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November 1997 WEST VANCOUVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY Page 3 AND THIS IS THE WAY IT WAS Contributions Come from Anywhere! Barb Johnson, Contributions Editor This will be my last column for 1997 and I want to thank all of you who have taken the time to send in contributions. I encourage you to keep them coming as our newsletter would not be the same without your input. This column is an interesting example of the many diEferent somces of historical information. Ship Ahoy! was inspired by a photograph bringing back memories from Edith's childhood days at Ambleside. Cypress Park, a Happy Place to Grow Up was a 1992 letter from Peter Claxton, retrieved from the Georgie \Wlson files, introducing himself as a new member. The source is endless. Washing you all the best in the New Year and hoping to hear from you. Ship Ahoy! For many years, people wondered who owned the old lifeboat which rested at the eastern end of Ambleside Beach. One day, our neighbour, Mrs. Harris, the widow of a former keeper of the light at the First Narrows lighthouse, came to call. She told my brother, George Allen, and his friend, Gordon \^ce, that she had something to give them. To our surprise she told us that she was the owner of the old lifeboat, and she wanted George and Gordon to have it. In their excitement they could hardly find enough words to thank her, but two pairs of shining ^es were enough for Mrs Harris, bless her heart. The boys took the boat to the slough, now the Ambleside Park Duck Pond, and made plans to outfit their boat. They found everything they needed at the dump, which in those days was situated near the slough. Finding the discarded wooden sides of an old truck, they used them to fashion a cabin. Next they decided a stove was needed to warm the cabin, and roast weiners. A four gallon gas can served the purpose, fuelled by driftwood and any scraps of wood they could scrounge, and a two inch galvanized down spout became the chimney. With a pole to propel the boat they were ready to set sail. They travelled many happy miles around the slough and up to the railway tracks. It was a common sight to see smoke coming from their chimney as the two sailors navigated then-little ship on its course. HAWIRKO By Edith (Allen) Hawirko George Alien, Gordon Vince with Mary Allen on The Boat Not many years later they both served in the war, George in the Navy and Gordon in the Merchant Marine. Back in civilian life they both became marine engineers, George with Standard Oil tankers and Gordon with B.C.Ferries. Perhaps Mrs Harris' boat helped them to determine their choice of career. Thq^ are now both retired, with happy memories of sailing on the slough at Ambleside Cypress Park Was a Happy Place to Grow Up In., By: Peter M. Claxton Dear Georgie Wilson, Thank you for recent forwarding on my membership card for the Society and for your covering letter. Yes, of course I remember the W^son Family kindly, though I can’t say that I knew them well. I do remember my father’s envy of the massive rock work retaining wall against the ravages of Cypress Creek, constructed if I remember rightly by one Louie, on the frontage of the Wilson property. That must have been at about the time that I, aged twelve or so, was happily playing with homemade model boats in the pools left in the creek during summer draughts -when the deer still came down to drink. Cypress Park was a happy place to grow up in then, with the woods and trails no more than a ten minute walk beyond the single Cypress Park Store, and its predecessor, the Tea-room, run by Miss Cache and Mrs. Cross. However I don’t think I’d want to live there, or anywhere on the North shore nowadays, except, perhaps on the immediate borders of Lighthouse Park, still a grand place to exercise one’s dogs, I gather. I still visit Erwin Drive from time to time, when passing through. It’s usually an opportunity to scrounge a meal with George and Janet Hale, who continue to live happily in the house thQ^ built at the top of Erwin in 1947. It must by now becoming one of the “Historic Buildings” of the area, for George delights in telling me of the literally millions spent by successive owners in demolishing and rebuilding houses around the Circle. Our old place still stands, as the nucleus of a much larger house while the lot to the south of us, the house bmlt by Toby McLeod in about 1948, recently changed hands for $3,000,000, My parents felt that that vacant lot was overpriced at $7,000, when Cady sold it in about 1942. So it goes - I also think with amusement of the old Richie home, Montalta, 3842 Bellevue, a seven bedroom house on double waterfront lots, which my parents rented from 1931 to 1937, for $25 a month. It was eventually sold, over our heads, to lawyer Neal Hosey, and one now wonders what he paid. Continued on Page 8