Nicholson Road is an ongoing photo project aimed at sharing and celebrating the different communities in Metro Vancouver. Each week Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» will be featuring an image from the previous week, shot in one of the many 'hoods around town in order to draw your attention a little bit outside of the hyper-focus that we usually have on the City of Vancouver. |
This week I decided to keep the North Shore theme going and round it out with a visit to the City of North Vancouver. To most of you, North Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»probably means 3 things: , Lonsdale Quay, and wicked views of the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»skyline. And you're right! But there's plenty more to it than that.
What was, for most of the twentieth century, the largest shipyard in Western Canada, the Wallace Shipyards/Burrard Dry Dock/Burrard-Yarrows/Versatile Pacific Shipyards closed up shop in the 1990s due to a surplus of shipyards in BC. Since that time the empty warehouses and open spaces were primarily used by the local film industry in what I call a location scout's dream: close proximity to downtown/the City of Vancouver, a lack of public access with good security, tons of open space, and all sorts of industrial goodness.
Today, with the addition of a huge plaza and refurbished, 700ft-long Burrard Dry Dock Pier, the area is becoming a great place to take a stroll and enjoy the awesome vistas North Van has to offer - there are few places where you can better enjoy the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»skyline than from North Van, and the views up the hill to Grouse aren't bad either!
A new maritime museum (the National Maritime Centre for the Pacific and the Arctic) was originally planned to find a home in one of the restored historic buildings, but the Provincial Government couldn't make it happen this time around. On the plus side, a few of the huge cranes, the enormous bow of a ship, and plenty of other artifacts were saved and restored to be featured in the Maritime Centre, and they let the area retain its working shipyard feel. Besides, who needs a museum when you can experience the real thing right next door at the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Drydock Company?
So next time you head across the water for a snack at Lonsdale Quay, why not venture out a little further and discover what the City of North Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»has to offer? You might be surprised!
If you're curious to learn more about North Vancouver's Waterfront project, .
Archives of the Nicholson Road project can be found .