Vancouver Voyager: It's An Odd World

In 1932 the Burrard Bridge opened it originally connected to Cedar Street, which was south of the bridge. However the name Burrard just got extended and Cedar Street disappeared.

We are still talking about 1932, during the Great Depression, but this young lad was ingenious. Gerald Hobbis was 14-years-old and traded a bunch of old magazines for an old bicycle. Hobbis, nicknamed 'Cap', and then repaired the bike in his basement before selling it for ten dollars. Cap went on to become a highly successful bicycle retailer.

The first United Airline Flight arrived at the Vancouver International Airport in 1934. This is important because for the first three years that the airport existed there wasn't any airline companies that flew here.

Every year the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) gives away a home. This started in 1934 where the property raffled off happened to be a fully furnished lot in East Vancouver and valued at over $5,000.

In 1936 Vancouver was visited by Lord Tweedsmuir. He was also known as John Buchan, the author of a best-selling mystery, twice filmed, titled The Thirty-Nine Steps.

In 1936 the ceiling on the second floor rotunda at Vancouver City Hall was covered with gold leaf from several British Columbia mines.

In 1938 a nineteen-year-old by the name of Annabelle Mundigel became the first person to swim from Vancouver to Bowen Island. Years later she revealed that not long after starting she had slipped out of her bathing suit and handed it to her mother who was following in a nearby boat. Then she proceeded to swim the majority of the way covered only in lard before slipping back into the suit not far from the island. Whatever works! I couldn't swim that even if I was covered in lard!

There is a restaurant called The Tea House at Ferguson Point in Stanley Park. In 1938 when it was built it was the officers' mess for the military defense garrison at Ferguson Point.

The Ford Motor Company built an assembly plant in Burnaby in 1938. During World War II it produced military vehicles.

The Vancouver Art Gallery refused to pay $400 for an Emily Carr painting in 1938 because it wasn't art as they understood it. Eventually they did pay and wonder if they realize now what a deal they got.

Here's an example of why musicians and artists should grab at opportunities. On May 1, 1940 Dal Richards and his 11 piece band were booked for six weeks, replacing Matt Kenney. That gig turned into one that lasted 25 years at the Hotel Vancouver's Panorama Roof ballroom.

June 29, 1940 was the day that it became possible to drive across Canada within Canada. That was the day that the 'Big Bend' highway linking Revelstoke and Golden and completing the last link in the Western section of the transcontinenal highway.