Presentation House, the longest serving public building on the North Shore, is also one of the oldest buildings, an unprepossessing structure in Lower Lonsdale that started, “from a small core structure to a rambling complex”. Serving as a school, city hall, a jail, an art gallery, a museum and a theatre, the building tells the story of the development of North Vancouver. Imagine all the people who have played a part in the life of Presentation House since its start in 1902 – school children, politicians, police, photographers, artists, archivists, actors, musicians, audiences and larger-than-life personalities such as, Pierre Elliott Trudeau and, in April 1972, Muhammed Ali who sparred in the hallway with the City Clerk. There was even a royal drive-by in 1939 by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
The Poor Man's Cow (Goats of North Vancouver)
Join us as we travel back in time to North Vancouver in the early 1920’s when the ratio of goats to humans was 1 to 33! At that time, goats were very important as providers of milk to the pioneering community of mostly European immigrants, some of whom had come from rather more refined households, only to live a more humble life on the North Shore.
The Jewel in the Green Necklace
North Vancouver’s Victoria Park is an oasis of lawns, shrubs and trees set amidst high-rises and surrounded by a steady flow of traffic. The east park is the site of the North Vancouver Cenotaph and the 1950s Cold War Air Siren while the west park is home to an equestrian sculpture and granite horse trough, a reminder of the park’s beginnings in the early 19th century when horse power was indeed horse power and when Victoria Park was created as the jewel of Edward Mahon’s vision, the Green Necklace.