With the Olympics closing in, I thought it was high time that we looked at a great Vancouver tradition that we've long since forgotten. I'll be starting in chronological order in the year 1935 with the Battle of Ballantyne Pier, working my way towards the infamous Guns N' Roses riot of 2002. So join me in the next couple of weeks as we take a tour of Vancouver civil disobedience at it's finest (take notes!) and please remind me if I've forgotten any. I recommend keeping your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

One of the benefits of being UBC Alumni is their seemingly random "Grad Gazette" email that trickles into my inbox every now and then. It usually contains lots of fluff pieces trying to make you miss UBC (nice try), but occasionally it has an article or two that spark my interest.

Apparently, UBC has just come into ownership of a series of photos of Stanley Park almost 100 years ago. Taken by a longtime employee of the UBC Library, Lionel Haweis founded Rosetti Photographic Studios which was thought to be in business during the 1910s.

If you know me, you know that I love football (fine...soccer). In Vancouver our options have usually been few and far between, but one semi-consistant source of footy-fun over the years has been the Vancouver Whitecaps.

As I stated in my post about Lion's Gate Bridge , bridges are simply a way of life to us in Vancouver. Either getting in or out of the city, you usually have to cross over at least one - and that's if you're lucky. Burrard bridge poses a few unique and interesting challenges that will greatly shape it's future in the city of Vancouver, and certainly affect our usage, but for now... the history!

Transportation is always a big issue in Vancouver. With our mish-mash system of bridges, tunnels, skytrains, and buses (and the occasional ferry), new developments are usually welcomed - until we subsequently use them and then proclaim that they're horrible and lots of taxpayer dollars were wasted. Such is life in Lotusland, I suppose. Regardless, it seems that while we're currently trying to come up with new ways to get around Vancouver, we used to have a very effective means: Streetcars!

When I picked up that book about Stanley Park history that made up the last two weeks posts, I also managed to grab a great book called The Way We Were: BC's Amazing Journey to the Millennium by the staff of the Province newspaper. It's filled with great photos and articles from BC's past starting at just before 1900 and it does a great job of capturing how fresh and new BC is in terms of our history. Seeing photos of horse drawn wagons cutting through a path above the Thompson River in 1867 really gives you an interesting glimpse into what the landscape was like and how treacherous it must have been to settle in the Lower Mainland.