Events
The Brewmasters of Brewery Creek: Vancouver's Beer Pioneers, Then and Now
Speaker: Noëlle Phillips
Phillips is the author of Brewmasters & Brewery Creek (2024), a history of the early ale makers of Vancouver. The first glory years of brewing came to an end with prohibition in 1917. There followed the ‘Big Beer’ interlude in which massive breweries dumbed-down the nation’s pallets, a fate from which we were rescued by the second golden age of breweries and congenial drinking
beginning in the 1980s.
The story of beer in Vancouver reveals a lot about the kinds of people who were drawn here before the Great War, and the character of their lives beyond the factory/cannery/lumbermill gates. Join us for this spirited presentation with Douglas College English instructor, Noëlle Phillips.
In a break from tradition, the lecture will be held on the fourth WEDNESDAY of March and not the Thursday.
Annual Incorporation Day Luncheon
Guest Speaker: Henry Ewert
We’re taking the interurban to Quilchena Golf and Country Club for this excursion into the fascinating history of the British Columbia Electric Railway!
Born in Vancouver in 1937, Henry Ewert, an English teacher with a Mennonite background, rode the Vancouver streetcars on their final day of service in 1955; and he rode the interurbans on their final day of service in 1958. He published The Story of the B.C. Electric Railway Company (Whitecap, 1986), Victoria’s Street Car Era (Sono Nis, 1991) and The Perfect Little Street Car System: North Vancouver 1906 – 1947 (North Vancouver Museum and Archives, 2001). These were followed by Vancouver’s Glory Years: Public Transit 1890-1916 (Whitecap, 2003), with Heather Conn.
Tickets available NOW on EVENT BRITE!
What's not to love about the Vancouver Special?
Speaker: Dr. Jennifer Chutter
Dr. Jennifer Chutter is a historian of Vancouver’s domestic landscape and is an expert on the underappreciated Vancouver Special. Found in many — but not all
— Vancouver neighbourhoods, it offered affordable solutions to increased housing demand, changes in family structures, and an economic leg-up for working families.
Introduced in the 1960s, the Vancouver Special was banned — that’s right, banned — by City Hall in 1984. Over 10,000 units were built, mostly in East Van, and opposition to the spread of this homegrown style was most intense
on the west side of town. These days, the Vancouver Special is getting some of the love it deserves. What did it offer, why was it opposed, and how has its status changed? Jennifer Chutter opens the door into a housing style so special it’s even in the name.
Beneath Dark Waters, The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck
Speaker: Eve Lazarus
On May 28, 1914, the RMS Empress of Ireland began her 192nd trip across the Atlantic from Quebec City, Canada, enroute to Liverpool, England, carrying 1,056 passengers and a crew of 423. In the early hours of May 29, fog descended on the St. Lawrence River, and the ocean liner was rammed by the Storstad, a Norwegian coal ship. In the fourteen minutes it took for the Empress of Ireland to sink, there was time to launch only four of the forty lifeboats, and rather than women and children first, it was everyone for themselves.
Over a thousand people died that night, claiming the lives of more passengers than either the Titanic or the Lusitania, and the tragedy stands as the worst peacetime maritime disaster in Canadian history.
In her latest book, Beneath Dark Waters, The Legacy of the
Empress of Ireland Shipwreck, innvestigative journalist and author Eve Lazarus draws on a trove of historical documents, including small-town newspaper reports, the Wreck Commissioner’s Inquiry, and first-hand accounts passed down through personal letters and family lore, to tell the story of the wreck and its aftermath through the eyes of the Canadian survivors. Through these records, as well as interviews with experts and descendants of the passengers, Lazarus recounts the story from both a Canadian and a Norwegian perspective and investigates why many of the stories regurgitated in newspapers and books for over a hundred years are wrong. The result is an absorbing and stirring narrative that uncovers stories of heroism and sacrifice, human endurance, and modern-day shipwreck hunters.
Eve’s book Beneath Dark Waters, The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck, coming in April, will be the subject of our last lecture of the 2024/2025 season. Join us for her official book launch.
Fall/Winter 2024-2025
The November lecture is the last one until the new year. The lecture schedule for 2025 will be available soon. Please check back.
Wishing everyone an enjoyable holiday season and all the very best for the coming year!
NOTE: We have returned to the Museum of Vancouver since the April lecture. For those not wishing to attend in person, the lectures will be broadcast live on the Vancouver Historical Society’s YouTube channel.