This Week in History: 1933 — Pioneer proposals for a Point Grey breakwater surface
Credit to Author: John Mackie| Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2019 19:00:49 +0000
You come across all sorts of grand schemes looking through old newspapers. But I’d never heard of a “pioneer vision” for a breakwater from Point Grey to West Vancouver until I came across a story in the Dec. 7, 1933, Vancouver Sun.
“Pioneers relate how, 40 years ago, when Vancouver had no ocean docks to speak of, the choice of a site for a permanent ocean harbour was a (big) question,” wrote The Sun’s John Hickey. “A scheme was broached whereby the Dominion Government was to lay a mattress on the outside of Spanish Banks off Point Grey and on a line to Point Atkinson (Lighthouse Park).
“Sponsors of the plan believed thus would stop the silt drift from the Fraser River and build up in time, at no cost to anyone, a natural breakwater behind which many piers be accommodated to shipping, elevators, mills and warehouses. A double line of railway was to lead around and under Point Grey to connect with transcontinental lines at New Westminster.”
Alas there the story doesn’t have a map of the 1890s’ plan. But you can find another proposal for a Point Grey breakwater in the Vancouver Archives.
Map 50 is a British Admiralty chart of Burrard Inlet that was surveyed in 1891. Zooming in, you’ll find “Indian huts” and a logging camp at Jericho Beach, and Point Grey identified as “Grey Point.” An unknown person has added a breakwater that’s shaped like a hockey stick from Locarno Beach, which is probably one of two proposals for a Point Grey breakwater in 1909.
Detail of a map of Burrard Inlet, 1893, showing a breakwater off Point Grey. The map is from a survey by W.J. Stewart, under the direction of Staff Cmdr. J.G. Boulton, R.N., 1891. Vancouver Archives AM1594-: MAP 50.
The proposal by London Docks Ltd. was 3.4-kilometres long.
“The breakwater would form a protected harbour outside of False Creek 3,600 acres in extent,” said a Province story from Aug. 6, 1909. “It would make possible the construction of drydocks of large size on the westerly section of the admiralty reserve (at Jericho), and the reclaimed area along the inside portion of the breakwater would allow of the construction of wharves at that point, as well as along the shore of the Kitsilano Indian Reserve.
“Facilities would also be provided for industrial enterprises, as the breakwater and railway tracks could be extended along the construction, thus giving connection of rail and shipping.”
The estimated cost of the London Docks breakwater was $1.5 million, which was $165,000 less than a 3.2-km breakwater proposed by Herman & Burwell, one of pioneer Vancouver’s top engineering firms.
“The breakwater was to follow the nine-fathom line out into the bay and its height would have been 54 feet throughout from the bottom to low water, and 73 feet high in all,” said Hickey in his 1933 story. “It would have been in alignment from Blanca Street (in Point Grey) with Siwash Rock in Stanley Park. The mouth of the protected harbour thus formed would be a mile wide between the top of the breakwater and the nearest part of the Stanley Park shoreline.”
Hickey wrote that the protected harbour would have room for “easily 50 vessels.” The plan called for the construction of a “double-track trestle into the bay, dumping rock on each side and filling the inside with sand and brush.”
Detail of a map of Burrard Inlet, 1893, showing a breakwater off Point Grey. The map is from a survey by W.J. Stewart, under the direction of Staff Cmdr. J.G. Boulton, R.N., 1891. Vancouver Archives AM1594-: MAP 50.
This would have created a breakwater 40-feet wide at the top and 180-feet wide at the bottom. On the inside of the breakwater, Herman & Burwell proposed building “18-deep sea piers, each 600-feet long and 120-feet wide.”
Point Grey council gave the thumbs up to the London Docks breakwater on Sept. 10, 1909, but it was never built. Neither was the Herman & Burwell plan.
Still, people kept coming up with plans that would have radically changed the way the city developed. In Derek Hayes’ Historical Atlas of Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley (Douglas & McIntyre, 2005), for example, there is a map of another proposal by the Terminal Railways Company.
“The plan shows a breakwater at Spanish Bank at some distance from the land, and it would appear to be the desire of the company to reclaim about 350 acres of the sandbanks,” said a Province story on Feb. 28, 1912. “Between the breakwater and the land a deepwater harbour is shown with about 150 acres of wharves.”
The Terminal Railways plan was massive — the map in Hayes’ book shows a giant, U-shaped breakwater off the shoreline from the University of B.C. to Kits Beach.
Vancouver Sun story on a Point Grey breakwater on Dec. 7, 1933.
Proposed Improvements of Spanish Bank at Point Grey by the Vancouver Terminals Co, 1912. From the report on the proposed Spanish Bank harbour project to the Point Grey Town Planning Commission, 1928.
Plan of Point Grey Municipality, circa 1908-1929. Map shows the Municipality of Point Grey and parts of the City of Vancouver. It shows street-car lines, district lot boundaries, postal block numbers and some street names. Vancouver Map and Blue Print Company/Vancouver Archives AM1594-: MAP 104. F
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