Our First Tourist

This is Campbell Court at 2505 Fraser Street. It is at the corner of East Broadway and Fraser Streets and the courtyard you see is sandwiched between two other buildings. In 1922 this was listed as Ash Hall.

This is now apartments and although the outside doesn't look like much I have read that the interior units are quite nice.

I am consulting The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver again for the information in today's blog entry.

It is an indisputable fact that the first European to set eyes on what we now call Vancouver was Jose Maria Narvaez in 1791, a Spanish marine captain who was born in 1768.

Narvaez was commander of a small navy schooner called the Santa Saturnina which was the size of a modern 12-metre yacht although it was considerably broader in beam.

The Santa Saturnina was small enough that it could be propelled by eight oarsmen but it carried a crew of 22 and among those were soldiers from Don Pedro Alberni's garrison of Catalonian volunteers that were stationed at Nootka.

Narvaez may have been just out of his teens but he was travelling under secret orders from the Spanish viceroy in Mexico. The Santa Saturnina was part of an expedition that was led by Lt. Francisco de Eliza. They were sent to gather intelligence and map the unknown waters that were beyond the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The area up to Haro Strait had been explored by Manuel Quimper in 1790 and Spain had laid claim to it but the English believed that their claims from expeditions by Sir Francis Drake in 1579 and James Cooke in 1778 were valid. And the Russians who had established forts in Alaska as well as the French  who had explored the Northwest coast in 1786 also thought they had rights to claim the land.


On May 5, 1791 the Santa Saturnina  left Nootka in the company of Eliza's 16-gun ship San Carlos. It was in July that Narvaez became the first known European to sail into the Strait of Georgia. He took note of the fresh water and deduced that there was a presence of a large river. He never did find the Fraser River, which had accurately identified, but he did see the site of present day Vancouver. The Santa Saturnina anchored off of Point Grey. Narvaez thought the point was an island. On the oldest known map of this area to survive it is charted as Ysla de Langara.

It is estimated that the Spanish crews rowed and sailed more than 6,200 miles or 10,000 kilometres. They explored the Strait of Georgia (named by the Spanish as Canal de Floridablanca), Howe Sound (Bocas del Carmelo) Burrard Inlet (Boca de Floridablanca), Point Atkinson (Punta de la Bodega) and Point Roberts (Ysla de Zepeda). Narvaez traded with the Musqueam and also made contact with the Squamish at the head of Howe Sound.

Narvaez was also responsible for charting Nanaimo harbour on the east coast of Vancouver Island and continued north to Comox and Cape Lazo. He then explored Desolation Sound on the mainland, named Texada and Lasqueti Islands,  mapped the Canadian Gulf Islands and the San Juan Islands before returning to his base at Nootka.

So why aren't Vancouverites speaking Spanish? And why is our city named Vancouver? Well in 1792 George Vancouver, an English naval captain, renamed most of the landmarks. The Spanish withdrew since their empire was declining and the British were growing iin power. As we all know the victors write history so Narvaez became a footnote and the city that erupted on what were once the shores of Boca de Floridablanca was named after the English explorer.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, Sir Francis Drake, Musqueam, Point Grey, Nootka, British Columbia

Vancouver's First Residents

This building was built in the early 1920s.

Anthropologists believe that the first humans to settle what is now known as Vancouver did so about 10,000 years ago. This would have been about the time that the Wisconsin Glacial Episode, the ice age, ended. However the scientists don't agree whether they came by sea or land.

Some argue that the first inhabitants moved down a deglaciating coast and then followed rivers formed by the retreating Cordilleran ice sheet into the province's interior valleys in the search of fish and game that populated the area.

Others make the case that the peoples travelled and ice-free inland route then traversed the rivers to the coast.

The Sto:lo people took their name from the Fraser River itself. They believe that their occupation of Vancouver began with the arrival of sky creatures who transformed into ancestral animals.

The Sto:lo people are bonded by a common language even though they are divided into distinct tribal groups. All speak variations of Halkomelem with those that had occupied the region of what is now known as Metro Vancouver speaking the Hun'qmyi'num' dialect. The Sqamish of North Vancouver speak a distinct language even though they are part of the Coast Salish group that includes Halkomelem speakers.

These two buildings are on East Broadway. The red house, 731, was built in 1925 while the larger building beside it was built in 1904.

The Squamish originally inhabited the region around the head of Howe Sound but by the mid-19th century had expanded into the Vancouver area.

Contact with the Europeans in the late 18th century was done by the Musqueam, according to what was recorded. They lived at the mouth of the Fraser River whiled the Kwikwetl'em resided on the Coquitlam River and Coquitlam Lake; the Q'eytsi'i - anglicized as Katzie - lived in the Pitt River watersheds; the Kwantlen lived around what is now known as New Westminster; the Skayuks were at the Stave Lake watersheds; the Mathekwi of Matsqui; the Q'o:leg: of Whonnock and the Sne'kwomes, or Snokomish lived around what is now White Rock.

Following European contact many of these populations moved. When a Hudson's Bay Company trading post was established at Fort Langley in 1827, the Qw'o:ntl'an, Katzie, Snokomish, Skayuks and Q'o:leq' moved closer to the fort so that they would be near the source of trade goods. Unfortunately this also led to a depopulation of the nations due to various introduced epidemics.

When the Europeans settled the area in the mid-1850s Vancouver was largely occupied by the Musqueam people. Their villages extended from the Fraser River Delta around Point Grey, False Creek, the West End, Stanley Park and along Burrard Inlet.

The preceding information was gathered from the book, The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver by the late Chuck Davis.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, Commercial Drive, Musqueam, First Nations, Hudson's Bay Company, British Columbia

Cawker and Chapman

Sometimes I have difficulty finding an address. With this home on East 4th Avenue I couldn't find it. And that isn't due to the fact that the house is on a hill and between two large buildings. I actually found a mailman and asked him for help - he was new, this happened to be his first day on the route. When we walked back I realized that I was misreading the addresses - I had mistaken a suite number for a building address.

This is the Chapman house and it was built in 1906. The original occupant, James W. Chapman, was a wood carver.

I was also looking for another address - 273 East 4th Avenue. Now since this address is 236 the Richardson Residence should have been right across the street. Alas all we found was an empty lot.

My next stop was on the other side of Main Street and a couple of blocks over on East 6th Avenue.

My information said that this home was built in 1901 but Velma, a lady who lives here that I met while she was in the yard, gave me a date of 1908. There must have been something sort of dwelling here though because in 1902 a millman for Robertson and Hackett by the name of Richard Cawker (Caulker) lived here.

Velma told me that her husband bought this home then met her less than a month later. He wanted her to have a home she would love to live in. So the house that was there was taken down to the studs, raised and a basement put in and moved over a bit. So it isn't really the same house any longer but the original style and flavour was kept.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, James Chapman, Vancouver, mailman, East 4th Avenue, East 6th Avenue, Robertson and Hackett, British Columbia