The plan would have included 800 acres of new industrial land reclaimed from Burrard Inlet.
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During the Great Depression, all kinds of public works were launched as job projects for the unemployed. One of the largest required a channel and fill to create industrial land and docks at Second Narrows in North Vancouver.
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“Conquering the tides of Second Narrows,” read a headline above an illustration of the plan in the Sunday Province edition of July 19, 1931.
“The navigation channel will provide an unimpeded passage for ships, with sufficient space to pass through the channel,” the cut line on the illustration read. “It also indicates the spring that will be created by recovery. Land traffic will be seen to cross the current bridge, the permanently closed traction span, traverse the reclaimed land and cross the new canal on a traction bridge.”
The “current bridge” in 1931 was a span that had opened in 1925 but had been closed after a barge struck the center span on September 19, 1930, causing half of the bridge to fall into the water.
This meant that there was no way to get to the North Shore from Vancouver over a bridge: the Lions Gate Bridge would not open until 1938.
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The illustration is fairly basic, but shows a new man-made shoreline diverting Seymour Creek to the west so it doesn’t interfere with the canal, shown with a couple of large cargo ships sailing by.
The reclaimed industrial land looks like the largest log boom in the world, with docks on the east and west ends and several factories and warehouses on the main body of the reclaimed land.
There was a lot of pressure on local politicians to reopen the bridge and create more industry and jobs, and at the “suggestion” of the North Vancouver council, the Vancouver council approved the “immediate start of canal construction” on 13 July “as a measure for unemployment”. relief.”
The plan was devised by the Cote Commission, which had been appointed by the federal government to “investigate the situation at the Second Narrows Bridge.”
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The commission submitted a plan to the House of Commons on May 29, 1931, calling for a canal 200 feet wide and 30 feet deep that would cost $3.11 million ($57 million in 2022 dollars).
“The canal will allow the largest class of ships to proceed to Dollarton, Barnet, Ioco, Port Moody and points in the upper basin with greater ease and safety,” La Provincia said.
Filling in 800 acres of water and marshland for reclaimed industrial land on the North Shore brought the cost to $5.25 million ($97 million today).
In a May 31 editorial, La Provincia said that the Cote Commission offered “a clever and practical solution to the essential problem” of the Segunda Angostura, the tides and currents.
“The problem you will face at Second Narrows is that a boat must literally ‘rise’ 1.5 feet in half a mile,” the newspaper noted on June 14. “Because there is that difference in height of the water at two ends of half a mile centered on the bridge at extreme tides.
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“Cote’s scheme allows the ship to ‘climb’ this into 2.5 miles of straight channel, as the difference in water height at two ends of the proposed channel is the same as at the two ends of the Narrows half-mile.
“It means that the traversing ship would encounter the maximum current of three knots per hour, and then only two or three extreme tides in the year, compared to the current current of eight knots under the bridge.”
Tides and currents had caused several accidents: The Sun noted that 20 ships crashed into the bridge between 1925 and 1930.
But Ottawa never acted on Cote’s plan. The middle span of Second Narrows was rebuilt for $900,000, and the bridge reopened on June 18, 1934. The repair was paid for by the Vancouver Harbor Board.
The current Second Narrows Bridge opened on August 25, 1960. It is known as the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge in honor of the 18 people who died when the bridge collapsed on June 18, 1958. A diver died searching for bodies in the wreckage, bringing the death toll to 19.
