FORBIDDEN VANCOUVER WALKING TOURS 

[By Will Woods – Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours’ Founder]

Welcome to Forbidden Vancouver!

At Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours we stage walking tours and special events that explore, share, and celebrate Vancouver’s most interesting histories and characters. We tell the stories that don’t make it onto the tour buses. Tales of crime, corruption, and sin. As notorious former mayor L.D. Taylor once said…”We’re a port city. This ain’t no Sunday School town!”

Our experiences all take place on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. It’s an honour to live and work in this beautiful city, framed by mountains and ocean, even if we do enjoy digging up the dirt on its past. And we’re honoured to practice storytelling, a tradition practiced by indigenous people on this land for millennia.

How it all began

The company started as a daydream. Rewind to 2011 and I’d been working a corporate job downtown, dreaming of ways to combine my twin passions of history and theatre into a viable business. I was really inspired by two other companies: Underground Seattle and the Edinburgh Ghost Tours—both of whom do a fantastic job of bringing their city’s histories to life. I figured Vancouver needed something similar!

So with the encouragement of my incredible (and very understanding) wife Alicia, I enrolled in acting school, immersed myself morning, noon, and night at the Vancouver Archives, and set about building a walking tour company. The first tour was for a group of whiskey enthusiasts in February 2012, and I knew then my path was set.

Today I love showing people Vancouver and the city’s unique history just as much as I did on that first day (albeit with a few less nerves these days!). I feel very lucky and honoured to have found a career that allows me to indulge my own interests, and to have met so many interesting people along the way.

Who takes our walking tours?

Every one of our walking tours took months of research and design. The hardest thing in designing a new walking tour? What to leave out!  It can be hard to trim months of research into a 90 minute or 2 hour experience.

So, I include the stories I believe are the most interesting, the most shocking, the most surprising, the most illuminating. Stories like the tale of former mayor L.D. Taylor, who fled embezzlement charges, owned a newspaper, built the tallest building in the British Empire, went bankrupt, fraternized with mobsters, and was a bigamist. Or, the tale of Vancouver’s Great Fire, where people sprinted for their lives down Water Street as the fire licked the skin off their backs and buildings exploded around them. Or, the strange unsolved murder of gold prospector John Bray, who in 1898 was shot three times in the head and lasted three weeks before dying from his injuries.

Together our walking tours tell the story of Vancouver. A ramshackle milltown with a few hundred residents, to a pacific coast metropolis of nearly 3 million, in only 150 years. 

Who takes our tours? Well I can tell you there’s no one single type of person. Our guests are all genders, all ages, all ethnic backgrounds and come from countries all over the world. I will say, unlike most tour companies, around half of our guests are locals. After all, Vancouverites want to discover the most interesting histories of their city just as much as visitors.

The one thing I’ve noticed that unites our guests—whether they’re locals or visitors—is curiosity. If you like to get off the beaten path when you travel, if you like to understand the place you visit, rather than just racing around checking off sites on a list, then we’re the experience for you.

If you can imagine yourself following the lamplight of your guide down the cobblestone Victorian streets of old Gastown, hearing tales of fire, smallpox, and murder, or, strolling beneath the giant old trees of Stanley Park, or, exploring inside the magnificent Art Deco masterpiece the Marine Building, then we can help.

I promise you’ll think differently about Vancouver after a walking tour with us. I bet you might just think differently about where you’re from as well.

If you’d like to hear first hand what our guests think about our walking tours, check out our Google Reviews.

Forbidden Vancouver today

Today, we have a team of around twenty guides. They’re some of the nicest, most passionate, and most creative people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. They’re joined by the amazing folks behind the scenes that work so hard to organize and promote our company’s work.

My number one priority is to support and nurture everyone who works here. That means everyone gets the very best training on how to lead walking tours with style. It means we’re a well run company and we pay attention to the small details. And it means we listen to our guides to find out how to make sure they’re able to deliver incredible tours every single time.

If our guides are well trained, empowered, confident, and supported, then we know our guests will have a fantastic time with them.

For some in our team, guiding with us has become their life’s passion and full time work. For others, it’s vital (and fun!) regular work that helps support their other creative ventures. And for some our company is a stepping stone to other careers or creative goals. Whatever their goal, my focus is to help them get there.

Together, we’ve run thousands of walking tours, held special events in some of the city’s most famous venues like the Penthouse and the Commodore Ballroom, staged a sold-out Christmas play, and launched sister company Vancouver Mysteries, now owned and operated by former Forbidden Vancouver storyteller Tanya Bennett.

Since 2022 we’ve donated over $10,000 to local charities that support disadvantaged communities in Vancouver, with a special focus on supporting indigenous youth. When you book a ticket to our walking tours you’re making a financial contribution to helping people in our city in greatest need.

We’ve got big plans for the future and more ideas on the hopper than you can shake a stick at. So if you enjoy a dose of theatre with your history, stay tuned and I promise we’ll continue to deliver!