You can start at either Cates Park or Deep Cove. There are washrooms in Cates Park, Myrtle Park and Panorama Park. The round trip will take you about one and a half hours, and is approximately 7km. A shorter 2km. route is available by starting in Deep Cove to Myrtle Park, loop through Myrtle Park to hook up with Banbury and follow the map back to the Cultural Centre.

1. Sleil-waututh translates to "People of the Inlet". Galiano was the first white man to travel Indian Arm in 1792 and wrote in his journals about seeing natives in the area. First Nations people travelled up and down the Arm hunting and fishing. One of the most famous members of the Burrard Inlet Band was Chief Dan George who gained fame as a humanitarian promoting Aboriginal rights. He also became a film star in his role as a Cheyenne Chief in the movie "Little Big Man".

2. Poet and novelist Malcolm Lowry and his wife Margerie lived on and off in a squatters shack from 1940 to 1954 here in what is now Cates Park. Lowry won the Governor General's Award for his novel "Under the Volcano" Squatters shacks were first evident in the 1930s along the beaches of Roche Point, housing the Dollar Mill workers and people left destitute by The Depression.

3. Two big lumber mills existed in the vicinity by 1919. The cement formation ('the Fort') is the burner base from the Vancouver Cedarside Mill, whose parent company was in False Creek, Vancouver. The mill existed until 1929

4. Little remains of the once thriving lumber industry in our neighbourhoods. This private residence which was the Dollar Mill office is one of our best visual memories of those days.

5. The Dollar Mill existed from 1917-1943. It was a very modern mill and shipped lumber all over the world. Robert Dollar built a small community around the mill site, complete with a school, post office, community hall and store. The site became known as Dollar's Town and then Dollarton, by which it is known today.

6. In the late 1920s, Jack and Christina Gillis bought four lots on Harris Avenue for $20.00 each. They felled the trees from Keith Hill (now Mt. Seymour Parkway) and Jack built their log house "The Homestead". Mrs. Gillis later started the Strathcona store which is still in operation.

7. The dance hall was built in the late 1920s by Mr. and Mrs. Corfield. The surrounding gardens were beautifully landscaped with a terraced lawn to the beach, fish pools and an aviary. A teahouse was on the top floor of the building and rowboat rentals on the bottom floor. Dances were Saturday nights at 9pm and were very popular with the big band music of professional orchestras.

8. The first permanent residents in Deep Cove were John and Rhoda Moore and their five children. In 1919 they bought two lots for $15.00 each, cleared the land themselves and survied the first year on wild berries, fish caught in Deep Cove and clams from Roche Point. They opened the first store in the area for business in 1927 at the corner of Burns Avenue and Second Street, what is now Panorama Drive and Gallant Avenue.

9. The Deep Cove Cultural Centre opened in April 1992 on the site of the Moore family's house/store. The Centre houses the Deep Cove and Area Heritage Association, Seymour Art Gallery, and the Deep Cove Stage and First Impressions theatre groups. It has a 134 seat theatre and an outdoor amphitheatre for summer concerts.

10. The Deep Cove Yacht Club registered as a society in 1936 and took over the running of the summer regattas in 1938. During WWII, the club doubled as a school and home to the Ladies Air Raid Patrol and the Red Cross Auxiliary. In 1984 a new clubhouse was built. The notice board on the side of the front door is made from the floorboards of the original club.

11. Granite Quarries Ltd. 1908-1924 was located at the northeast of Deep Cove just below where Quarry Rock lookout is on the Baden-Powell trail. It was considered a "big operation" with all the high-tech equipment of the day.

12. When the Quarries Lodge closed in 1942, Art George turned his attention to the water taxi business and developing a marina, first known as the Deep Cove Marina.

13. In the late 1930s Mr. Moore after losing his home on Gallant Avenue purchased some lots at the northwest corner of Mt. Seymour Parway and Deep Cove Road, and once again the family cleared the land and built a house and grocery store! THis time he was very successful and lived there for years.

14. The one-room Roche Point School was builtin 1917. Its students were the children of the millworkers at the Dollar Mill. A few families living in Deep Cove also sent their children (by rowboat) to this school. Soon another school was built next to it to house the growing student population. Both schools were replaced by the Burrard View School in 1946.

15. In 1935 Robert Stirrat Jr. opened a grocery store across from the Dollar Mill called the Stirrat General Store. Robert and his wife Reta and children Robert and Marion lived in the back of the store. Robert Stirrat Sr. operated the grocery while Robert Jr. worked in downtown Vancouver. In 1949, Robert Jr. relocated the general store to Dollarton Highway.

16. One of the earliest Roche Point pioneers was Percy Cummins who lived in the area for 46 years working at the Dollar Mill, then running a dairy supplying milk to local businesses and later opening a grocery store which became the main stop for the first bus service in the area, Deep Cove Stages Limited. Percy was elected to council and was appointed to a special committee to help find employment for local men during The Depression. His idea (supported by Reeve Julius Martin Fromme) was to build a road to connect Dollarton to North Vancouver and Vancouver. This road became know as the Dollarton Highway.

This information was published with permission from the District of North Vancouver Heritage Advisory Committee and was written by the Deep Cove and Area Heritage Association.

Map Legend

* symbol means site existing