New book shares detailed history of Vancouver’s past

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – If you have ever wanted to know who paid for some of our well-known buildings, or how the city came to look like it does today, a new book is sharing some surprising and scandalous details.

Best-selling author and TV reporter Mike McCardell has just released ‘Haunting Vancouver: A Nearly True History,’ a collection of stories told through the eyes of a soldier that was sent here by Queen Victoria.

Stanley Park’s Brockton Oval would look nothing like it does now if San Francisco businessman Edward Stamp’s plans had worked out.

“He was going to put a mill in there and he put all the trees out in the water, which was very handy and waited. Then a riptide came along… took his fortune right out to sea. That’s why there is Brockton Oval, it wasn’t made for cricket players originally.”

Two very well-known buildings in Vancouver each have their own past and one point were the tallest buildings in the British Commonwealth.

McCardell says the towering yellow-gold Dominion Building was built using laundered money sent from a Kaiser in Germany, who sent the cash to a Vancouver Count, a front for the Kaiser.

“Everything went wonderful until World War I started and he couldn’t get here, couldn’t get back into Canada. The guy who started the trust company, he went home to his garage in Shaughnessy and blew his head off.”

McCardell says the Sun Tower was built by a man who was charged with swindling and embezzlement in Chicago, and decided to bring his woman loving ways to our city.

McCardell will be to be signing books over the next couple of weeks.

• Saturday, November 16 – 1:30pm. Black Bond Books, Royal City Centre, 102-610 Sixth Street in New Westminster 
• Saturday, November 23 – 11:00 am – 2:00 pm. Coles, Seven Oaks Mall, 32900 S. Fraser Way in Abbotsford 
• Saturday, November 30 – 1:30pm. Black Bond Books, Semiahmoo Mall, 134-1711 152nd Street in White Rock 
• Saturday, December 7 – 2:00 – 4:00 pm. Costco, 1127 Sumas Way in Abbotsford