VHF’s Evening Lectures offer illustrated talks that look at the history of Vancouver, covering the events, movements and people that shaped our city. The talks are co-hosted by Vancouver Heritage Foundation and the Hycroft Heritage Preservation Foundation.

The story of the squatter’s shack in Vancouver encompasses generations of history including the origins of Gastown and Kitsilano, the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, the Depression-era city, the post-WWII veterans’ housing crisis, the hippie movement and modern say social housing activists who occupied the old Woodwards store in 2002. Author and Historian Daniel Francis investigates how the squatter’s shack contrasts with glass towers of the modern city, a different kind of iconic structure, projecting a view from the margins. Learn about how at one time hundreds of shacks lined the shores of Burrard Inlet and False Creek serving as enclaves for artists and bohemians, happy to live off the grid, as well as housing for many single men, unemployed or working menial jobs, forced by low income to find cheap housing. The talk will explore the historic context of the squatter’s shack, as well as its place in our contemporary “City of Glass”.