MAY Day celebrations were a significant community event in West Vancouver from the 1930s to the early 1970s.
The first official West Vancouver May Day celebration was held on Victoria Day, May 24, 1931. The tradition continued until 1973, after which the celebration was moved to the first Saturday of June and was renamed Community Day.
The West Vancouver Archives' May Day collection includes approximately 400 photographs, a film, original documents such as a decorated register of participants that spans the entire duration of May Days, programs, May Queens' speeches, scrapbooks and the May Day committee's records and correspondence. The material was collected by the West Vancouver Historical Society from a wide variety of donors and later transferred to the West Vancouver Archives.
Earlier this year, the West Vancouver Archives was pleased to be awarded one of the first grants funded by the successful sale of the West Vancouver Historical Society's book, Cottages to Community. The grant enabled staff to re-house the entire May Day collection in archival quality envelopes and boxes, describe all the material in the archives' online database, and digitize key textual material and photographs. The collection is now available at archives.westvancouver.ca and contains more than 200 scanned photos and 250 scanned pages of text, including the decorated register of participants, programs and May Queens' speeches.
Carol Howie is the archives assistant at the West Vancouver Archives. For more information, phone 604-925-7298 or visit westvancouver.ca/archives.
