Vancouver’s history is rich despite the fact that it is a young city by historic standards. The Aboriginal peoples of the Vancouver region has been there for around 3,000 years. The native settlements around Vancouver shows that the aboriginals were a food-gathering people with a intricate social system.
Captain George Vancouver sailed into Burrand Inlet and landed there in 1792 and it was the catalyst of a big change in the lives of the First Nations near the Northwest Passage.
Next came the fur traders, gold prospectors than the settlers came. In 1808 the North West Company trader Simon Fraser and his ship crew were the first Europeans descended the Fraser river to set anchor in what we know as Vancouver today. In 1862 at McLeery’s Farm on the Fraser River the European started settling here. Following that a sawmill was built at Moodyville which is now North Vancouver and the lumbering industry was started.
Gassy Jack Deighton in 1867 set up a shanty tavern and the settlement of Gastown rapidly built up around the tavern. Three years after the government surveyed the settlement and decided to build a town site and called it Granville. Vancouver was incorporated as a city In 1886, and shortly after the city was destroyed by fire a few months later. The very resilient community vowed to rebuild and within a year the small city was built. Four year later, Vancouver’s future was solidified when the train transportation from the east and traffic of ships of the Canadian Pacific fleet, arrived. This contributed to the future growth of the Vancouver.
Due to the construction of the railroad system (built on Chinese railway workers back) the population grew quickly from 5,000 in 1887 to 100,000 in 1900. The first ten years of the twentieth century, Vancouver’s population increased 300% and which attributed to a construction boom. Stanley Park ring road was the first road to receive pavement which was made out of the crushed shells of the large midden at the old native village of Lumberman’s Arch; Stanley Park ring road was paved for use by bicycles. Only after World War I were automobile roads built to link up Vancouver to other cities.
