This photo shows squatters shacks on the mudflats near the Dollarton Highway in circa 1957. Squatter shacks started to pop up around Burrard Inlet by the 1930s, and by the ’50s there were close to a hundred along the waterfront, many built on pilings and erected from wood and other materials scavenged from the beach.
They were rustic with no running water or electricity. These shacks provided affordable live/workspace for several writers and artists from the ’40s through the ’70s.
Poet Earle Birney had a shack in the Cates Park area (Whey-ah-wichen) along with author Malcolm Lowry and his wife Margerie Bonner, who was also a writer.
Lowry and Bonner lived in a few different squatters’ shacks on the North Shore waterfront from 1940-1954.
Lowry’s acclaimed novel, Under The Volcano, was written during this period and Bonner published three novels of her own: The Shapes That Creep (1944), The Last Twist of the Knife (1946) and Horse in the Sky (1947).
Visit the MONOVA website for more information about the history of the North Shore and to learn about MONOVA: Museum of North Vancouver opening in 2021.
Currently, the Archives of North Vancouver at 3203 Institute Rd. in Lynn Valley is open by appointment only. Contact: archives@monova.ca
Navigate culture on the North Shore by using the North Shore Culture Compass.
