Read All About It! West Van. News now Online By: Reto Tschan, West Vancouver Archivist 'Shortage of Apartments'. The Belt Line Bus'. 'North Shore Amalgamation'. 'Work on Lions Gate'. The headlines from the day's news in West Vancouver. But what might surprise you is that these are just some of the articles published in the local newspaper The West Van. News, back in 1926. Some things, it would appear, never change. Now, thanks to funding from the West Vancouver Historical Society, this rich treasure-trove of local news is available online. The West Van. News was a weekly newspaper first published in 1926 by Harry Hodgson and F. Francis Lovegrove. The paper was an unabashed promoter of West Vancouver and its issues are filled with reports of growth and development in the District. Along with perennial concerns around housing, transportation, and local politics, the newspapers are also chock full of more intimate personal details. Notices record visiting relatives, personal illnesses and tragedies, along with weddings, parties and other social events. These, along with the numerous advertisements for local shops and businesses, combine to create a fascinating window into the past of our community. And as the western world moved from post-war reconstruction, through economic hardship, towards the threat of another European conflict, this wider reality is reflected through this uniquely local lens. The newspaper remained in print for over 30 years, with its last issue appearing on July 19, 1957 before it was acquired by the Lions Gate Times the following year. Thanks to the foresight of Rupert Harrison, former District Clerk and West Vancouver's first archivist, the West Vancouver Archives holds a fairly complete run of early issues of The West Van. News. Like all newspapers, however, these were never intended for long-term preservation. The highly acidic paper has become brittle over the years, and consulting the papers risks further damaging them. The newspapers had also been stapled together into monthly bundles and bound together with masking tape. Before they could be scanned, these bundles had to be carefully disassembled. While microfilm copies of the newspaper do also exist, their coverage is patchy and they too have begun to show the signs of wear and tear. continued on page 6 5