Kudos to a small and spirted team of volunteers who banded together to save a blue cabin.
As new development on the Dollarton waterfront takes shape, the area’s storied squatter history recedes into distant memory.
The blue cabin is a colourful, last remaining vestige from when Dollarton was a haven for artists and hippies who lived in shacks that lined Burrard Inlet’s banks.
At 80 years old, the cabin is clearly frail but still alive with memories.
It was the beloved home of writer Al Neil and his partner and fellow artist Carole Itter for decades.
Furnished with an upright piano for Neil, a freestyle jazz musician, the couple led a creative life off-the-grid. But they were forced to leave, the cabin uprooted from the banks of Burrard Inlet near Cates Park, to make way for a new condo development on the old McKenzie Barge site.
Since then the diminutive blue cabin with distinctive red shutters has languished in storage at a chemical plant in the Maplewood industrial area. But now, thanks to a dedicated volunteer group of artists and historians who secured an estimated $350,000 worth of funding and in-kind expertise, the cabin is headed for greener pastures. Literally.
If you head down to Maplewood Farm this summer, besides seeing some adorable animals, you can watch an important piece of Deep Cove history be restored in plain sight. A Mayne Island couple will inhabit the cherished cabin during the day, working together to tackle extensive interior and exterior repairs.
Next summer the spruced-up shack will be set afloat and serve as a unique artists’ residence for its next life.
We’re happy that those who feel connected to Dollarton’s rich artistic and counterculture history will have a place to reflect on simpler times.
With changing realities and new development afoot in North Van, if needed, we hope residents will step up to the plate to help preserve a piece of our history.
