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November 1997 WEST VANCOUVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY Page 7 I’ Logging and Fishing Started It All. By: lola Knight The first two articles on logging in West Vancouver focused on one entrepreneiu' and his method to get the readily available and bountiful quantity of forest products to market. Now, let’s go back to the beginning. wvm&a Oxen moving logs to tidewater, circa. 1885 Imagine. It is the year 1860, you are standing at Prospect Point In Stanley Park looking across to the area we now know as West Vancouver. You see a forested expanse that extends from Capilano River to Point Atkinson and fi"om the shoreline of English Bay to the northern horizon of Hollybum Ridge. A natural fire prior to 1860 has scarred the lower slopes; and a swath of recovering burned area extends northwest to the present Cypress Bowl Road. There is another burned area east of Sentinel Hill. At this time, a wide area of wetland estuary exists where Capilano River meets tidewater at First Narrows. It splays out from what is now approximately Capilano Road in North Vancouver to 13th street in West Vancouver; south of the escarpment above Park Royal North. Smaller estuaries have formed around the smaller creeks along the shoreline of English Bay. Groups of homes inhabited by First Nations people are located in the more protected area along the shoreline east of Capilano River. The foundation for West Vancouver was twelve to fourteen logging camps: ten mills, lumber and shingles; and two fish canneries. The canneries were Francis Millerd's Great Northern at Cypress and one located at Eagle Harbour with a smokehouse located on Eagle Island. The Eagle Harbour facility was established by Newfoundlanders who settled here as the inshore fishery had diminished back home. Sounds like the 1990's, eh! Circa 1970 the population growth around \hncouver was demanding lumber and shingles for construction - houses and commercial as well for export to England. Men equipped with axes looked no further than across Burrard inlet to the north shore for a supply of timber. The first logging was around an area in North Vancouver known as Moodyville located in the vicinity of the estuary of Lynn Creek in the year 1865. In West Vancouver, logging began about 1870. First logging in the vicinity of Ambleside was selective -choice trees were felled. Careful and calculated, axmen cut the tree to avoid dropping other trees as it fell. Due to a scarcity of horses, they didn’t travel well on the boat, from England, oxen were used for hauling. Up to 12-span oxen, a span being a double yolk for a pair, hauled the felled logs lengthwise on a greased log skid road. The logs were rolled to a log dump at tidewater by a horse powered windlass. The first 20 years, falling was by axe and logs were bucked by crosscut saw. By 1885 falling was done using a two-men falling saw. A springboard allowed loggers to cut a tree at more uniform diameter above the flare of the roots which also facilitated hauling. Today, we see evidence of this style of logging in old stumps that show deep notches cut near the base. These were incised by axe and a stout board, called a sprin^ard, was inserted into the cut on which the sawmen stood, one on either side to manipulate their long saw. Large diameter based trees may have notches to 9 feet above ground.. The earliest lumber mills were located at 5th and Mathers; 14th and Esquimalt Avenue; and on Inglewood at Lawson Creek. A shingle mill was located at 27th and Marine. Lumber camps were located at Fisherman’s Cove and at the mouth of Cypress Creek. The largest camp was Moody’s at Ambleside Spit in 1890. British Properties was first logged in 1890. up to the 1200 foot level. Above this level, it was too steep for animals to haul. Forest fires, waring mostly the result of human intervention, took their toll on logged off areas in West Vancouver. The first serious fire took place in the summer of 1884 in the vicinity of today's Upper Levels Highway Faliers on springboards, 7 ft falling saw north of Sentinel Hill. What we see today as lovely treed British Properties was, even as late as 1945, a denuded logged off stump area. Who would want to live there! What prompted this interest in the history of logging. About ten years ago Gerry Hardman, Hugh Johnston and the late George Smith started to delve into the history of the many trails that are evident on Hollybum Ridge - their origin; who constmcted them and why. What developed has been a history of the development of our conununity. It is difficult to believe that a hundred years ago West Vancouver was a hive of industry, either logging or fishing. Many of the folk lived here on a temporary basis; men living in camps only while they worked as loggers or fishers. Families settling here were either directly involved in these industries or were services, such as the butchers, grocers, bakers, etc., who depended on these industries for their livelihood.