest replacement structures.

28.1.14
Cottage off Knight. A large tree can often indicate a lot bearing an old growth structure or early model of second growth house. Here we have a slender expression of Dutch gable in the roof line.

Treadophile Large Form Walk #1. A square cottage satisfying most criteria. Only the size denies inclusion. We marveled at the view stems stripped of branches making room for more densely urgent growth.

Here cottages are mid-century and dressed in bungalow. The ghost tower looms at the peak of Vancouver Heights. It is an endpoint.

A cottage skeleton. A nest for a man. A view of industry and water from a state of refuge.

27.1.14
Cottage Study No.2: small to large. A cottage suggests efficiency, easy construction, simplicity of form, within reach in every direction, a place to dwell or retreat to. East Vancouver is full of worker's cottages. Some are built from kits with options. Hip roofed or gabled; porched or stooped; adorned or not.

"Man, woman and child on front porch of house in Grandview- Cedar Cottage area. 190-?" Fruit trees and two rooms. Pioneers with an eye to the future. (CVA)

A white cottage on Windsor Street, no doubt standing when this was Kathleen Street, named after Kathleen Black, aunt of pioneer Dr. Black, and sister of Mrs. H.V. Edmonds. (J.S. Matthews, 1942- CVA)

26.1.14
"I was a pall bearer at a funeral. And there was a pool of water in the Tea Swamp at the bottom of the hill on the Cemetery Road, and it was crossed with corduroy, and it was too heavy for the horses to pull back on, so we had to help. Gracious! What a mess I was when I got home". (Conversation: G.F. Upham and Major Matthews, June 1940) (CVA)
 

Later named Fraser, the North Arm Trail was also Cemetery Road when hushed attendants would steady coffins and grieved ones as they made their way to Mountain View. Emulsion striates the sky of a dust dry day near 33rd circa 1910. (CVA)

The first caretaker's cottage at Mountain View in 1891. A stern looking woman with child. Pickets and clematis perhaps separate the deed from the doer. A stoop with overhang where muddy boots can be removed. (CVA)

25.1.12
Imagining a day much like this but much earlier and maybe later in the year.  George Preston sat down and wrote or spoke while Major Matthews sat and read or recorded in August 1942: "I remember the last bear being killed; Mr. Hamilton, still living, shot it at St Catherine's (sic) and 20th."

Mr. Preston continued: "He shot the bear on St Catherines St; just about a block from his home on 21st. The place was known as "Pat's Five Acres"; it was a big wide open place which had been cleared, and grown up  with willows, and the bear was crossing St Catherines St." (CVA/J.S. Matthews- Streets/North Arm Trail/Card Three)

Not this bear. Not in these trees, but down the road and out of earshot; similar vintage and doomed in a similar manner. The border of the photo reads, "/6. This bear was annoying the Hindu loggers. M. Quiney shot it. Its two tiny cubs became his children's pets. When big, the sailors [on] H.M.C.S. "Rainbow" got it (sic) as a mascot; the other went to Stanley Park Zoo. Shot at 16th Ave & Collingwood St. 1911."(CVA)

24.1.14
Walk east along Kingsway two blocks. Downey and Son. (1946). Of interest is the partly visible deco facade of  a building across the street. DC can be made out with time. Dads Cookies were manufactured or boxed or shipped or no doubt eaten there. The grounds of St Joseph Hospital now stand there or perhaps the faux Parisian apartment block with mansard roof. (CVA)

The meticulous shop gleams in the sunlight. Robson Park beyond. We are impressed with the abundance of full service elegance along this section and the relative scarcity of cars. (CVA)

23.1.14
Not to be outdone: another service station yet this one adorned in California Mission style. South-east corner of 12th/Kingsway. Leonard Frank (1939). Extensive gas station catalogue from the era to be seen here and there without sound. (CVA)

22.1.14
Once again we see Sherdahl looking afar from his nursery. Was it possible for him to foresee what thirty years would bring? Speculation was engrained in the frontier ethos. He made it this far. His land was on the most important road in the city. Of note, the grid shifts dramatically from east to west here. (CVA)

The Shell station at the same intersection and perhaps the same corner as the nursery. A morning according to the shadows.  Leonard Frank took the picture in May, 1933. The symmetry of the art deco canopies mimics wings or branches depending on your historical mood. (VPL)

21.1.14
The Sunkist Grocery at 11th and Glen (1978: VPL). There were numerous corner stores in the area. A few still have patrons. Others are lived in. Many have been replaced.

Walk one block west. Turn north and walk one block. Stop for a paper and video rental. He has sold his shop but it will always be known as Harry's by some. Cross 12th. Walk one block north and turn left. Walk one block west and view (CVA):

20.1.14
Espresso at Marche St George. Walked up and over to Seacombe (Prince Edward St.) and 26th. Original lane way house of sorts (191-?). Maximum utility. The diameter of the old cedar suggestive one hundred years on. (CVA)

Near the skateboard park. A mobile shack on a cart under Georgia St. viaduct circa 1930. (CVA)

19.1.14
Back through the China Creek Gully under Broadway. Vista through to Clark Drive before driving was possible (1936). Turn west and walk three blocks. (CVA)

China Creek tamed as sewer outflow (1950). Glen @ 7th with major industry to the south. In awe of enormous tanks in upper left of photo. Turn right to view future velodrome site up the hill. (VPL)

 

 

Walk up the hill to the site of Vancouver College. Bike track built in 1954 for the Empire Games. Demolished in 1980. Qualifies for just past status. (VPL)

18.1.14
Cedar Cottage, just south of the gully. A man with a gun; a man with a saw. (190-?) For the price of the lot and cost of materials you can buy an axe. Compassion sells for $275. It leaves an impression. Imagining cold forged steel or similar fabrication dynamic. Other dry goods available for home feel. (CVA)

17.1.14
A bike route will be installed here. Looking west along East 10th Ave in 1926.  The gully is bridged by Broadway in the centre right area. Clark Drive will follow the gully where China Creek flows. Chinese by virtue of the market gardens irrigated from that water. Where else could they garden? A sense of fresh clear cut persists. A skateboard park hovers. (VPL)

Ten years later. Little has changed but soon the gully will be filled to make way for the rapid movement of products. This area is always flooding. The stench of sewage is evident nearby on wet days. Water table high. Modern suggestively Hispanic gardens to be seen on the south-west corner of Broadway/Clark. (CVA)

16.1.14
Texture. Head down. Hand extended walk two blocks south. Take in view. Type. Read. Post. Turn right. Appoint. Left. Update. Auto-squeal. Delete. Look up. Watch for solder residue. Contact. Look right. Look down. Stop. Search. East half block. Retreat. Memory check. Forecast partly.

15.1.14
Fraser River Midden Artifact 1A. Garlic farming in the shadow of a Musqueam burial ground. Itinerant gardeners planting along the vast length of the Arbutus rail line. Plastic lawn chairs, tubs, an old sink, office chairs for committee meetings.

Fraser River Midden Artifact 1B. Contemporary squatting. Post and beam. Wood floors. IKEA furnishings. A scratching post for cats doubles as a bedside table. A view towards the river. Park setting. Close to schools and shopping.

Fraser River Midden Artifact 1C. A cairn memorial to the Midden itself. Stylized after a Celtic marker. No mention of desecration but acknowledgement of obliteration. The neighborhood of Marpole devoid of the century old homes that sat atop the mollusc shells, tools and bones. The rubble of broken foundations filled holes for the construction of apartment blocks. Zoning restrictions allow for three stories, one narrative.

14.1.14
Under dog groomers, Vietnamese buns and bubble tea some remnants of the first Aristocratic Restaurant may well dwell under the northeast corner of Fraser and Kingsway. A fast food midden circa 1951. Bushfield's Feed Store and the Roller Palace Skating Rink nearby. A fine example of pre-strip mall deco chic that was plowed under. (VPL)

13.1.14
Another view of the little park at 15th/Fraser/Kingsway (1914). Opposite corner to The Progress Theatre, Progress Barber and Progress Pool Room (724-726 Kingsway) according to the directory. An impressive tree next door. The idle man on the grass is replaced by woman and children loitering/posing in the street, awaiting a street car. One hundred years of waiting for public transit. (VPL)

12.1.14
Walk seven blocks east. Village Bakeries. A phantom sign hovering over the sidewalk (1948). The plural form suggesting there are other neon spectres of steepled bells elsewhere in the city. No setback at this location near Clark Park @ 1420 East 15th. (VPL)

11.1.14
Walking derive #16 to Eburne. Terminating at the beginning. The Great Fraser Midden in 1908. Shells, skulls, tools in layers of sediment. In awe at the depth of accumulation; up to 5 metres. (VPL).