In the early 20th century, the area east of the Seymour River was heavily forested with mostly dirt trails, horse drawn wagons, and very few residents, save those connected to logging activities and to the lumber and shingle mills in the area. It was to this “land of opportunity” that newlyweds, Jack and Christena Gillis, came in 1923, arriving by train from PEI. Jack got a job initially with the Burrard Dry Dock, and then at a shingle mill and finally with the DNV opening roads, including from Deep Cove Highway to the wharf at the foot of Strathcona Road. During this time, he scouted the area and decided to purchase four lots on Harris Ave from Strathcona Road towards the water. The price for each lot was $20! Over the next few years, in his spare time, he built a log house on lot #4. It was eventually completed in 1926. The log house became known as The Homestead and today, lives on as one of the few log homes in the DNV. Amazingly, this year, the Homestead turns 100! Read on to learn more about the construction and evolution of this house and the Gillis and Webb families, who are inextricably linked to this living piece of history in our midst!
Romancing the Rebbecks
Show Homes of Forest Hills
In November 2024, North Shore Heritage was contacted by a woman who was packing up her mother’s house and wanted to donate “house plans”. The next thing we knew, we were in possession of the Forest Hills development brochure, a 36-page, cirlox-bound booklet with an amazing choice of 31 designs, a stark contrast to the cookie-cutter developments of today! The booklet, while primarily a marketing and advertising vehicle at the time, is now a fantastic piece of history and art, documenting architectural styles and social norms of the mid 1950’s.
Presentation House...if its walls could talk!
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.