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The following is an excerpt from an article entitled BOYHOOD VANCOUVER which appeared in the Angust/September MEMORIES OF WEST 1990 issue of the Bank of Permission for reprinting has been gracious- British Columbia's Pioneer News, ly granted by both the Bank of B. C. and the author - Doug Watt. THE GREAT MONKEY MOSS MYSTERY The Autho in Summe It would be difficult to select among the four seasons as to which offered the greatest potential from a veritable smorgasbord of entertainment for young boys. Of course, to a certain extent, a boy's life divided itself into school and vacation, both Christmas and summer. There were monumental opportunities in each of them for adventure. While Christmas Day, the epitome of single day holidays, was the eventual highlight of the Christmas period, the prelude offered just as much excitement. Two chums and myself formed an inseparable trio and it became tradition that about ten days before Christmas we would journey to Baby Mountain (later to be designated in a presumably more elegant manner as Sentinel Hill). The local landmark was known to everyone in West Van as Baby Mountain, but what was known to only us three (as far as we ever discovered) was that on the western side of Baby Mountain facing 11th Street - where houses were shortly thereafter to be built - was a lightly forested area in which grew an ideal Christmas decoration which we called "Monkey Moss". "Monkey Moss" seemed to be a logical descriptive phrase since, though obviously some kind of moss, it reminded us of a smaller version of the ornamental monkey puzzle trees. The main strand or stem was about a quarter of an inch thick and had tiny curled "branches" about three inches long occurring at irregular intervals along the main stalk. If you were lucky (and careful in detaching it from the ground), you could get single strands up to fifteen feet in length. Since it was a bright green Christmassy colour, it made an ideal decoration for a fireplace mantel or around window frames. I remember my mother saying to me, "Son, where do you find this moss? No one else seems to have any," and my offhand and somewhat vague reply, "Oh, it's up on Baby Mountain, but the exact location is a secret". I never discovered the horticultural name of our "Monkey Moss" and in later years I went back to try to find some, but, as I should have guessed, civilization had encroached and nothing resembling our original "forest" remained. More curious, perhaps, was that even though we kept our eyes peeled on other "field" adventures, we never found another spot where "Monkey Moss" flourished. And "spot" is the right choice of word, since the area in which it grew could not have been more than 150 feet square. I remember thinking as a boy, "Gee, maybe this is the only place in the world where "Monkey Moss" grows" - and who knows, maybe it was! In the September newsletter, we asked if any of our members might have a photograph of the Hollyburn Theatre that they would be willing to donate to the Society or lend us for copying. I wish I could say that we got one, but we didn't. Let's try another subject on for size. How about the Dundarave Regatta? There must be plenty of snapshots pasted away in photo albums on this once very popular event? How about it members. -8-