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 Dollar in Dollarton
Did you ever stop to think about the origin of the name Dollarton that is so pervasive along the southern shores of the Burrard Inlet before it becomes the Indian Arm? There is the Dollarton Highway that extends the entire length of the road from the 2nd Narrows Bridge almost to Deep Cove. And there is Dollar Road, Dollarton Village and Dollarton Plaza too. Its naming has nothing to do with the currency and everything to do with the Scottish-born Robert Dollar, who left his birth country at the age of 14 for the promise of a better life on the other side of the Atlantic and actually found it! But we’re getting ahead of ourselves!
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.