Heritage in the Gorge Tillicum neighbourhood and the Saanich Heritage Foundation

I need your help documenting and protecting the heritage of the Gorge-Tillicum neighbourhood.

I am a board member of the Saanich Heritage Foundation because I have a long time interest in the history of the Greater Victoria area.  The Saanich Heritage Foundation primarily looks after the heritage register and provides grants to owners of designated to fix and renovate their houses.   It also has a general mandate to promote heritage conservation, which is why as a board member I want to be proactive in getting more houses designated in Saanich.

There are two levels of heritage recognition.  The first is registration and this puts the house on the heritage register but offers very little protection for the house.  The second is designation.  A designated house gets protection from the municipality and qualifies for funding from the foundation to pay for some of the costs of renovation and restoration.

Too often when people consider heritage only the houses that were built for the rich are considered appropriate for protection but I think this is an error.   In Saanich there are many houses that I believe have heritage value because they are where the average people lived in the past and they have retained most of their look and feel from that past era.  

This is the only photo I can find of the eastern part of the Tillicum neighbourhood when being construted

The eastern part of Gorge-Tillicum is the oldest suburban neighbourhood in Saanich but because most of the houses built as part of the post world war one boom by and for the middle class or working class very few of them have been considered heritage.   The area between Tillicum Road, the Gorge, Harriet Road and Hwy #1 only has six houses registered and a single designated one.    As a member of the Foundation board I want to see this change, I want to see people value the average houses from the past.

I know this neighbourhood still has many houses built between 1919 and 1930 that are still in reasonably good condition.   I know of at least a couple houses that were built in the 1890s.  I know of one house that is an Eaton catalogue house around here as well.   I would like to see many more houses at least become registered, but I need your help.

I am looking for people that can spend some time and look around at what houses there in the neighbourhood that might be worth getting added to the heritage register.

I have had some consverstions with local home owners and two of them are considering designating their homes.  One couple owns a worker's cottage built in 1919 that they have done a lot of work on to restore to the look it would have had in the 1920s.   It is that sort of house I think needs protection because there are almost none of them left.  Our heritage is so much more than Samuel McClure inspired houses from the same era

If you have a house that was build before World War Two I would love to talk with you about why you might want to designate your house.

I can be reached at 778-265-1647  or email me

You can also find me in my home, a 1909 workers cottage at 3079 Orillia Street which is not protected because it is on its last legs.

Craigflower Village, the lost 14th CRD Municipality Rediscovered!

As many of you know I am a serious BC History buff.   I love to read the old newspapers, the journals of the legislatures or just hang out in the BC Archives.   I have made a fascinating discovery about seven months ago.  In 1866 the Legislature of Vancouver Island incorporated the second local government in what is now BC - Craigflower Village.   Shortly there after Vancouver Island was merged with the colony of British Columbia to become one unified Crown Colony.

I had never heard of this municipality and so I did a lot more digging through source materials, an advantage of living here in Victoria with the Legislature Library and BC Archives.  I have gone through the journals of the Vancouver Island Legislature and the reports of the Daily Colonist and it all in black and white, Craigflower Village was incorporated on August 31st 1866.

All the laws of Vancouver Island, unless later rescinded, replaced or altered, remain in effect to this day.   One law never repealed or altered was "The Village of Craigflower Incorporation Act, 1866".   I have looked through all the relevant places and at no point can I find an act of the United Crown Colony of British Columbia or the Province of British Columbia rescinding the incorporation.

Craigflower Village legally still exists.   What this means is that the area of the original village is not legally part of any other local government.

Finally on Monday I found the most compelling evidence of the existence of Craigflower Village, a map in the BC Archives from 1870 showing the legal boundaries of the City of Victoria and the Village of Craigflower.  The map seems to have been created as part of the union with Canada.  The map it is not available online.  It is a very frail map that they only allow to be viewed if someone has a very good reason - when I told the archivist that I found a missing incorporated village that was enough for them to allow me into the back conservation area and see the map.  Below is an 1863 map of the Craigflower farm which is the same area that shortly afterwards was incorporated.

Craigflower Farm, the area that was incorporated as Craigflower Village on August 31st 1866

The incorporation seems to have happened because the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the HBC, was divesting properties and wanted to subdivide the Craigflower Farm.   It seems that incorporation was needed to allow for the subdivision of the farm into small lots.

Not surprisingly the first reeve of Craigflower Village was none other than arch HBC loyalist Dr J.S. Helmcken, elected to office in October of 1866.   The meeting of the council were held at the Craigflower Schoolhouse.

Other references I have found to Craigflower Village

• About four or five times a year a mention in the Daily Colonist in the years from 1866 to 1875 and then it drops off to a trickle
• 1871 and 1881 census returns for Craigflower Village
• The BC Legislative Journals in 1873 mention roadworks in the Village of Craigflower
• The addendum to the terms of union with Canada outline a series of BC debts that Canada was taking on, one of them were for rural road works in Craigflower village
• Peter O'Reilly mentions Craigflower Village in his notes for the creation of the Songhees #1 reserve in 1877

So far the last record I can find of a Craigflower council meeting is from June 14th 1883 when the council passed a bylaw banning "orientals" from owning property in Craigflower.

So what does this mean in 2015?   The area that was incorporated as Craigflower Village is now administered as a part of Saanich, View Royal or Esquimalt but it has never legally been incorporated into them.  It means the bylaws of those communities do not hold sway and they are not legally entitled to any property taxes.

The fix this situation the province would have to pass an act of the legislature dissolving Craigflower.  Until that happens, the residents of Craigflower could elect a new council and reeve.  Given the reluctance of the province to force amalgamations I suspect that they would not actually dissolve but leave it up to the residents to decide what they want to do.

-------------------------

We have too many local government archives

Legislature in 1940

Saanich, Victoria, Oak Bay, Esquimalt and View Royal all have municipal archives but all of them are underfunded and understaffed.  Sidney has their arches with the Sidney Museum and Archives, they may also serve as the archives for North Saanich

Colwood I think has started an archives, but information about it is not really available online

The four archives are open for a cumulative 60 to 65 hours a week.  The one museum that houses a municipal archives is open for 25 hours a week

• Esquimalt Archives are open three hours per weekday
• Saanich Archives are open four and a half hours per weekday
• Victoria Archives are open five hours a weekday according the website, but I seem to remember them being closed at lunch
• Oak Bay Archives are open for two and a half hours on Tuesdays and 2 hours on Thursdays
• View Royal Archives are only open by appointment
• The Sidney Museum Archives is open for five hours a day from Monday to Saturday

Cigar factory on Government Street in 1885

None of the archives have much space and some cases not adequate space.  In the City of Victoria the office has suffered water damage not that long ago.

If all the archives were combined it would be possible to have a larger and better facility.  It also be possible to have better staffing.  Better facilities would also allow for better conservation and get more materials online.   Right now the money being spent is not getting anyone value for money.  Many of the archives only have one part time staff person.  As recently as 2010 View Royal left it to volunteers.

The sealing fleet in 1900

We have six other municipalities and the CRD in this region which have no archives at all.   The ongoing records of the municipalities are not being housed for the long term.   This is not a good idea because we lose our history.   I have one good example of this.   For the municipal elections last year I thought I would collate all the local election results in this region back to 1990.   What I discovered along the way is that most local governments have no records of their election results from the 1990s any longer.   This is only 18 to 24 years ago and the information is no longer available.  This is what should be kept by an archive.

Ideally I would like to see 100% of the holdings of the all the local archives put online.   Right now only Saanich has any reasonable amount of stuff online.  Without better full time resources this is not going to happen.

Two 1951 Airphotos of Tillicum-Gorge

Some old maps relating to the Tillicum-Gorge area

1855 map of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company holdings in the Victoria area

Burnside neighourhood in 1907

Early HBC map of the Gorge

Early map of Craigflower Farm

1861 map with planned defense at the bridge over the Gorge 

Some Old Pictures of the Victoria Area

I found these at the University of Washington Archives

I had never heard of the Belvedere Hotel in Sooke - this is from 1915.  It burned down in 1934 and was located where the River Hotel is located  

A 1920 postcard of the Crystal Pool

View from the Malahat drive in 1920

Shoal Bay in 1905, now known as McNeill Bay

The sealer Alnoko 1898  - in the 1890s and first decade of the 2oth century Victoria had a huge sealing industry

The 1907 William Harbeck film of Victoria from a streetcar and then a boat on the Gorge

There are a number of good websites with lots of information about this film and William Harbeck.

The film is out there in two different forms, one is only three minutes long and ends when they reach the Empress.  The full version is just about six minutes long and goes up the Gorge to the Tillicum Bridge

What I am adding is the full article that appeared in the Colonist on May 5th 1907 about William Harbeck's filming day on May 4th 1907

From the Daily Colonist of May 5th 1907 - page three

Views of Victoria in Realistic From

Many Pictures of City and Surroundings Taken by Cinematograph Expert

The beauties of Victoria, just as they really are, will in future be shown for the benefit of stay-at-homes in half a hundred places throughout the civilized world.  By means of a lifelike cinematograph pictures they will represent will be spread over the whole of the States, as well as throughout the principal cities of the old country and of Europe, and the work of the Tourist association in drawing attention of the world to the capital of the west will be supplemented by views showing the city and its surroundings realistically.

All day yesterday there toured round the city a man.  On a street car specially loaned for the purpose by the British Columbia Electric Railway company he traveled through the streets, and on a launch he journeyed up the Arm and along the water front, and all the while he devoted himself to a queer box-like piece of apparatus, turning a crank and adjusting it so that the powerful lenses situated at the front could command the best views that were to be had.

The man was W.H. Harbeck, traveler for the Hales Tourist association of Portland, and the apparatus was a camera for the taking of films for use in cinematorgraphs.  When the sun set and it was impossible to take any further pictures, Mr Harbeck had exhausted some six hundred feet of film and had transferred to the long ribbon  some of the most beautiful scenes round Victoria.

On his street car tour, Mr Harbeck started out from Douglas street.  He caught a picture of the city hall, and then travelling along Yates street he went down to Government, whence he journeyed, taking pictures all the time to the postoffice.   At this point My Harbeck was so struck with the view that he stopped the car, and starting at the Empress Hotel, swung his camera so as to take one huge panoramic picture, including the government buildings, James bay and the harbor.  Thence he went on past the government buildings and there terminated his street car ride.

In the afternoon Herbert Cuthbert, secretary of the Tourist association, took possession of Mr Harbeck and his machine, and carried him out to the Point Ellice Bridge.  There Mr Harbeck took a picture of the harbor and the sealing fleet, and then J. Hinton opportunely appeared on the scene.  Mr Hinton was immediately much interested in the proceedings and offered to take the camera and operator for a ride up the Arm in his fine electric launch.  The offer was gladly accepted and up the beautiful stretch of water went the moving picture man and the machine.

My Harbeck was delighted at the beautiful vista which was opened as the launch carried him up the Arm, and had it not been for the fact that it was too busy "sawing wood" the very machine would probably been moved to speak.  As it was it occupied itself transferring to the film the splendid scenery.

On arrival at the Gorge bridge, it was found that the tide was running out and that it would be impossible to go any higher.  My Harbeck, however, was delighted.  The reversible water falls was something he had never previously struck in his travels and he had to have a picture of it.  Accordingly the little launch was pushed in among the whirling waters, and while the vessel racked and pitched, Mr Harbeck steadily turned the handle, and obtained a truly unique picture of the fall and the turbulent current that sweeps under the bridge.

On his way back Mr Harbeck took pictures of the east side of the Arm, including the Isle of the Dead and the saw mills, which were obligingly in full operation.  Altogether he was immensely pleased at the results of his trip.

Today he is going along the line of the E&N to Nanaimo.  Starting from the deport on Store street, he will get pictures of all the beautiful scenes along the railway on the way to Nanaimo.  Arrangements have been made for the train to stop for a few minutes a Shawingan Lake, and there a picture will be obtained of the glittering sheet of water, and the pretty little hotel.  In particular Mr Harbeck promises himself some interesting pictures of the scores of fishermen who will leave the city this morning for the lake.

From Nanaimo, he will go on to Vancouver, where he will take some 400 feet of pictures, and thence he will travel up the CPR until he has exhausted about 1,000 feet of film.  He expects to get splendid views of the Fraser canyon, and the glorious scenery between Yale and Lytton.

On his travels on railways, Mr Harbeck places his machine in the last carriage, and by turning the crank backwards, obtains just such a picture as unrolls itself before a traveler on the cars.

"The only trouble," said he, in describing his method to the Colonist reporter, "is that if you happen to pass a man on the tracks he appears to be walking backwards.  Otherwise the illusion is perfect."

Mr Harbeck is kept continually travelling, getting views for exhibition all over the world.  Of the pictures of Victoria alone, some hundred different ribbons will be made, and these will be shown in all the four corners of the earth.  Mr Harbeck has recently returned from a trip to Mexico, where he had some hair-raising experiences in taking pictures from railway trains hanging over cliffs 3,000 feet in height.  He even ventured into the arena while a bull fight was on, and almost came to conclusions with the bull.  He is now planning a trip across Canada on the CPR and next month expects to be going to Europe, where he will obtain pictures of the cities and sights of the old country and the continent.

The pictures which are thus obtained are exhibited in such a way as to give the illusion of a railway journey.  The room in which the cinematograph works is fitted up like a railway car, noise, rocking and all, and as the panorama is unfolded the passing scene are explained to the audience.  Mr Harbeck states that this form of amusement has become very popular in American and Europe, and that exhibitions are running in all the chief cities of the States and in the capitals and large towns of Europe.  It is anticipated that the exhibition of the films of Victoria will prove a splendid advertisement for the city.


Sites related to the film
Hallmark Society
Welcome to Victoria 1907 at UVic
Ross Crockford's 2007 piece on the film
Ross Crockford's 2008 update
Bio of William Harbeck on the Titanica website

This is the footage from Vancouver

A Princess Maguerite steamship TV commercial

If you grew up watching TV in the 1970s in the Pacific Northwest, you heard this saw this ad and had the jingle burned into your brain.

A 1936 Tourism promotion film for Victoria and Vancouver

I have been digging around online looking for some interesting old films clips about BC and here is one of them

A short home movie of the VE Day Parade in Victoria

I have been digging around old archive online looking for videos from BC's past. I have a YouTube channel filled with the stuff I am finding.

One of the more interesting ones is this home movie of the VE Parade in Victoria. It was filed roughly from the corner of Fort and Douglas. The Parade is going south on Douglas.

The last 30 seconds or so at Beacon Hill, very close to the Mile Zero marker

Turner's/Ian's - Loss of another old building in Victoria

A photo I took one evening in 1988 of Turner's

The building that housed Turner's and Ian's Coffee Stop is now slated to be demolished because it has become too run down to allow it to remain standing.   I understand why it has to happen, but it makes me sad because it figured large in my daily landscape in my early 20s.

For three and a half years in the late 80s I lived a few blocks from this building in an apartment on Duchess Street.   I caught the #14 across the street from Ian's everyday I went up to UVic.   I rarely stopped at Ian's for a coffee in the morning because most days I woke up just in time to catch the bus.

My time there was mainly in the mid afternoons for a late lunch of early dinner.    The place was diner from the 50s without any updating.   It was hip long before anyone of us youth really understood what hip was.

The current street view of the building

I grew up in a non-descrip bland suburb of a large North American city.  My parents bought their house when the suburb was just being built so I grew up in a neighbourhood without character, soul or heritage.  Ian was a character and one my first real introductions to people that were not "suburban".  Ian made the place what it was.  Without it him it would have been a bland run down greasy spoon.

The dated is what people would have called the decor in the 80s, now it would be retro.   The seats were old but this did not stop Ian giving you his card offering protectors for shoes if you ever put a shoe on a seat.
The walls of Ian's were lined with his annual Golden Cup Awards.  He had one special one that was a plaque and a cup on it for 25 straight years of getting the Golden Cup.

The most common person I went to Ian's with was Catherine Novak, she actually went there a lot more than I ever did and once we were dating we often met there for coffee.

Where I live in Duchess Street in the 80s

The store Turner's was nothing great in the 1980s - the major product seemed to be porn magazines.  They had a better selection than almost anywhere else in town at the time.  There was a much better corner store/small grocery on the south east corner so I rarely went in there.

The building had clean lines but was not without ornamentation.   When the tiles along the bottom were clean and complete it gave the building a strong contrasting black line.    The clean lines worked well with the street.   The apartment windows make the building more but I can not explain what I mean by that or how they do it.

The building is of a style that is rare in Victoria, but very reminiscent of parts of Vancouver for me, areas within five to ten blocks of Broadway between Main and Macdonald.   The look and shape of the building takes me back to my childhood and those areas of Vancouver.

As a building it was the right size and shape for the property.  It fits really well there but within a few weeks it will be gone

Some Railway Maps from the Past

Victoria Streetcar Lines

There was a time we had three rail lines on the Peninsula

Video Slideshow of various Royal Navy ships at Esquimalt from 1860s to World War 1

A short video of six maps of the Inner Harbour from 1847 to 1949

I was playing around with the new photo slideshow stuff available at YouTube and made one of five maps of the Inner Harbour from 1847 to 1949

 

The Second Oldest Elevator in BC

The BC Maritime Museum is home to the oldest operating elevator in BC.  It is tourist attraction and no longer primarily a private operating elevator.

The second oldest operating elevator in BC is also in Victoria but this one is hidden away and still used by people to just up and down everyday.   This elevator is in the BC Legislature Library stacks so only visible if you get a stack pass and are using the photocopier.

The Northern Junk Proposal

Looking towards the buildings in the late 1860s

Overview of the proposal

Reliance Properties has passed through the latest hurdles in their proposal to restore and preserve the old waterfront warehouses that everyone in town knows as the Northern Junk buildings.  I have written about the proposal before because I think it is probably the most impressive proposal for redevelopment I have seen this city.  What impresses me the most is the way the two old warehouses are not only preserved, but given a new location setting that makes them shine beyond anything anyone could have imagined.   But it seems even the highest quality and most impressive proposal still has people opposed to it and seemingly preferring to see the buildings to rot further.

There was a letter from Sharon and Nick Russell  in the TC on the weekend that pushed all of my buttons.  The Russells are involved in the Hallmark Society and the Hallmark Society has decided to mount a campaign to "save" the warehouses now that someone is proposing to protect and restore the buildings.   I read their letter and I do not understand how they can possibly come to the opinions they hold when you look at the facts on the ground.

The text of their letter:

Re: “Victoria council eager for input on Northern Junk proposal,” Dec. 8.
What does it take to persuade Victoria city council that citizens loathe the plan to hide the 1860s gold-rush warehouses on Wharf Street behind two commercial towers?
Sure, there is a small, vocal group supporting building the two slabs. But they ignore the unimaginative architecture, the disastrous placing of the proposed towers (blocking the end of Old Town), the sale of city parkland and road allowance to the developer and the fact that the proposal flouts the guidelines in the city’s official community plan and the downtown core plan, particularly requiring protection of viewscapes.
The developer’s supporters use the fact the buildings were once a recycling facility called Northern Junk to diminish and demean the buildings. But viewed as 1860s gold-rush warehouses, they have great potential to attract visitors and anchor this section of Old Town and the harbour.
Council needs to assert itself against developers and demand that such proposals meet city guidelines and add positively to the streetscape. And the council needs to press developers to design for the future, as suggested by the city’s own planning department in its Old Town guidelines:
“Consider whether your building and landscape might be worthy of preservation by future generations for their positive contributions to the character of Old Town.”
This plan fails the test.

Sharon and Nick Russell
Victoria

I read this letter and I am trying to figure out what they are talking about.   Here are my comments on it:

• Commercial towers?   Since when are five story condos commercial towers?  Slabs? How can you look at the proposed new buildings and see slabs?
• Small vocal group in favour?   In more than two years I have met almost no one that does not think the Reliance Properties proposal is not a good thing.  The biggest complaint I have heard is from people ideologically opposed to the sale of any government owned land.
• The look and feel of the new buildings are in keeping with the look and feel of Old Town, they also make a huge improvement from the Sally Ann building and the hotel next door.  These errors in the past need something of a decent scale to counter act.    The old warehouses on their own have long been left isolated and are simply too small on the site to ever succeed without supportive new buildings around them.
• The proposal is in keeping the Old Town design guidelines - I read these things and Jon Stovell has gone well beyond what would meet the guidelines.   I can not find any aspect of the design guidelines that are done justice by the proposal.
• The viewscape is not harmed by this proposal because there is no view of the harbour available.  There are no heritage buildings obscured but at the same time we obscure the view of that ugly hotel on the water.  The views of the old warehouses will be enhanced from the water, the bridge and up close.
• The name for the site is one that EVERYONE in town uses - we all call it the Northern Junk site because of the freaking billboard sign on the building!
• Sale of parkland?  The space of public land that would disappear is a dead piece of land that no one considers as a functional park.  It would be replaced by a pedestrian friendly area.   Selling road allowance is a good idea when it is road space that is not used to any benefit.  Better to collect property taxes from it and not park a couple of cars on it.
• The proposal is the single most important improvement to the streetscape of Old Town in decades.   The addition of the pedestrian precinct and the new store fronts are a huge benefit.   
• These are buildings that will have merit 100 years from now as opposed to the one across the street from it.

These are the buildings in the late 1860s - the one with the three windows and then the one to the left

This is what the proposed development would look like from a similar angle

This is a view of the site in 1947 - note all the heritage buildings that have been lost since, it these lost buildings
which were the connectivity for the site proposal to the rest of the city

If you ever wonder why this city drives me nuts, it is because of the small and narrow minded thinking as expressed in the letter above.

Why does Victoria have a 5th Street but no other numbered streets?

Many years ago there was a plan to have numbered streets in Victoria starting at Bay Street and running northwards from there.   Here is a part of a map from 1884 that shows 1st through to 4th Streets.

4th Street is the most obvious one as it connects to Quadra.   On this map you would expect that it is Blanshard that 2nd Street turned into but in fact that is what is now Dowler and the last block no longer exists.   The two blocks of Blanshard from Pembrooke to Queens are also now Dowler, Blanshard connects to 1st Street.   3rd Street is now Wark Street though most of that street no longer exists.

Also note that Blanshard was spelled Blanchard in the past - I do not know when this changed.

Inner Harbour Maps from 1846 to 1949

 I thought it would be interesting to look at the maps of the Inner Harbour of Victoria from 1846 to 1949 so you can see the changes over time.   I am a total geek for maps and love the fact so many of the old ones are now available online.

1846 map of the Inner Harbour - notice fort on the map, also the Gorge was called Condordia Arm

1847 - this is mainly a navigation map, but you can see the buildings of the fort

1862 - the city is now laid out and on the bottom you can see the Bird Cages
By this time we have a bridge over James Bay and a bridge crossing where the Johnson Street Bridge is now

1895 - the railway arrives but other than that I am amazed at how similar this is to the 1862 map

1907 - the big change is that James Bay is filled and there is the CNR wharf on the inner harbour

Upper Harbour in 1907

1921

1921 - the upper harbour area 

1949 - what I find interesting in this map is the expansion of the railways downtown

601 Herald - a real success

I have been meaning to comment on 601 Herald for some time but life gets in the way.   The other day to reward Daniel for being able to take out the old dishwasher and install the "new to us" dishwasher without a manual and no help from me we let him choose somewhere to go to lunch and he picked Shizen Sushi which is almost across the street from 601 Herald.   It gave me a chance to look and think about the building.

The lot before the building went up

601 Herald Street shows what can be done to make a building to no only fit with the surroundings but to actually enhance the look and feel.  Too often in this city buildings have been constructed that do not really fit with the neighbourhood and effectively reduce the overall consistency.   What 601 Herald has done is nothing dramatic and could easily have been with other buildings constructed over the years in this city.

What I also like about 601 Herald is that is not an attempt to build reconstruction of a 100 year old building. Faux heritage is always a mistake and I have yet to see any of them survive the test of time.

This brick building on Pandora could have been like 601 Herald at no extra cost in construction but that was not done

I look at various brick clad buildings in the old town that were built since the 1970s and I have to ask why was there no effort given to make the buildings compliment what was already there?   Think of the Salvation Army building at Yates and Wharf, there is no way it could have cost more to have built one that helped pull together the area stylistically.  

I am not saying build old buildings, and 601 Herald is not that all, but build as if the streets around you existed.  This is where 601 Herald has been such a success and the reason I am looking forward to Reliance Properties proposal for the Northern Junk site.   I notice both developers are from Vancouver and not locals, I am not sure what that means.

601 Herald has window shapes and small scale ornamentation that can be found in older buildings in town, it this homage it does to the past that makes it work where it is.   It was also built keeping in mind it was going to abut buildings more than 100 years old and they have succeeded in doing that well enough to actually improve the look and relevance of the two neighbouring buildings

The lot was a long term empty spot on the corner of Herald and Government.   The lack of anything on the corner effectively ended any real sense of Old Town continuing further northwards.  There is still a nice streetscape on the west side of Government between Herald and Catham but the used car dealer on the southwest corner of Herald and Government and the empty lot on the southeast corner has disconnected them from the rest of the city.   

The  two narrow old buildings on the east side of Government were stranded mid block which made them look out of place.   The Yen Wo Society Building at 1713 Government is a nationally recognized historic building.   The Lung Kong Kung Shaw and the First Chinese Empire Reform Association Building at 1715-1717 Government Street is the second building.  They are both important heritage buildings that needed help to retain a modern relevance and not just be fossilized artifact.  The construction of 601 Herald Street to the same height as them in a style that is in keeping with their look and feel has allowed them to be more than they have been.   

The two buildings are not helped by the large tree in front

Trevor Linden is a property developer I can get behind if this is the sort of work he is involved with.

Now we need someone to buy the building that houses QV Bakery at the corner of Fisgard and Government  to help improve the street.

Some early maps of the Tillicum-Burnside-Gorge area

Part of an 1862 map showing the Gorge

Burnside Gorge in 1913

Early map of Craigflower Farm