You go here – to the Vancouver Archives digital reproduction of Early Vancouver, Volume 1 – compiled from all sorts of sources and memories by Major Matthews (mentioned in the post below) in 1931-1932.
Pictures:
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Interviews:
KITSILANO BEACH. SMELTS. SALMON. ELK.
“About the smelts at Kitsilano Beach?” responded Mr. William (Bill) Hunt of 2158 Seventh Avenue West, “At one time the smelts used to come into the beach, Greer’s Beach, in millions. When we were camping, about an hour after high tide, somebody would be watching, and would halloo out, ‘Here they are,’ and all hands would turn out with all the dish pans they could get, and scoop them out onto the beach.
At that time they were so thick that I have stood on the beach, in the edge of the water, and after getting all I wanted, and would see how many I could pick up in each hand before they would go back in the wave. I have picked up seven or eight in each hand. This would be from about 1897 or earlier to about 1904 or 1905.
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Fascinating facts:
KITSILANO, HOW NAMED – PROFESSOR CHAS. HILL-TOUT.
Kitsilano was named by Professor Hill-Tout. He writes as follows (8 May 1931).
The land was afterwards in control of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and when they opened it up for settlement, (note, about 1910) they desired to give the district a more suitable name than Greer’s Beach, and, knowing that Mr. Jonathan Miller, who was then postmaster of Vancouver, was on friendly terms with the Indians, they requested him to find an appropriate name for the settlement.
Mr. Miller referred the request to me; knowing that I had given considerable time and study to the customs, habits and place names of the local tribe. After some little consideration, I chose the hereditary name of one of the chiefs of the Squamish people, namely Kates-ee-lan-ogh, and modified it after the manner in which Kapilanogh has been modified by dropping the final guttural. We thus got the word Kates-ee-lano.
This Mr. Miller or the C.P.R. authorities further modified by changing the long “a” in the first syllable into an “i,” and thus we have Kitsilano.
Signed) Chas. Hill-Tout
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And that was just from the first 23 pages. 217 to go.
Many of the older folks born in Vancouver pronounce it Kit-si-line-o. The rest of us Kit-si-lano. Anyone else notice this?
Tom D.