Thread by @j_mcelroy

There are 651 unique street names in Vancouver.

In this thread, I'm going to explain the backstory of each and every one.

newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/stree…

1. Feel VERY free to mute this thread.

2. For most of this, we'll be relying on research by Elizabeth Walker in "Street Names of Vancouver": vancouverisawesome.com/2011/02/17/str…

3. How did we choose the 651 streets? The city's own data set on "public streets", with numbered avenues removed.

Alright, let's go!

So first, there are 62 streets with no backstory listed anywhere ... or something meaningless like "Adanac", which is literally "Canada" backwards.

We don't want this thread to go on for too long, so let's just show them all in a picture.

Next up: streets named for golf courses!

ANCASTER
ASHBURN
BOBOLINK
BONACCORD
BONNYVALE
BRAEBURN
BRIGADOON
BRIGHTWOOD
BURQUITLAM
ELMHURST
GATINEAU
HOYLAKE
JASPER
KEMPTON
LEASIDE
LYNBROOK
MUIRFIELD
NASSAU
NEWPORT
PRESTWICK
QUILCHENA
ROSEDALE
ROSEMONT
SCARBORO
THORNHILL
UPLAND

There are 26 streets named for golf courses in the City of Vancouver.

26!

There are more streets in Vancouver named for golf courses than for women.

And there could have been more golf streets — when the Musqueam Park subdivision was built in the 1960s, the city first wanted to name the streets after golfers.

Cooler heads prevailed, and we got this.

HALSS
KULLAHUN
MUSQUEAM
SALISH
SEMANA
SENNOK
STAULO
TAMATH
TYTAHUN
YUCULTA

We also have tons of geographic street names — most of them pretty generic (Beach, Main, Boundary, Creekside, etc.), but a few clever ones, like Little Street, which is just one block long.

We also have lots AND LOTS of streets named for European explorers

😬

How many?

Well, 15 from Britain...

BARCLAY
BIDWELL
COURTENAY
DENMAN
FRANKLIN
FRASER
FRASERVIEW
GILFORD
HORNBY
HOWE
HUDSON
JERVIS
MEARES
PENDER
PENDRELL

...8 from Spain

ALBERNI
CARDERO
CORDOVA
GALIANO
HARO
LANGARA
NARVAEZ
VALDEZ

(takes a breath)

7 from France...

CARTIER
CHAMPLAIN
HENNEPIN
LA SALLE
MARQUETTE
RADISSON
QUESNEL

(fun fact: Jules-Maurice Quesnel was the only one of the French explorers who came to B.C.)

....and rounding up the explorers (mostly), we've got Vitus Bering.

31 streets in all we've bequeathed to explorers, spread throughout all parts of the city (see the picture).

And now we're mostly done with dead Europeans, right?

Oh, sweet child, we have so much of Europe left to explore!

First off, there's the royal streets.

ALEXANDRA
CONNAUGHT
CORNWALL
DUCHESS
DUKE
ELIZABETH
GEORGIA
GUELPH
HAROLD
KING EDWARD
KINGHORNE
KINGS
KINGSWAY
PRINCE ALBERT
PRINCESS
QUEENS
RENFREW
ST. MARGARETS
VICTORIA
YORK

We have streets named after two European statesmen (BLANCA, RUPERT), two Greek mathematicians (ARCHIMEDES, EUCLID), and 20 different war battles that happened in Europe, placed mostly in Kits and Renfrew Heights.

(Yes, we really do have two streets named for the Crimean War)

We have 12 streets with some connection to George Vancouver, Man Who Sailed Around Here.

BROUGHTON
BURRARD (his friend!)
BUTE
DISCOVERY (his ship!)
DUNDAS
HARWOOD
KINGS LYNN (place of birth!)
PETERSHAM (place of death!)
POINT GREY (another friend!)
PUGET
QUADRA
THURLOW

(yep, all of you thought Burrard had some really grand backstory, but it's all because OG George Vancouver saw a neat inlet and was like "I'm gonna name this on my map after my buddy Harry Burrard")

Alright, we've now got a metric ton of streets that were named for other British people, or other British places.

49 of them, to be exact — from Prime Ministers to poets, to big cities and small settlements!

(We're now around 45% of the way through this, btw)

And we're almooooooooooooooooost done with European stuff, except for the fact that 4 of the 6 university streets in the top northeast of the city are named for British universities.

CAMBRIDGE
ETON
MCGILL
OXFORD
TRINITY
YALE

We have 8 streets named for other places in North America (mostly in Quebec, but also a certain street in New York, because even 100 years Vancouver was consumed with becoming world-class)

BELLEVUE
BELMONT
BROADWAY
COLLINGWOOD
DRUMMOND
MONT ROYAL
RICHELIEU
ST. LAWRENCE

There are 276 streets in Vancouver named for men, and 14 for women.

https://twitter.com/tbrandmueller/status/1173282429148155904

Let's continue! We've got six other streets named for ships, or things on ships.

COMMODORE
HAIDA
PANDORA
SPYGLASS
STARBOARD
TRIUMPH

(Yes, according to the definitive book on this, Haida Drive is named for the HMCS Haida, and not for, you know, the actual Haida people)

Let's clear a few off easy ones off, included Big Recent Global Events...

ATHLETES WAY
EXPO BOULEVARD
CANADA PLACE

...and old houses or hotels in Vancouver we wanted to honour

BAYSHORE
BELLA-VISTA
CONTINENTAL
GLENDALOUGH
NEW BRIGHTON
SOUTHLANDS
ST. REGIS

Vancouver has streets named for far away Indigenous groups, Indigenous people who aren't from B.C., and Indigenous terms we anglicized.

BRANT
CAMOSUN
CHEYENNE
CREE
KITSILANO
MAQUINNA
MOHAWK
NICOLA
SASAMAT
SHAWNEE
TECUMSEH

But no streets directly for a local Indigenous person.

Now, we some to our weirdest category.

I speak, of course, of the streets named for the works of 19th century novelist Sir Walter Scott.

There are 12 of them.

Twelve!

DINMONT
DURWARD
GLENGYLE
IVANHOE
MANNERING
MARMION
MIDLOTHIAN
NIGEL
PEVERIL
TALISMAN
WAVERLEY
WOODSTOCK

Here's what happened: Apparently a guy in Vancouver's engineering department, William B. Young, had a lot of sway in the 1920s and 30s, and whenever a new street name came up, he suggested a different Scott book/poem/character.

Look at where they are! All over the city!

Let's move on from Walter Scott before I get shouty.

We've got Canadian historical figures, including four PMs...

BALDWIN
BORDEN
BROCK
FRONTENAC
LAURIER
MACDONALD
MACKENZIE
MONTCALM
NORQUAY
THORNTON
WOLFE

...and all the provinces (save Newfoundland/NWT, for some reason)

We've got streets named other B.C. places (many are anglicized Indigenous names, but that's a whole other kettle of fish!)

ATLIN
CARIBOO
CASSIAR
CHILCO
COMOX
HAZELTON
KAMLOOPS
KELOWNA
KOOTENAY
LILLOOET
NANAIMO
NOOTKA
PENTICTON
QUALICUM
SKEENA
SLOCAN
STIKINE
WANETA
WINDERMERE

We've got 22 streets mostly around False Creek named for industrial stuff we did.

BUCKETWHEEL
CELTIC
COAL
COOPERAGE
FERRY
FORGE
FOUNDRY
GREAT NORTHERN WAY
GREENCHAIN
INDUSTRIAL
MAINLAND
MARKET
MILLBANK
MILLYARD
NEON
SALT
SAWCUT
SAWMILL
SAWYER'S
SCANTLINGS
SWITCHMEN
THE CASTINGS

We've got some miscellaneous streets named for things I couldn't put in any category.

SUZHOU
LE ROI
NATAL
SHANGHAI
ST. GEORGE
LOCARNO
WHITHORN

(Natal was named for a crown colony in South Africa during the Boer War, and Locarno for the failed peace treaties of 1925. So yeah.)

And, wrapping up the "non-local people" part of Vancouver's street nomenclature, we have everyone's favourite: plants and trees!

But even with Vancouver's tree streets, there is something amusing (or groanworthy, depending your preference) in its backstory.

See, the guy who named most of early Vancouver, Lauchlan Hamilton, wanted the tree streets to go in alphabetical order.

Like so!

Why didn't that happen? Apparently Hamilton didn't make the request super clear, and then he left Vancouver for a bit, and when he returned the maps and surveying was too far along to change things.

And that's why we have so many tree streets, in such a haphazard order.

DEREK I CAN ALWAYS OUT-JUSTIN MYSELF

https://twitter.com/derekschlereth/status/1173293472989581314

So! Now we're at 200 remaining Vancouver streets, named for people who spent most of their adult life in British Columbia.

And a whole chunk of them are mostly remembered today because they owned land between 1880 and 1920, often in South Vancouver.

(Note: these landowners range the gamut, from a school janitor (Price), to a person who wasn't paying taxes, and agreed to settle the matter by giving the city a bunch of land that turned into a park named for him, which then got an adjacent street named for it (Chaldecott))

So, lots of people got streets named after them because they owned land in places where new streets had to be built.

And lots of people got streets named after them because they were associated with railway companies.

27 of them!

(sadly, McBain is not for the Simpsons)

Virtually all of the railway streets are named for people associated with the CPR (including Marguerite, for the daughter of CPR President Thomas Shaughnessy) because naming streets after People You Know is a thing that happens when you own a fifth of a city.

Now we've reached the politicians.

There are 55 of them that served locally, provincially or federally, including 10 Vancouver mayors, 7 premiers, 7 MPs, and six early Lieutenant Governors.

Some are very controversial today! Some are not!

But let's deal with them all now.

(Is there merit in talking about streets named for past politicians who have a legacy of racist decisions that Vancouver is only now truly beginning to grapple with?

Absolutely! But there are lots of those articles. The point of this one is to see the forest from the trees.)

So, we're done with politicians. But we also have a lot of streets named for people adjacent to politicians: engineers and surveyors ...

BAUER
BRAKENRIDGE
BURNABY
DAWSON
FELLOWES
GEORGE
GORE
HERMON
MOBERLY
SCALES
TODD

and school trustees and government bureaucrats...

#1: 16th (lived there)
#2: 11th (ditto)
#3: 23rd (ditto, but it was in a fake room with shower curtains as walls because I was working as a temp for @GlobalBC
and didn't know my future so I paid @jonnywakefield
monthly rent)
#4-#77: chronological order

https://twitter.com/MikeJarrett_/status/1173300186866581504

Continuing!

We've got six random B.C. pioneers ...

DUNLEVY
JACKSON
KASLO
ROSSLAND
TROUNCE
WINLAW

And people who cut down trees or were part of Hastings Sawmill!

BOYD
CHARLESON
JERICHO
MACKIE
OBEN
VENABLES
CAMPBELL
HEATLEY
LAMEY'S MILL
RAYMUR
STAMP'S LANDING

We've got streets for nine prominent business owners...

BEGG
BENTALL
CHAMBERS
CHESS
CROWLEY
EARL
EVANS
MARSTRAND
ROGERS

... and 11 that I couldn't find a good category for 🤷‍♂️

BURSILL
FANNIN
FOLEY
GASTON
HAWKS
MENCHIONS
MILROSS
MOSCROP
PAULSON
STAINSBURY
STIRLING

AHHHH JUST 11 STREETS LEFT TO GO

First up: the longest-serving owner and GM of the Vancouver Canucks.

(which is nice, and then less nice when you remember there are more streets named for people associated with the Canucks than people of Asian descent, but it's still nice!)

Next up: Valiant Street.

Shot in 1967 by a murderer who was on the run after escaping prison, Valiant became the first police dog to be killed in the line of duty in Vancouver.

If you've ever jogged or cycled in South False Creek, you've probably seen Leg-In-Boot Square.

Did you ever think about the name?

And that it's for a Leg (IN A BOOT) that washed on shore in 1887?

And that the VPD strung up the leg and boot for 2 weeks?

No? Well now you do!

And now, our final seven streets.

Leopold Bloch-Bauer fled from Austria when the Nazis invaded, and because he was Jewish had his assets seized. He moved to Vancouver, changed his name to Bentley, started a sawmill, the beginning of a company that grew up to become Canfor.

Jack Uppal is the only street in Vancouver named for for a South Asian.

(And that only happened in 2016)

He was a pioneer in the forest industry and fought discrimination, and a key part of the Indo-Canadian forestry heritage in this province.

Frances Fanny Dalrymple was Vancouver’s first public health nurse, and directed B.C.’s original training school for nurses.

Tilly Jean Rolston was the first woman in Canada to be a cabinet minister with an actual department to run, introduced B.C.’s first sex-ed curriculum, and was founding chair of Theatre Under the Stars.

Samuel Greer owned land next to Kits Beach, but the government gave it CPR.

He refused to leave, so the government sent a sheriff to arrest him, and then Greer SHOT THE SHERIFF before being arrested.

Also, his nickname was Gritty, 125 years before that was cool.

And finally, Worthington Drive and Worthington Place.

Named for Douglas Grant Worthington and John Robert Worthington, brothers in the 28th Armoured Regiment in the 4th Canadian Brigade, who died within 9 days of one another during battles after the Invasion of Normandy.

And that, folks, are the origins of all 651 unique street names in Vancouver.

For the full article (and video), click here: newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/stree…

Big thanks to @tamara_baluja, Pete Scobie, and our graphics team for helping with whatever this was!

I've made an interactive map of Vancouver's street categories, so you can play around with all of this yourself.

It's at the bottom of the article, but you can also explore it here: opendata.vancouver.ca/map/vancouver_…

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to enjoy the rest of my Sunday, and contemplate how I spent my summer.