VANCOUVER’S JUBILEE.

Evening Star, Issue 22414, 11 August 1936, Page 8

VANCOUVER’S JUBILEE.

Even New Zealanders can feel a shock of surprise at the rapid growth of Vancouver, whose jubilee celebrations are attracting an august delegation from the City of London. It is hard to believe that, only fifty years ago, what is now the third city of Canada, with a population of 300,000, was no more than a village of 2,000 inhabitants. Its magnificent harbour was discovered by Captain George Vancouver, who had been one of Cook’s lieutenants, in 1792, but it was not till over sixty years afterwards that three men, on their way to newly-discovered gold diggings on the Fraser River, were attracted by the beauty of the site and made the first clearing there. Other settlers arrived, and a lumber industry began. In May, 1887, the first train of the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived, and the town that had been called Granville up till then could look forward to a new era of importance. Actually the first sequel to the coming of the railway was disaster. In a fierce wind the town of wood was burned down, all but an hotel, a store, and a few houses. It was rebuilt, as far as possible, of stone, and never looked back afterwards. The impetus given by the advent of the railway was followed by that of the construction of docks for ocean-going steamers, and, in 1891, the inauguration by the Canadian Pacific Railway, of its transpacific service of “ Empress ” liners. Vancouver had already become an important seaport when, in 1915, the opening of the Panama Canal introduced its second great era of expansion. The canal reduced the all-sea route from Liverpool to Vancouver by nearly 6,000 miles. The shipment of grain by this route became, first a feasible and then, with the eastern route blocked by ice in the winter, a natural process. Vancouver to-day can handle practically the whole of the Alberta crop, and it is the chief winter grain-shipping port of the world. The vessels of 55 deep-sea lines make it their regular port of call, and nearly twelve million tons of shipping clear from it annually. “ From tree stumps to skyscrapers ” describes the history of Vancouver. Its 300,000 people, it has been said, most of them of British stock, look forward to the future with a self-confidence reasonable in the light of so substantial an achievement in so short a time. There are men still living and at work in the city, who saw the forest-clad shores of the peninsula before a town was built on it, and the next generation may see changes as great in degree if not in kind.