North Vancouver History – Introduction

North Vancouver is the home of two municipalities: a compact City facing Burrard Inlet and a larger, suburban–like District surrounding it on three sides. North Vancouver has also been home to such notables as rock star Bryan Adams, sprinter Harry Jerome, broadcaster Red Robinson, actor and Chief of the Burrard Band Dan George, skater Karen Magnussen, Group of Seven painter Fred Varley, writer Malcolm Lowry, actor Jason Priestley, Margaret Sinclair (wife of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau), cartoonist Lynn Johnston, Squamish Chief Joe Capilano, and mountaineer Phyllis Munday.

North Vancouver is situated in one of the most spectacular geographic settings anywhere. The land rises up from the waters of Burrard Inlet through forested slopes to the Coast Mountains. Over the past century and a half, much of the temperate rainforest that originally covered those slopes has been cut, canyons have been bridged, rivers dammed, and mountains traversed by roads. Today's urban community has emerged from a wilderness where once only a handful of First Nation settlements and an isolated logging town hugged the water's edge.

The First People to call North Vancouver home were Coast Salish, the Ancestors of the Tsleil–Waututh, Musqueam, and Squamish peoples. They built permanent winter villages and had fishing camps (and other resource sites) along local shorelines and river mouths, while nearby mountains were used for hunting and spirit questing. Travelling by canoe, they moved between a network of sites on the banks of Howe Sound, Burrard Inlet, Indian Arm, and the mouths of the Capilano and Seymour Rivers. Native peoples, speaking the Squamish language and a down-river dialect of the Halkomelem language, sustained themselves by fishing, hunting, and food–gathering. Slightly over 200 years ago, they had their first glimpse of Europeans. The Spanish arrived first, giving their name to Vancouver's Spanish Banks, and in 1792 Captain George Vancouver of England explored the local shores. Descendents of these First people, members of the Squamish and Tsleil–Waututh Nations, still live and work in our community today.

Introduction | 19th Century | Early 20th Century | Mid 20th Century | Late 20th Century to Today