Tourguides
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Our Tourguides – Walking Tours
Heritage Vancouver wishes to thank our experienced tour guides for their generous contribution in creating a greater appreciation for Vancouver's built heritage. Our guides are all unique — their backgrounds, their personalities, and their stories bring Vancouver's historic neighbourhoods to life. Thank you for making these tours possible.
James Johnstone
James Johnstone’s passion for history, travel, languages, and different cultures has taken him many places and taught him many things. A Japanese interpreter, translator, and tour escort for most of his life, September 11 forced James into an abrupt career change, transforming a hobby, house history research, into his main source of income. Over the past decade James has created extremely detailed house history packages for over 800 homes in Vancouver and New Westminster, with over 300 located in Vancouver’s historic East End.
James’ long term goal is to secure funding for and manage an East End-based Community History Mapping Project that would result in the creation of an interactive web site resource that will recreate, in virtual reality, the historical East End, including the lost neighbourhoods of Hogan’s Alley, Japantown, and those city blocks demolished in the 1960s for project housing.
Currently the Chair of the Board of the Friends of the Vancouver City Archives, and Chair of the Strathcona Residents Association, friendly prodding from HVS to do a walking tour of Strathcona has encouraged James to branch out into Vancouver Neighbourhood History Walks.
James has given insightful tours of the Strathcona neighbourhood and the Heatley Block in August of 2009 and 2010, and most recently, a tour of Strathcona North of Hastings Street. You can find out more about James' work through the following links:
Web: www.homehistoryresearch.com
Blog: househistorian.blogspot.com
Walking Tours: historywalksinvancouver.blogspot.com
Tweets: twitter.com/househistorybc
Larry Wong
Born and raised in Chinatown, Larry wears many hats. He is a Public Historian for the Chinese Canadian Historical Society, the curator of the Chinese Canadian Military Museum in Chinatown and a director of the Vancouver Historical Society.
His interest in history has seen him serving on a number of heritage committees, and as a mentor, consultant and resource person for a number of writers and scholars. He has been acknowledged in Chinese Canadian history books such as Paul Yee’s Saltwater City and Wayson Choy’s books. One of his current activities is the popular feature, “Ask Larry” on the Chinese Canadian Historical Society website. Part of his research on Chinatown can be seen on display at 5 West Pender Street as well as the Chinese military museum in the Chinese Cultural Centre.
Larry has let an exciting tour of Chinatown in the last two years highlighting the architectural and historical contribution of Chinese Canadians in Vancouver.
Chinese Canadian Military Museum: www.ccmms.ca
Vancouver Historical Society: www.vancouver-historical-society.ca
Chinese Canadian Historical Society: www.cchsbc.ca
Bruce Macdonald
Bruce Macdonald was born in Vancouver and has had a life-long interest in local history. With a father, grandparents and great-grandparents that arrived in the city just 25 years after it was founded in 1886, he grew up hearing first-hand stories of the early history of Vancouver.
With the help of the Vancouver Historical Society he produced the award-winning Vancouver: A Visual History, spending 10,000 hours of work researching, writing, designing the book and the layout, including an unprecedented amount of cartography, and numerous graphs, photographs and reference maps.
Over the years Bruce has been involved in many efforts to save historic buildings, including leading the campaign to save the mammoth Canron Building on False Creek, and more recently working hard with an amazing group of dedicated people to save Stanley Park's Hollow Tree.
Coming next — deciding what to do about a historic house dating from 1886, the oldest house in the city.
Bruce’s July 2009 tour Grandview began at his house just off Commercial Drive and charted many of the uniquenesses of the neighbourhood.
bruce1m@shaw.ca
Isaac Vanderhorst
Isaac Vanderhorst has worked in the museums field for over decade as an educator and researcher covering everything from BC's Maritime history, Roman archeology to Vancouver's mid-century modernist architecture. He has a sense of humor and passion to share exuberantly with audiences of all ages. Isaac believes that our built environment is a unique resource, an expression of our culture past, present and future.
Maurice Guibord
Harbouring a passion for history and museums, Maurice Guibord has served on the boards of several organizations related to these fields in B.C. and Alberta. He has a background in translation and archaeology and has been responsible for museum collections, exhibitions and programs in Calgary, Vancouver and Burnaby. He is a founding councillor of Heritage Vancouver and remains an enthusiastic supporter.
Sean McEwen
Principal, S.R. McEwen Architect
A life-long resident of Vancouver, Sean McEwen has practised architecture in his home city for 35 years. He consults principally to the non-profit sector and has worked extensively with neighbourhood groups and social advocacy organizations. Many of his projects deal with adaptive re-use and restoration of heritage buildings.
The Mole Hill Community Housing project was recognized with a City of Vancouver Honour Heritage Award, and also received a Heritage Canada Provincial Award in 2004.
Don Luxton
Donald Luxton, FRAIC, is the principal of Donald Luxton & Associates Inc., a leading heritage and museum consulting firm with offices in Vancouver and Calgary. Involved in the field of heritage resource management since 1983, he is a well-known consultant, advocate, educator and author, and has worked on numerous projects throughout western Canada, including municipal planning projects, museum development and the restoration of residential, commercial, and institutional buildings. In 1983, he was a founding Director of the Victoria Heritage Foundation, and is the current President of Heritage Vancouver. In 2009, he was the recipient of the British Columbia Heritage Award.
Michael Kluckner
Michael Kluckner is an artist and writer and the first president of Heritage Vancouver. Although he farmed in the Fraser Valley and lived in Australia for much of the past 20 years, he has recently returned to live in the Grandview area. His award-winning books on the city include Vancouver Remembered and Vanishing Vancouver, published in 1991 and set for release in a 20th-anniversary edition in 2011.
www.michaelkluckner.com
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