History Of Vancouver Bc ( April 6 1886)

The City of Vancouver was incorporated on April 6, 1886, the same year that the first transcontinental train arrived. CPR president William Van Horne arrived in Port Moody to establish the CPR terminus recommended by Henry John Cambie and gave the city its name in honour of George Vancouver. The Great Vancouver Fire on June 13, 1886, razed the entire city. The Vancouver Fire Department was established that year and the city quickly rebuilt. Vancouver’s population grew from a settlement of 1,000 people in 1881 to over 20,000 by the turn of the century and 100,000 by 1911.

Vancouver merchants outfitted prospectors bound for the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898. One of those merchants, Charles Woodward, had opened the first Woodward’s store at Abbott and Cordova Streets in 1892 and, along with Spencer’s and the Hudson’s Bay department stores, formed the core of the city’s retail sector for decades.

The economy of early Vancouver was dominated by large companies such as the CPR, which fuelled economic activity and led to the rapid development of the new city;  in fact, the CPR was the main real estate owner and housing developer in the city. While some manufacturing did develop, including the establishment of the British Columbia Sugar Refinery by Benjamin Tingley Rogers in 1890, natural resources became the basis for Vancouver’s economy. The resource sector was initially based on logging and later on exports moving through the seaport, where commercial traffic constituted the largest economic sector in Vancouver by the 1930s.

Located on the Burrard Peninsula, Vancouver lies between Burrard Inlet to the north and the Fraser River to the south. The Strait of Georgia, to the west, is shielded from the Pacific Ocean by Vancouver Island. The city has an area of 115.18 km (44.47 sq mi), including both flat and hilly ground and is in the Pacific Time Zone (UTC−8) and the Pacific Maritime Ecozone.

Until the city’s naming in 1885, “Vancouver” referred to Vancouver Island, and it remains a common misconception that the city is located on the island. The island and the city are both named after Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver (as is the city of Vancouver, Washington, in the United States).

Vancouver has one of the largest urban parks in North America, Stanley Park, which covers 404.9 ha (1,001 acres). The North Shore Mountains dominate the cityscape, and on a clear day, scenic vistas include the snow-capped volcano Mount Baker in the state of Washington to the southeast, Vancouver Island across the Strait of Georgia to the west and southwest, and Bowen Island to the northwest.

Ecology

The vegetation in the Vancouver area was originally temperate rainforest, consisting of conifers with scattered pockets of maple and alder and large areas of swampland (even in upland areas, due to poor drainage). The conifers were a typical coastal British Columbia mix of Douglas fir, western red cedar and western hemlock. The area is thought to have had the largest trees of these species on the British Columbia Coast. Only in Elliott Bay, Seattle, did the size of trees rival those of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The largest trees in Vancouver’s old-growth forest were in the Gastown area, where the first logging occurred and on the southern slopes of False Creek and English Bay, especially around Jericho Beach. The forest in Stanley Park was logged between the 1860s and 1880s, and evidence of old-fashioned logging techniques such as springboard notches can still be seen there.

Many plants and trees growing throughout Vancouver and the Lower Mainland were imported from other parts of the continent and points across the Pacific. Examples include the monkey puzzle tree, the Japanese maple and various flowering exotics, such as magnolias, azaleas and rhododendrons. Some species imported from harsher climates in Eastern Canada or Europe have grown to immense sizes. The native Douglas maple can also attain a tremendous size. Many of the city’s streets are lined with flowering varieties of Japanese cherry trees donated from the 1930s onward by the government of Japan. These flower for several weeks in early spring each year, an occasion celebrated by the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival. Other streets are lined with flowering chestnut, horse chestnut and other decorative shade trees

The Vancouver Art Gallery is housed downtown in the neoclassical former courthouse built in 1906. The courthouse building was designed by Francis Rattenbury, who also designed the British Columbia Parliament Buildings and the Empress Hotel in Victoria, and the lavishly decorated second Hotel Vancouver. The 556-room Hotel Vancouver, opened in 1939 and the third by that name, is across the street with its copper roof. The Gothic-style Christ Church Cathedral, across from the hotel, opened in 1894 and was declared a heritage building in 1976.

There are several modern buildings in the downtown area, including the Harbour Centre, the Vancouver Law Courts and surrounding plaza known as Robson Square (designed by Arthur Erickson) and the Vancouver Library Square (designed by Moshe Safdie and DA Architects), reminiscent of the Colosseum in Rome, and the recently completed Woodward’s building Redevelopment (designed by Henriquez Partners Architects).

The original BC Hydro headquarters building (designed by Ron Thom and Ned Pratt) at Nelson and Burrard Streets is a modernist high-rise, now converted into the Electra condominium. Also notable is the “concrete waffle” of the MacMillan Bloedel building on the north-east corner of the Georgia and Thurlow intersection.

Sexual orientation and gender identity

Vancouver has a large LGBT community, with a recognized gay male enclave focused in the West End neighbourhood of the downtown core, particularly along Davie Street, officially designated as Davie Village, though the gay community is omnipresent throughout the West End and Yaletown areas. Vancouver is host to one of the country’s largest annual Pride parades. There are a lot of gay people in Vancouver and same sex marriages. Gay men and women are getting married. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Language

According to the 2021 Canadian census, 612,215 persons, or 94.1% of Vancouver’s population, know the English language; 96,965 persons or 14.9% of the population, know the Cantonese language, followed by Mandarin (74,695 or 11.5%), French (60,990 or 9.4%), Tagalog (30,430 or 4.7%), Punjabi (19,130 or 2.9%), Hindi (15,025 or 2.3%), Vietnamese (14,905 or 2.3%), Persian languages (12,330 or 1.9%), Japanese (12,075 or 1.9%), German (11,050 or 1.7%), Korean (10,480 or 1.6%), Portuguese (8,715 or 1.3%), Italian (7,740 or 1.2%), and Russian (7,620 or 1.2%).

Furthermore, the 2021 census stated 332,135 persons or 50.7% of Vancouver’s population have English as a mother tongue; Cantonese is the mother tongue of 77,435 persons or 11.8% of the population, followed by Mandarin (41,695 or 6.4%), Tagalog (18,675 or 2.9%), Spanish (16,735 or 2.6%), Punjabi (13,305 or 2.0%), Vietnamese (11,870 or 1.8%), Persian languages (10,315 or 1.6%), Korean (8,605 or 1.3%), Japanese (7,150 or 1.1%), Portuguese (6,740 or 1.0%), Russian (5,155 or 0.8%), German (4,725 or 0.7%), Hindi (4,355 or 0.7%), and Italian (4,000 or 0.6%).

Religion

While most British Columbians are secular or non-religious, Vancouver’s Asian population has been noted for its Christian faith. As of the 2021 Canadian census, religious groups in Vancouver include:

• Irreligion (362,925 persons or 55.8%)
• Christianity (194,365 persons or 29.9%)
• Buddhism (26,245 persons or 4.0%)
• Islam (17,910 persons or 2.8%)
• Sikhism (16,535 persons or 2.5%)
• Hinduism (12,585 persons or 1.9%)
• Judaism (11,675 persons or 1.8%)
• Indigenous spirituality (480 persons or 0.1%)
• Other (7,665 persons or 1.2%)

Homelessness

Main article: Homelessness in Vancouver

Homelessness is a significant and persistent issue in Vancouver. A 2019 count found that at least 2,223 people in the city were experiencing homelessness, the highest number recorded since counts began in 2005. Of those surveyed, 28 percent reported having no physical shelter. Indigenous people accounted for 39 percent of all respondents. Three-fifths of respondents said at least two health concerns, and 67 percent said an addiction to at least one substance. There is a lot homeless people downtown just lined up along the streets living in tents and sleeping on the streets with blankets and sleeping bags outside in the cold during winter. Its hard to see this kind of stuff. But that’s life.