Ca. 1890. Three-part albumen panoramic photo ca. 18x71,5 cm (7 x 28 ¼ in). Mounted on period card and linen backed on folds. Unsigned. Image slightly faded, occasional foxing, but overall a very good photo.

Very rare early large panoramic view of False Creek, Vancouver West End and Yaletown, featuring Granville Street Bridge, C.P.R. Kitsilano Trestle Bridge, a house at 1304 West Seventh Avenue, Squamish village of Senakw, Fader Brothers sawmill, Cambie Street Bridge, False Creek tidal flats, etc.

City of Vancouver Archives hold all three parts of the panorama, listed as:

“Looking west across False Creek from 7th Avenue and Birch Street” (https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/looking-west-across-false-creek-from-7th-avenue-and-birch-street),

“Looking north across False Creek from 8th Avenue between Alder Street and Spruce Street” (https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/looking-north-across-false-creek-from-8th-avenue-between-alder-street-and-spruce-street), and

 “Looking east across False Creek from 8th Avenue between Alder Street and Spruce Street” (https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/looking-east-across-false-creek-from-8th-avenue-between-alder-street-and-spruce-street). At least two photos very similar to the panorama’s left part have been attributed by the Vancouver Archives to W. Chapman (https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/looking-west-across-false-creek-from-7th-avenue-and-birch-street-2; https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/fairview-looking-west-across-false-creek-2).

The left part of the panorama has a detailed description created by Vancouver’s first archivist, Major James Skitt Matthews (see his fundamental seven-volume “Early Vancouver”; fully searchable online version at: http://former.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/archives/digitized/EarlyVan/index.htm).

Some excerpts from Matthew’s entry about the photo: “A photograph, entitled “West End, 1890” has been sold by Mr. W. Chapman, to the number of three hundred, so he says, Vancouver people. He holds the copyright. [NOTE ADDED LATER: Not correct.] It was taken in 1890 from a point in Fairview just behind the present Recreation Park, situated on Fifth Avenue West just about a block east of Granville Street South. Mr. Chapman is a recluse who has lived for the past twenty-one years in an old sealing schooner, which, during all that time, has lain under the Kitsilano railway bridge.

The details of the photograph as related to me by Mr. Chapman are:

<…> The tree on the far side of False Creek, the tall fir or hemlock, is at the foot of Broughton Street, just in front of Mrs. J.C. Keith’s garden, which runs down to the water. The stump is still there in 1931.

Across False Creek are three houses in the West End. Two only remain in 1931. The third, A. McCreery’s, was removed three or four years ago when “Tudor Manor,” a large apartment, was built.

The one at the top is on Davie Street; it is on the skyline. Today it is numbered 1112 and 1114 Davie Street, a three-storey building with balconies on the second and third floors, and stands on the south side of Davie Street, third building from the Capitola Apartments. <…>

The third house, lowest down the hill, is on Beach Avenue, still standing in 1931 (see photo in Archives) and is now the second home east from Bute Street—runs from Pacific to Beach—the back facing the Royal Mansions. It was built by (Captain) Lacy R. Johnson, master mechanic of the Canadian Pacific Railway, about 1890 or earlier. He was an officer of Vancouver’s first militia unit, and afterwards moved to Montreal.

In the far distance, the forest runs along Nicola Street. The well-known pioneer, Mr. W.D. Burdis, built a small cottage with a steeple roof - now 1931 in the lane between Pendrell and Comox streets at Gilford Street. In this forest, the timber was all around, and when Gilford Street—stated by Mr. Burdis to be the first street opened up from Burrard Inlet to English Bay—was cleared, it was found that it was in the middle of the street and had to be moved. It was not the first house in the West End. It was afterwards moved again to its present location in the lane, and is still occupied” (Matthew, Major J.S. Early Vancouver. Vol. 1., pp. 83-84, http://former.vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/archives/digitized/EarlyVan/SearchEarlyVan/Vol1pdf/MatthewsEarlyVancouverVol1_15July1931WestEnd.pdf). Item #3