Blog - History, News, Media, & Vancouver Stories

The Really Gay History Contest

25 Jul 2018

Enter our contest and you could win the ultimate PRIDE day out! The prize package includes; Two adult tickets to our brand-new Really Gay History Tour ($64 retail value) Two adult tickets to the Vancouver...

The Marine Building

18 May 2018

[By Lani Russwurm] The Marine Building at 355 Burrard Street is widely considered the best piece of architecture in the city and among the finest examples of Art Deco architecture anywhere. It’s also the star...

Vancouver’s Royal Theatre bombing, 1933

16 May 2018

[By Lani Russwurm] An early morning explosion on 20 March 1933 rocked the 100 block of East Hastings Street. A bomb had been placed beside the ticket booth of the Royal Theatre, and the blast...

Recruiting Forbidden Vancouver storytellers – join our team

15 May 2018

Nevada Yates Robart in action as Sarah Briars on the Lost Souls of Gastown. c. Kiri Marr photography Want to become a Forbidden Vancouver Storyteller? We are recruiting new storytellers for our Lost Souls of...

Title image showing Luther Powell saluting outside Klan Headquarters in Shaughnessy Heights in November 1925. Photo by Stuart Thompson, City of Vancouver Archives #99-1499.

The History of the Ku Klux Klan in Vancouver

05 Mar 2018

[by Lani Russwurm] The Ku Klux Klan is a uniquely American phenomenon, but in the 1920s Klan organizers decided to spread their venom internationally. They set up chapters in Saskatchewan and other points east of the...

The Death of Janet Smith

10 Oct 2017

[by Lani Russwurm] The death of Scottish nurse Janet Smith in a Shaughnessy mansion in 1924 is Vancouver’s most notorious cold case — a tale of unsolved murder, high society, racism, drug-fuelled parties, torture, and even...

Trip Advisor 2017 Certificate of Excellence

2017 Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence

02 Aug 2017

Forbidden Vancouver won the Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor this year for “consistently achieving outstanding traveller reviews on TripAdvisor.” We don’t like to blow our own horn too much around here, but we won’t stop...

Cordova Street looking west at Cambie Street, ca. 1900. Online Archive of California, UCR/California Museum of Photography #1996.0009.X4834.

Past & Present: Cordova Street, 1900/2017

24 Jul 2017

Cordova Street looking west at Cambie, ca. 1900 and 2017. The building on the left, on Cambie Street, in the 2017 pic was built in 1913 at the tail end of a major building boom....

Secret Vancouver Beach Histories title image, English Bay, ca. 1925. McCord Museum #MP-0000.158.144.

4 Secret Vancouver Beach Histories

04 Jul 2017

[by Lani Russwurm] It looks like summer weather is going to linger for a while, so we thought we’d supply you with some beach reading. The following are little known histories of four Vancouver beaches. Two...

Dominion Day celebration in New Westminster, 1878. Photo by French, City of Vancouver Archives #677-452.

Dominion Day on Burrard Inlet

01 Jul 2017

150 years ago, Gassy Jack was just thinking about opening a saloon at Burrard Inlet (which he did later in 1867). British Columbia had only united with Vancouver Island into one colony the year before...

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