Creating a Vancouver Icon: the Lions Gate Bridge

Originally built to access the North Shore, the Lions Gate Bridge became one of Vancouver's busiest thoroughfares, carrying over 60,000 vehicles each day. In 1927, Vancouverites voted against a bridge across the First Narrows because they feared it would ruin Stanley Park or interfere with ships in the busy seaport. Public attitudes shifted a few years later after a major shipping accident knocked out the Second Narrows Bridge and cut off bridge access to the North Shore, making a second bridge an obvious solution. Construction, financed largely by the Guinness family and other British investors through the First Narrows Bridge Company, provided much-needed work during the Great Depression and supported plans to develop North Shore lands they had purchased. After one and a half years of construction and a cost of nearly $5.9 million, the bridge opened to traffic in 1938 with a 25-cent toll for each car. Named for the pair of pointed North Shore peaks called the Lions, the bridge also reflects a landscape the Squamish First Nation know as Ch'ich'iyu'y Elxwi'kn, or “the Sisters,” linked in their history to two sisters transformed by the Sky Brothers after they helped end a long-standing war between the Squamish and Haida. Praised for its elegant design, the bridge was later sold by the Guinness family to the province in 1955, and the tolls were eventually dropped.

British Columbia · Canada