Canada: Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s city tour showcases Kitsilano

Heritage Discovery Day takes place June 7 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

By Shawn Conner
Vancouver Sun
Published May 28, 2025

Excerpt:

This year, Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Discovery Day focuses on Kitsilano.

There are nine neighbourhood sites on the tour, including seven houses and two community sites.

“It’s a really important time for us to clarify what we mean by ‘heritage,’” says Laura Carey, executive director of the foundation.

“It’s all of the people, places, events and stories that have made Vancouver what it is today. Heritage was created by everyone and it belongs to everyone. So we want to show more than one perspective on heritage and to move beyond the colonial idea that only buildings constitute heritage.”

The community sites are City Farmer on Maple St. and the Hastings Mill Store on Alma St.

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Created in 1978, City Farmer is an urban farm that follows the railway tracks along the Arbutus corridor.

“I believe that the site was the precursor to the Arbutus Greenway,” Carey says. “City Farmer created a vision of what could be four decades before the city could see that vision.”

Built in 1865, Hastings Mills Store is the oldest building still standing in Vancouver and even predates the incorporation of the city.

“It survived the Great Vancouver Fire in 1886, which is incredible, and then it was barged in 1930 over to Alma, where it stands today,” says Carey.

Many of the homes on the tour are in the Craftsman, or Arts and Crafts, style.

“It was a popular choice of builders during the 1910 to 1912 boom period,” Carey says.

Vancouver Heritage Foundation began conducting heritage tours in 2003. Until 2023, the tours were citywide. In 2023 the foundation began focusing on neighbourhoods, first with Strathcona and then, last year, with three: Arbutus Ridge, Kerrisdale, and Marpole.

Carey says the tours attract approximately 600 heritage hounds, along with over 120 volunteers.

This year’s tour takes place June 7 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets are $50 each and on sale until June 5 at vancouverheritagefoundation.org.

Read the complete article here.

Source: https://cityfarmer.info/canada-vancouver-heritage-foundations-city-tour-showcases-kitsilano/