Posts from — August 2008

The few short blocks between 999 Canada Place and the north foot of Gore are steeped in BC history, all invisible to the throngs taking photos of Gastown Steam Clock. (Paris has the Eiffel Tower, London has Millenium Walk, Vancouver has the Steam Clock.) One historic mystery we revisited yesterday on the reprise of the Labour History Walk I first led during Jane’s Walks, in May, is the exact location at which charismatic union leader Frank Rogers was shot and killed by CPR thugs in April 1903. Was it the north foot of Abbott, in the heart of the city’s old core? Or at the north foot of Gore, closer to the docks? I favour Abbott, because Rogers was subsequently taken to a nearby hotel for care. (The location now is dominated by a furniture store; at one time, it housed the headquarters for the International Workers of the World.) His death sparked a march of 800 mourners, a huge crowd for a city of only about 21,000.

Rogers short life — he was 30 — touched on many themes that affect us today: he was a campaigner against injustice, a salmon conservationist long before it was fashionable and an opponent of racism at a time when it dominated civic life. (For more about Rogers, see my Salmon, the Decline of the Pacific Fishery, now out of print but available at VPL.)

Thanks to Bill McMichael for the wonderful photo of our group on the Main Overpass, where Burrard Ironworks has become a club and the Canadian Fishing Co. Home Plant sits quiet after more than century of fish processing, its fate uncertain. If you’re interested in doing the walk, I’m happy to organize another outing or you can order an excellent guide here.

Today’s Globe report on the attempt by some homeowners to cash in on the Olympics — “Crash at my pad in 2010 – for $35,000″ — should be read alongside the Globe’s Saturday piece on BC’s desperate rental housing crisis (no link available) and the province’s refusal to help house those in the tent city now established in Oppenheimer Park (pictured at right.)

At the top end of the province’s scale, life is good. A lucky few think they can milk Olympic visitors for rents that would make a five-star hotel owner blush.

For most British Columbians, however, particularly those reliant on rental accommodation, desperately low vacancy rates are creating a housing crisis. One step beyond that crisis is homelessness for thousands.

The reasons for the crisis are not complex, nor are the solutions. We need changes to the tenancy laws, but we also need a major commitment of resources at every level of governemnt to the creation of rental housing and affordable market housing.

The growing tent cities, now in place at Oppenheimer and Pigeon Parks, are different from the more organized and political squats at Woodwards, Victory Square and Science World in 2002 and 2003, but they are likely to have an equally strong impact on the main issue to be debated in the fall civic election. And, as in 2002, it will be up to the NPA to explain how they allowed things to develop to this extreme.

Last week I did a four-day, 40-kilometre loop through the south Chilcotin, starting north of Gold Bridge at the Taylor Creek cabin and walking around Harrison Ridge in a ramble with two friends through spectacular alpine flowers, stunning views and countless insects. For two days we saw no one. On day three we saw a grizzly bear. I see a grizzly every year, whether I want to or not. No Vision members at all. This area is protected, after a fashion, by a park, but more work is needed to truly maintain its extraordinary beauty.

The Pride parade always finds new ways to astonish, but this year was remarkable for the waves of applause and cheers that greeted Vision mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson as he roller-bladed his way along the route at the head of a large delegation of Vision Vancouver partisans. That was Councillor Tim Stevenson coming up in the rearguard in a rickshaw. Most diverse outfit of the day: Guggan Chhina — seen here (centre) with me and Stevenson — resplendent in a rainbow turban, leather vest, leather kilt and very serious boots. Below, Summer McFadyen and Caitlin Meggs.