# The Lions Gate Bridge, date by date

Credit: Lions Gate Bridge Museum (lionsgatebridge.org). Canonical: https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum. Machine-readable: https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum/timeline.json. Modified: 2026-11-11. Reading, indexing, summarising and linking are welcome. Each exhibit gives its own rights.

The Lions Gate Bridge crosses the First Narrows of Vancouver’s harbour. It opened to people on foot on 12 November 1938. It still carries about 56,600 vehicles a day.

The Lions Gate Bridge stands on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
The Museum does not speak for any Nation. Their histories are theirs to tell: Musqueam: https://www.musqueam.bc.ca/; Squamish Nation: https://www.squamish.net/; Tsleil-Waututh Nation: https://twnation.ca/.

## Before the bridge (to 1925)

The North Shore could be reached by ferry and, from 1925, by a low bridge at the Second Narrows.

### 30 to 35 million years ago: The south shore is rock.
ID: prospect-point. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#prospect-point
Prospect Point is a volcanic dyke, harder than the sandstone around it. It has held against the waves. The south tower would stand on that sandstone.
Sources: J. E. Armstrong, Vancouver Geology, 1990, pp.40, 71; Geological Survey of Canada, Geoscape Vancouver, 1996; company booklet, 1939, p.23, for the sandstone at the south pier.

### About 14,000 years ago: The ice leaves Vancouver. The sea, then nearly 200 metres above today’s level, falls quickly as the land rises.
ID: last-ice. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#last-ice
Sources: Jackson et al., 2024, p.44, for about 14,000 years (Clague & Ward, 2011, p.570, give 13,000 radiocarbon years, an older way of counting); Booth et al., 2003, pp.31–32. Figures are for the Vancouver area.

### The past 10,000 years: The north shore is gravel.
ID: capilano-delta. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#capilano-delta
The Capilano River pushed a delta out towards Prospect Point. Left to itself, a geologist wrote, it “would probably have extended across First Narrows in a few thousand years”. The north tower would have to go down through that gravel.
Led to: 1937-08-13.
Sources: J. E. Armstrong, Vancouver Geology, 1990, p.58.

### 1859–60: A British naval surveyor, George Henry Richards, names the First Narrows and the Second Narrows.
ID: 1859. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1859
Sources: BC Geographical Names, “First Narrows”, no. 12769.

### 1889: A judge, John Hamilton Gray, proposes the name Lion’s Gate for the entrance, after the twin peaks above it.
ID: 1889. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1889
Sources: BC Geographical Names, “First Narrows”, no. 12769, which names Judge Gray.

### 1890: A land speculator, George Grant Mackay, predicts a bridge across the First Narrows. The Museum found no first-hand source for the words usually quoted.
ID: 1890. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1890
Sources: Company booklet, 1939, p.6; Kheraj, 2013.

### 1912–17: The dredge Mastodon widens the shipping channel from about 900 feet to 1,400.
ID: 1912. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1912
Sources: Thirkell, 2000, by way of a later account.

### 7 November 1925: A low bridge opens at the Second Narrows, with two narrow lanes either side of a railway track.
ID: 1925-11-07. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1925-11-07
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, 1999, p.19.

## The argument (1926–36)

Two votes, rival companies and a federal refusal, until British money and approval from Ottawa came together.

### 1926: A.J.T. Taylor goes to England to find the money.
ID: 1926. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1926
He was an engineer from Victoria, not yet forty. There he met a retired banker, W. S. Eyre. Through Lord Southborough his plans reached the three Guinness brothers, who put up most of the money.
Led to: 1931-11-18.
Sources: Encyclopedia of British Columbia; d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, p.30; North Shore Heritage Preservation Society, 2024.

### 1926: Two rival companies appear, both run by Vancouver men: First Narrows Bridge and Lions Gate Bridge.
ID: 1926-rivals. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1926-rivals
Sources: First Narrows Bridge Co., Lions Gate Bridge, Vancouver, Canada (1939 booklet), p.8.

### 14 May 1926: The West Vancouver News argues that “Lion’s Gate” suits the bridge better than “First Narrows”.
ID: 1926-05-14. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1926-05-14
Sources: West Vancouver News, 14 May 1926, as cited in North Shore News, 14 November 2018.

### March 1927: The legislature passes two private acts, one for each rival company. The Vancouver Sun later reports the toll in the act: 25 cents for a car and driver, 5 cents for a passenger.
ID: 1927-03. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1927-03
Led to: 1955-01-14.
Sources: Statutes of British Columbia 1926–27, chapters 80 and 83; The Vancouver Sun, 14 January 1955.

### 25 June 1927: Vancouver voters turn down the road through Stanley Park, 4,724 to 2,099. Not one of the city’s eight wards votes yes.
ID: 1927-06-25. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1927-06-25. Museum find
Sources: The Vancouver Daily Province, 27 June 1927, pp.1, 7; d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, p.34.

### 10 August 1927: Ottawa, the federal government, says no. The first design leaves too little room for ships, under the deck and between the piers.
ID: 1927-08-10. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1927-08-10. Museum find
Led to: 1936-04-30.
Sources: Library and Archives Canada, RG10 vol. 7745, file 23167-4.

### 1928: Taylor and W. S. Eyre form British Pacific Securities, which helps win Guinness money.
ID: 1928. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1928
Sources: Anne-Marie Lawrence, ‘Taylor Made’, North Shore Heritage Preservation Society, 2024.

### 24 April 1930: The freighter Losmar hits the Second Narrows Bridge and disturbs its foundations. Ships had hit it in 1927 and 1928 too.
ID: 1930-04-24. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1930-04-24
Sources: Victoria Daily Times, 25 April 1930, p.14; 11 March 1927, p.9; 25 April 1928, p.20; MONOVA, Building a Vancouver Icon.

### 17 June 1930: The two rival companies merge as the First Narrows Bridge Company, with W. C. Ditmars as president.
ID: 1930-06-17. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1930-06-17
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, p.36; 1939 booklet, p.8 (year only).

### 1 April 1931: A provincial act lets North and West Vancouver give the company land, cash or tax breaks.
ID: 1931-04-01. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1931-04-01
Sources: First Narrows Bridge Company, Limited, Act Amendment Act, 1931 (SBC 1931, c.73).

### 18 November 1931: A Guinness company buys a mountainside in West Vancouver.
ID: 1931-11-18. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1931-11-18
British Pacific Properties paid the municipality for the land and promised to improve it. The bridge became the road to that land.
Numbers: 4,000 acres; $75,000 paid; $1 million promised within five years.
Led to: 1937-03-31, 1955-01-20, 1986-02-19.
Sources: British Pacific Properties, company history; d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999; company booklet, 1939. Other sources give 4,700 acres.

### 22 August 1932: A federal order sets aside up to 4.5 acres of Stanley Park, east of the Prospect Point lighthouse, for the bridge approach.
ID: 1932-08-22. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1932-08-22
Sources: Library and Archives Canada, RG10 vol. 7745, file 23167-4, P.C. 1846, 22 August 1932.

### About 1933–35: The bridge appears on film before it exists.
ID: 1933. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1933. Museum find
The promoters’ silent film opens like a newsreel: “Proposed new bridge over First Narrows to link North Shore with City of Vancouver.” It compares the plan with the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Burrard Bridge, draws the route over air photos, and shows a montage of the bridge as if it were already built.
Sources: A.J.T. Taylor films, reel 2017-055.5. The year can only be narrowed to 1933–35.

### 11 December 1933: Vancouver’s planning commission votes 5 to 4 against the bridge, two days before the public vote.
ID: 1933-12-11. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1933-12-11
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, p.46.

### 13 December 1933: Vancouver votes for the bridge, 17,806 to 7,615.
ID: 1933-12-13. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1933-12-13. Museum find
Every one of the city’s twelve wards said yes. The Province had argued against the agreement, though not against a bridge, and put the result down to hard times: “The hope of work in connection with the bridge was, no doubt, the overwhelming influence.” The agreement the voters approved also said that “no Asiatic person shall be employed in or upon any part of the undertaking.” The Province printed it in full on 1 December, twelve days before the vote. A provincial review found the same ban in Vancouver agreements of 1911 and 1913. The Museum records the clause as part of the bridge’s history.
Numbers: 17,806 for; 7,615 against; 12 of 12 wards in favour.
Led to: 1936-04-30.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun and The Vancouver Daily Province, 14 December 1933; The Vancouver Daily Province, 1 December 1933, p.29, for the agreement; Province of British Columbia, Chinese Legacy BC review, 2017.

### 12 May 1934: West Vancouver signs the bridge agreement.
ID: 1934-05-12. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1934-05-12
The reeve and council signed with the company. Shipping interests still opposed the bridge, and a federal hearing that July gave them their say.
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, 1999, p.47; Library and Archives Canada, RG10 vol. 7745, file 23167-4, for the hearing.

### 17 July 1934: At a federal hearing, the CPR, the Merchants Exchange and the Chamber of Shipping object.
ID: 1934-07-17. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1934-07-17. Museum find
Sources: Library and Archives Canada, RG10 vol. 7745, file 23167-4, hearing record, 17 July 1934.

### 2 August 1934: The application on file: a main span of 1,500 feet and 200 feet of clearance, the height left for ships under the deck. The objectors want 1,800 feet.
ID: 1934-08-02. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1934-08-02. Museum find
Sources: Library and Archives Canada, RG10 vol. 7745, file 23167-4, federal chief engineer’s memo, 2 August 1934.

### 6 September 1934: The Sun reports that Ottawa wants the main span lengthened to 1,800 feet. The company says it has had no official word.
ID: 1934-09-06. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1934-09-06
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 6 September 1934, p.1.

### About 1935: Street signs go up on the cleared hillside: Eyremount, Southborough.
ID: 1935. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1935. Museum find
Taylor’s film of the clearing catches them among the trees. The streets took the names of the men behind the money, W. S. Eyre and Lord Southborough, before there was a bridge to reach them.
Sources: A.J.T. Taylor films, reel 2017-055.7, at 14:07–14:16.

### August 1935: W. S. Eyre, Taylor’s main financial partner, dies.
ID: 1935-08. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1935-08
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, p.52.

### 30 April 1936: Ottawa approves the design and the site.
ID: 1936-04-30. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1936-04-30. Museum find
Order in Council P.C. 21 came with nine conditions. One moved the main piers north. Another gave the company a year to start and four to finish.
What the Museum makes of it: The date is 30 April. A federal letter of 22 May 1936 encloses a copy of the order “dated April 30, 1936”.
Led to: 1937-03-31.
Sources: Library and Archives Canada, RG10 vol. 7745, file 23167-4, images 302–308; company booklet, 1939, p.8.

### July 1936: A model of the bridge rides through the city on a parade float.
ID: 1936-07. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1936-07
West Vancouver’s float carried a suspension bridge past crowds packed along the route, the year before work began. The reel is labelled July 1936, in Vancouver’s Golden Jubilee summer. Which parade it was is not confirmed.
Sources: Reel title “July 1936”.

### 4 August 1936: A federal plan records the transfer of land in Capilano Indian Reserve No. 5 to the bridge company, by an order in council of this date.
ID: 1936-08-04. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1936-08-04
Sources: Canada Lands Survey Records, plan RD2677. The record is the government’s own.

### 12 August 1936: A citizens’ banquet marks the Golden Jubilee and the bridge’s approval. West Vancouver Archives holds the menu.
ID: 1936-08-12. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1936-08-12
Sources: West Vancouver Archives, Leyland fonds, ‘Lions Gate Bridge ephemera’.

### 1 October 1936: Stuart Cameron & Co. wins the contract for the substructure and approaches, about $2 million.
ID: 1936-10-01. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1936-10-01
Sources: Engineering News-Record, 1 October 1936.

### 27 November 1936: A 71-year lease for the Stanley Park end lets federal forces and federal employees on duty cross without paying.
ID: 1936-11-27. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1936-11-27. Museum find
Sources: Library and Archives Canada, RG10 vol. 7745, file 23167-4, lease of 27 November 1936, clause 5.

## The build (1937–38)

About nineteen months, from the first clearing in Stanley Park to the first walkers.

### 31 March 1937: Work begins: a strip 66 feet wide is cleared through Stanley Park. The 1939 booklet dates the first sod to 7 July 1937. The Museum reads 31 March as the start.
ID: 1937-03-31. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1937-03-31
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, 1999, p.66; The Vancouver Sun, 31 March 1937; company booklet, 1939, p.8.

### 15 May 1937: Ninety men are at work on both sides of the Narrows, says the contractor’s underwater supervisor.
ID: 1937-05-15. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1937-05-15
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 15 May 1937, p.1.

### 13 August 1937: The north pier starts down through the gravel.
ID: 1937-08-13. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1937-08-13
On the north side a caisson, a box of steel and concrete weighing 8,700 tons, began to sink through the gravel of the delta. On the south side the footings were set into sandstone, with divers working on the rock. “The two main piers were constructed by entirely different methods,” the company’s booklet says, “because conditions differ widely on opposite sides of the channel.”
Numbers: 8,700 tons, north caisson; about 70 feet into the gravel.
Sources: Company booklet, 1939, p.23; MONOVA, Building a Vancouver Icon, and d’Acres & Luxton, 1999, p.74, for the date and the 8,700 tons (which give 72 feet; the film’s card says 70).

### October 1937: Work on site peaks at 334 men.
ID: 1937-10. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1937-10
Sources: MONOVA, Building a Vancouver Icon.

### 25 October 1937: A slide traps Lester Thorstad in the south anchorage pit.
ID: 1937-10-25. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1937-10-25. Museum find
It was 8:50 at night and his first shift. Thorstad, a 32-year-old labourer, was at the bottom of the pit dug for the concrete block that would anchor the cables, when the clay wall bulged and fell. Workmen and firemen dug for almost an hour to get him out. He lost a leg, and died in St. Paul’s Hospital at 7:20 a.m. on Wednesday 27 October. That same day a coroner’s jury found the death accidental, with no blame on anyone. Two later accounts name him as the one worker killed building the bridge.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 26 October 1937, p.1; 27 October 1937, p.5; 28 October 1937, p.4; MONOVA, Building a Vancouver Icon; d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, p.100.

### 3 November 1937: The chief engineer says the bridge can carry every 20-ton truck that can be put on it, and that mid-span can move 9 feet with temperature and load.
ID: 1937-11-03. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1937-11-03. Museum find
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 3 November 1937.

### 2 February 1938: The first steel goes up the towers.
ID: 1938-02-02. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-02-02
Sources: Company booklet, 1939, pp.15, 23. A later date is sometimes given.

### 10 March 1938: The south tower is finished, and a Union Jack goes up on top.
ID: 1938-03-10. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-03-10
Sources: MONOVA; d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, p.85.

### 25 April 1938: Both towers are finished: 2,056 tons of steel. The company’s film gives their height as 364 feet.
ID: 1938-04-25. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-04-25
Sources: Company booklet, 1939, pp.16, 23; film card at 17:20. Two later accounts give 29 April for the north tower.

### 2 May 1938: The harbour closes for the first time, to lift the first cables.
ID: 1938-05-02. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-05-02. Museum find
A scow and three tugs crossed the Narrows, laying four cables of eight tons each for the first of two catwalks. The tide ran at two knots; for 20 minutes the tug fought it to reach the north pier. The Vancouver Sun printed the morning as a log:
- 4:35 a.m. First Narrows closed; cable scow with three tugs starts across.
- 4:55 Four eight-ton cables fast from shore to shore.
- 5:07 Start hoisting first cable to tops of towers.
- 5:55 All cables fast to tops of both towers. Narrows clear for traffic.
- 6:00 First boat under the new “bridge,” a small tug with a tow.
What the Museum makes of it: The log says “Monday, May 1”, and the company’s film card says May 1st too. That Monday was 2 May. The same front page is dated May 2, and the Canadian Press report and the 1939 booklet agree.
Numbers: 4 catwalk cables; 8 tons each; 80 minutes closed.
Led to: 1938-05-24.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 2 May 1938, p.3, for the tide and the crossing; Daily Colonist, 3 May 1938 (Canadian Press); company booklet, 1939, p.16.

### 24 May 1938: Two catwalks, temporary walkways for the cable crews, hang from the towers.
ID: 1938-05-24. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-05-24
The photograph is dated 24 May. The cables for the catwalks went across from 2 May. Over the catwalks crews then drew the 122 strands of the main cables, in 16 working days.
Led to: 1938-06-24.
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, pp.94, 96; company booklet, 1939, p.17; Daily Colonist, 3 May 1938 (Canadian Press).

### 24 June 1938: The last of 174 deck sections is hoisted into place.
ID: 1938-06-24. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-06-24
The lifting began on 9 June. In 12 working days, 1,572 tons of stiffening truss came up from barges and railcars and hung from the cables. “Altogether 174 of these sections are hoisted into position,” says the company’s film.
Numbers: 174 sections; 12 working days; 1,572 tons.
Sources: Company booklet, 1939, pp.23–24.

### 23 July 1938: Before it opens, the army works out how to drop it.
ID: 1938-07-23. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-07-23. Museum find
On a Saturday in July, men of the 6th Field Company, Royal Canadian Engineers, were taken onto the bridge and noted its key stress points. A small charge there could quickly cut a span. The plan was ready before the bridge was: in war, the Sun wrote, it could be “dropped in tangled wreckage” within minutes.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 26 July 1938, p.10.

### 20 September 1938: Marega’s lions take shape, in clay.
ID: 1938-09-20. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-09-20. Museum find
The Sun photographed the clay models with their maker, Charles Marega, putting on the finishing touches. They would be cast in plaster and then in concrete, to guard the Stanley Park end of the bridge: each lion 12 feet long.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 20 September 1938, p.11. Full story: Charles Marega and the Lions Gate Bridge lions.

### 30 September 1938: The papers print the tolls, and the colours.
ID: 1938-09-30. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-09-30. Museum find
The Province had printed the company’s tolls the day before. A car and driver would pay 25 cents, each extra passenger 5, a walker 5. The first two were the rates in the 1927 act, the Sun later reported. The same day the Sun said the main cables would be “brilliant orange”, so that pilots could see them, over olive-green steel. It gave the safety factor as four to one.
What the Museum makes of it: Later accounts call the cables red. The Sun and the company’s 1939 booklet say orange.
Numbers: 25¢ car and driver; 5¢ passenger or walker; 4 to 1 safety factor.
Sources: The Vancouver Daily Province, 29 September 1938, p.1, for the tolls; Daily Colonist, 30 September 1938 (Canadian Press); The Vancouver Sun, 30 September 1938, and 14 January 1955, for the 1927 act; company booklet, 1939, p.26.

### October 1938: A signal station goes up at mid-span.
ID: 1938-10. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-10. Museum find
It replaced the station at Prospect Point, “affording perfect control of marine traffic”, the film’s card says. For years the bridge signalled to ships with cones and balls hung from its beams. In fog, tugs answered with their whistles: one long and two short meant a tow.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 6 October 1938; The Province, 18 December 1954, p.3.

### 5 October 1938: The Board of Trade crosses: the bridge’s first traffic.
ID: 1938-10-05. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-10-05. Museum find
Scores of businessmen came over after lunch at the Stanley Park pavilion, guided by Major P. A. Curry of the bridge company. The Province wrote that they walked across the new pavement; the Sun said 80 cars drove over, and its photograph shows them. The deck was wide enough for three lanes, but a yellow line made it two.
Led to: 1938-11-04, 1952-05-19.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 6 October 1938, pp.1, 5; The Vancouver Daily Province, 6 October 1938, p.9; Daily Colonist, 7 October 1938 (Canadian Press).

### 16 October 1938: Hundreds walk across before they are allowed to.
ID: 1938-10-16. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-10-16. Museum find
It was a Sunday. People strolled across the deck, 200 feet above the water, until the company had bars put up at both ends. The Province called it an “unauthorized” preview. Major Curry told the Sun the company had tried letting people on for half an hour: “We were swamped and had to close it again.”
Led to: 1938-11-04.
Sources: The Vancouver Daily Province, 17 October 1938, p.2; The Vancouver Sun, 22 October 1938, p.1.

### 3 November 1938: The opening date slips, one last time.
ID: 1938-11-03. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-11-03
In September the engineers said the middle of November. In October it was 8 November, then 6 November for people on foot. Now the Sun printed the final word: 9 a.m., 12 November. Weather had held up the finishing touches.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 10 September, 27 and 29 October 1938; Daily Colonist, 30 September 1938.

### 4 November 1938: The camera films “the first ticket issued”: No. B 00001, 5 cents.
ID: 1938-11-04. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-11-04. Museum find
The film’s title card says John Anderson “inspects the structure and receives the first ticket issued”. He stands on the deck in a dark coat and hat. Then the ticket fills the screen.
What the Museum makes of it: The Museum reads this as a rehearsal, filmed for the company. Five cents was the fare for a walker or a passenger, not a car. Eighty cars had already crossed on 5 October, and on 16 October the company had opened the bridge for half an hour “as an experiment”. The first paying cars came ten days after this.
Led to: 1938-11-14.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 22 October 1938, p.1; Daily Colonist, 30 September and 7 October 1938 (Canadian Press); West Vancouver Archives, Leyland fonds.

## The opening (1938–39)

Four dates are called the opening. This page says what each one was.

### 12 November 1938: The bridge opens, on foot, in sleet.
ID: 1938-11-12. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-11-12
It was a Saturday. The Sun wrote that the bridge “opened to pedestrian traffic today in a driving sleet storm”. Tickets were due to start at 9 a.m., and at least a dozen people were across before then. The paper gave the honour to Mrs. Mary Sutton, who set out from her home in the dark. Its headline made her 76; The Province wrote that she would be 76 in three weeks, so that morning she was 75. Five others claimed the honour too, and the Sun said such arguments “never will be settled”. A couple came straight from their wedding, the first lap of the honeymoon. Miss Doris Milligan crossed under a clear umbrella, and Major J. S. Matthews took her picture.
Led to: 1938-11-14, 1939-01-23.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 12 November 1938, pp.1, 16; The Vancouver Daily Province, 12 November 1938, p.1, for her age. Full story: Who was first across the Lions Gate Bridge?

### 14 November 1938: Cars cross, and car tolls begin.
ID: 1938-11-14. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-11-14
The cars had to wait because the road surface on the north approach needed time to set. Douglas Craig queued from 11 the night before to be first northbound. A car and driver paid 25 cents, each passenger 5.
Numbers: 25¢ car and driver; 5¢ each passenger; over 15,000 vehicles, first week.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 12 November 1938, p.16; 14 November 1938, p.1; 22 November 1938, p.2; The Vancouver Daily Province, 14 November 1938, p.9, and 23 November 1938, p.16; Daily Colonist, 30 September 1938.

### 14 November 1938: The deck rises and falls with the weather.
ID: 1938-11-14-deck. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1938-11-14-deck. Museum find
That cold morning the deck stood “about a foot” higher than on a summer day, the Sun reported: the cables shrink and lift it. Tell them the temperature, the load on the deck and the tide, the engineers said, and they could give its height to a fraction of an inch. The port’s 2024 guide still counts air temperature and traffic on the bridge in a ship’s clearance.
Led to: 2026-09-27.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 14 November 1938, p.10; Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, Port Information Guide, January 2024.

### 23 January 1939: The lions go up.
ID: 1939-01-23. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1939-01-23
Charles Marega’s two concrete lions were “not ready yet” on opening day, and their bases stood empty. Early on Monday 23 January 1939, ten weeks later, derricks mounted on trucks lifted the bodies onto the south approach, and workmen lowered the two-ton heads on. Taylor commissioned them on a tight budget: “it has to be cheap,” Marega wrote to his family.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 12 November 1938, p.16, and 23 January 1939, p.20; The Vancouver Daily Province, 20 January 1939, p.28, and 23 January 1939, p.22; Vancouver Courier, 2019, for the letter.

### 4 February 1939: West Vancouver’s ferries are carrying about 30 per cent fewer people than a year ago. “Many residents are using the Lions Gate Bridge in preference.”
ID: 1939-02-04. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1939-02-04. Museum find
Led to: 1947.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 4 February 1939, p.16.

### 22 March 1939: Hon. A. E. Guinness sails in on his four-masted yacht Fantome, 1,223 tons, to see the new bridge.
ID: 1939-03-22. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1939-03-22
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 22 March 1939.

### 24 March 1939: Charles Marega dies at the Vancouver School of Art, at the end of a class. The Sun’s obituary calls the lions his latest work.
ID: 1939-03-24. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1939-03-24
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 25 March 1939, p.8; Daily Colonist, 25 March 1939.

### 17 May 1939: A new toll register shows each payment on a neon indicator.
ID: 1939-05-17. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1939-05-17
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 17 May 1939, p.5.

### 26 May 1939: The company holds its own opening. Taylor calls the bridge “a lusty child”.
ID: 1939-05-26. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1939-05-26. Museum find
A line of cars drove from the Stanley Park pavilion over the bridge “with all the official dignity of a slow march”, and about seventy guests went on to the Capilano Golf and Country Club. There Allan Gentles, for the steel contractors, handed A.J.T. Taylor the consulting engineers’ certificate of completion. Taylor announced that he was leaving the company, and said: “This bridge, like a lusty child has been born, richly endowed in capacity to render service for long years ahead.”
Numbers: 6 months open already; about $20,000 tolls a month; about 70 guests.
Led to: 1939-05-29.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 26 May 1939, p.1 and p.6 (“Like Lusty Child”); The Vancouver Daily Province, 27 May 1939, p.21. Later accounts, among them MONOVA and BC Magazine, shorten the line to “A lusty child has been born.”

### 29 May 1939: The King and Queen drive across, and do not stop.
ID: 1939-05-29. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1939-05-29. Museum find
George VI and Queen Elizabeth came over the Second Narrows Bridge, up to the new British Pacific Properties and across the Lions Gate to their ship. The bridge closed to everyone at 1 p.m., and the royal car was due across at 4:15. The company had held its own ceremony three days earlier. The royal couple had no part in it.
Sources: Daily Colonist, 30 May 1939 (Canadian Press), for the route; The Vancouver Sun, 23 May 1939, p.3, and 27 May 1939, p.1 (about 4:15 p.m. at the bridge) and p.2 (the bridge closed from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.), for the timetable. The Vancouver Sun, 30 May 1939, p.14, for the tablets.

### 1939: The company draws its bridge.
ID: 1939. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1939
A main span of 1,550 feet, side spans of 614, and 200 feet of clearance at mid-span above high water. The booklet ends its table of statistics with its proudest line: “Longest suspension bridge in the British Empire.”
Numbers: 1,550 feet, main span; 614 feet, side spans; 200 feet of clearance.
Sources: Lions Gate Bridge, Vancouver, Canada, 1939, pp.23–24.

## The toll years (1939–63)

Private until 1955, provincial after. A car and its driver paid a quarter until 1963.

### December 1939: An Empress passes under.
ID: 1939-12. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1939-12
The photograph at the top of this page shows RMS Empress of Canada under the bridge, three months into the war. The company’s film had already shown two Canadian Pacific liners passing under: a “White Empress”, then the Empress of Japan, clearing the span “with 30 feet to spare”.
Sources: City of Vancouver Archives record for CVA 99-2949, for the photograph at the top of the page; the company’s film at 40:13 and 40:38 for the two ships. The archive dates the reel 1937–38; it also shows the lions, placed in January 1939.

### 11 December 1939: West Vancouver’s own buses make their first trip across.
ID: 1939-12-11. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1939-12-11
Sources: West Vancouver Archives, Leyland fonds, catalogue entry.

### 1940: Taylor goes to work for the British government in the war, coordinating British and American factories and tackling a torpedo shortage.
ID: 1940. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1940
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, p.136.

### 19 July 1940: Indian Affairs officials, exempt on duty under the 1936 lease, are still paying 25 cents a crossing, against 15 on the Second Narrows. The company proposes a Bridge Pass, in books of 25.
ID: 1940-07-19. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1940-07-19
Sources: Library and Archives Canada, RG10 vol. 7745, file 23167-4, Bridge Pass papers, 19 July to 5 August 1940; Canada Gazette, Extra, 3 July 1939, for the Second Narrows toll.

### 23 April 1941: The company reports an operating loss of $183,805 for 1940.
ID: 1941-04-23. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1941-04-23
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 23 April 1941, p.29. Headline and summary only.

### 20 October 1941: The vessel Chilliwack runs aground in fog east of the bridge at 3 a.m.
ID: 1941-10-20. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1941-10-20
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 21 October 1941, p.8. Headline and summary only.

### 1942: S. R. Banks publishes a 60-page account of the bridge through the Engineering Institute of Canada.
ID: 1942. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1942
Sources: S. R. Banks, The Lions’ Gate Bridge, Engineering Institute of Canada, 1942 (60 pp.).

### 16 April 1943: The company reports a loss of $131,490.80 for 1942.
ID: 1943-04-16. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1943-04-16
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 16 April 1943, p.27. Headline and summary only.

### 23 April 1943: A gale fells more than 100 trees and blocks the main road to the bridge.
ID: 1943-04-23. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1943-04-23
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 24 April 1943, p.8. Headline and summary only.

### 18 October 1943: The toll booths begin selling war bonds. The first buyer is a passing café owner, the Sun’s headline says.
ID: 1943-10-18. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1943-10-18
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 18 October 1943, p.1, headline and summary.

### 10 August 1944: The company buys a small cabin at the north end of the bridge.
ID: 1944-08-10. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1944-08-10
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 10 August 1944, p.8. Headline and summary only.

### 20 July 1945: A.J.T. Taylor dies in New York.
ID: 1945-07-20. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1945-07-20
Sources: Encyclopedia of British Columbia; North Shore Heritage Preservation Society, 2024; MONOVA.

### 23 June 1946: A magnitude 7.3 earthquake strikes Vancouver Island, and people in Vancouver run into the streets. A later writer says the bridge swayed “like a leaf”. The Museum has found no report of that from the time.
ID: 1946-06-23. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1946-06-23
Sources: Earthquakes Canada, Natural Resources Canada, “The 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake”; the writer, George Finley, as quoted in Wikipedia, “1946 Vancouver Island earthquake”.

### 1947: The West Vancouver ferries, running since 1909, make their last trip.
ID: 1947. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1947
Sources: John Mackie, ‘This Week in History: 1947 marks last trip for Vancouver/West Vancouver ferry’, The Vancouver Sun, 2015.

### 10 February 1947: An aircraft carrier passes under.
ID: 1947-02-10. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1947-02-10
HMCS Warrior clears the span with her island nearly level with the deck. Ships set the height of this bridge, and they kept testing it.
Sources: City of Vancouver Archives, CVA 1184-3461, “H.M.C.S. Warrior passing under the Lions’ Gate Bridge”, dated 10 February 1947.

### 10 February 1949: A company advertisement promises “two new lanes, ten toll booths, wider approaches, improved lighting” at the toll plaza.
ID: 1949-02-10. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1949-02-10
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 10 February 1949, p.9. Headline and summary only.

### 22 April 1949: The bridge’s net profit for 1948 is $96,420.
ID: 1949-04-22. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1949-04-22
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 22 April 1949, p.29. Headline and summary only.

### 10 February 1951: “Span Snarls”, says a Sun headline over a story on traffic jams.
ID: 1951-02-10. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1951-02-10
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 10 February 1951, p.6. Headline and summary only.

### 19 February 1952: The city and the company agree on three-lane control at rush hour from May.
ID: 1952-02-19. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1952-02-19
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 19 February 1952.

### 8 May 1952: A two-week count: about 1,800 vehicles an hour at the morning peak, 1,900 in the evening, and about 17,000 on a Wednesday, the busiest day.
ID: 1952-05-08. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1952-05-08
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 8 May 1952.

### 19 May 1952: The middle lane begins to change direction.
ID: 1952-05-19. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1952-05-19
For its first thirteen years the bridge ran as two lanes. That weekend, painters marked the bridge and the park road into three lanes of ten feet. Two motorcycle police decided each day which way the middle lane ran, and roadside signs told drivers.
Numbers: 3 lanes; 10 feet wide; about $18,000 cost.
Led to: 1965.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 19 February and 8 May 1952; The Province, 17 May 1952; The Vancouver Sun, 30 September 1938, for the yellow line; Engineering News-Record, 16 February 1939, for the roadway width.

### 1953: The company’s annual report: debts of $3,713,500, assets of $5,079,438, and repayment expected before 1977.
ID: 1953. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1953
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 14 January 1955, quoting the 1953 report.

### 16 June 1954: A freighter closes the Second Narrows Bridge. The Lions Gate carries about 3,000 extra cars in the morning rush.
ID: 1954-06-16. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1954-06-16
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 16 June 1954.

### 13 November 1954: The company offers to build a $17 million twin bridge just east of this one. Its engineer, P. L. Pratley, has worked on the plans for three years.
ID: 1954-11-13. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1954-11-13
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 13 November 1954, p.1.

### 18 December 1954: In fog, tugs sound one long and two short whistles to tell the bridge they have a tow.
ID: 1954-12-18. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1954-12-18
Sources: The Province, 18 December 1954, p.3, “‘Name The Whistles’ In Vogue Now”.

### 4 January 1955: Premier W. A. C. Bennett says the company’s charter lets it build a second bridge. “We have asked them to get busy.”
ID: 1955-01-04. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1955-01-04. Museum find
Led to: 1955-01-20.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 5 January 1955.

### 14 January 1955: Premier Bennett refuses to change the 1927 act so that tolls could rise to pay for a second bridge.
ID: 1955-01-14. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1955-01-14
Led to: 1955-01-20.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 14 January 1955.

### 18 January 1955: A rumour: the province will buy the bridge and build a new one for about $17 million. “No comment,” says the Premier.
ID: 1955-01-18. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1955-01-18
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 18 January 1955, p.1.

### 20 January 1955: The province buys the bridge company.
ID: 1955-01-20. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1955-01-20
On this day the B.C. cabinet announced an order in council, a cabinet decision with the force of law. It let the province’s toll-bridge authority buy the company from its Guinness owners for $5,959,060. Two weeks earlier the Premier had told the company to “get busy” and build a second bridge itself. In the House, an opposition member said the province had been “taken down the river”.
What the Museum makes of it: Some accounts give 1952 or 1954. Newspapers of the week and the provincial files settle it: the province, in January 1955. The figure of $5,873,837 often given for the sale is what the bridge cost to build. The clippings are from the next day’s front page: “Sale was completed Thursday”, the 20th.
Numbers: $5,959,060 price.
Led to: 1963-04-01, 2001-09-29.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 5, 20 and 21 January, 10 February 1955; The Province, 12 July 1956, for the price; BC Archives GR-1146; The Canadian Encyclopedia, for the cost of building.

### 1 August 1956: Walkers and car passengers stop paying. Cars still pay 25 cents.
ID: 1956-08-01. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1956-08-01
Sources: The Province, 12 July 1956.

### 17 August 1956: The Highways Minister says a second First Narrows bridge is not being considered for now.
ID: 1956-08-17. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1956-08-17
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 17 August 1956.

### 9 January 1957: A minister says the tolls make North Shore residents subsidize other bridges. The toll authority denies it.
ID: 1957-01-09. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1957-01-09
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 9 January 1957, pp.19 and 21. Headline and summary only.

### 1958: A study sets 1966 as the target for a four-lane suspension bridge. It is never built.
ID: 1958. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1958
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, p.153.

### 15 October 1958: Cartoonist Len Norris mocks the bridge’s congestion in the Sun.
ID: 1958-10-15. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1958-10-15
Sources: MONOVA, Building a Vancouver Icon.

### 23 January 1959: The bridge nets a $1,370,000 profit, on tolls of $1,709,328.
ID: 1959-01-23. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1959-01-23
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 23 January 1959, pp.6 and 17. Headline and summary only.

### 1 October 1959: Premier Bennett offers to give the bridge to Vancouver and West Vancouver if they pay for a new one.
ID: 1959-10-01. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1959-10-01
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 1 October 1959, p.2. Headline and summary only.

### 1960: The First Narrows Bridge Gift Act: if Vancouver, West Vancouver and other municipalities build and open a second crossing beside it, the province’s toll-bridge authority will hand the bridge over to them.
ID: 1960. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1960
Sources: Statutes of British Columbia 1960, chapter 67, First Narrows Bridge Gift Act, assented to 18 March 1960, s.3.

### 2 February 1961: P&O’s 42,000-ton liner Oriana makes her first visit and passes under. A lookout on the bridge signals her captain.
ID: 1961-02-02. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1961-02-02
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 3 February 1961, pp.2 and 29. Headline and summary only.

### 12 October 1962: Typhoon Freda blows down about 3,000 trees in Stanley Park.
ID: 1962-10-12. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1962-10-12
Sources: CBC News, 15 October 2016, “Typhoon Freda slams B.C. coast in 1962”.

### 27 March 1963: “After April 1 you won’t be missed.”
ID: 1963-03-27. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1963-03-27
A toll collector wrote to the Sun, signing with two initials, and thanked the “over 99 per cent” of drivers who paid with good nature. The line above was for the rest.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 27 March 1963, p.4.

### 1 April 1963: The tolls end, one minute after midnight.
ID: 1963-04-01. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1963-04-01
The crossing took about half its usual 25 minutes that morning. Traffic cones funnelled five empty toll stations into two lanes. A few drivers still stopped at the booths out of habit.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 1 April 1963, p.1. Full story: How much did it cost to cross the Lions Gate Bridge?

## Wear and repair (1963–99)

Traffic grew, the deck wore out, and plans for a new crossing came and went.

### 2 April 1963: Workers start taking down the toll gates. The job will take two weeks.
ID: 1963-04-02. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1963-04-02
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 2 April 1963, p.2.

### 25 April 1963: Engineers tell the city that 36,000 vehicles a day now use a bridge designed for 30,000.
ID: 1963-04-25. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1963-04-25. Museum find
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 25 April 1963, p.29. A consultants’ briefing figure, not a count.

### 1964: The province’s annual report says the 25-year-old deck is worn, slippery in rain and prone to accidents, and that its concrete is only 3 inches thick.
ID: 1964. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1964. Museum find
Sources: BC Department of Highways, Annual Report 1963/64.

### 1965: Signal lights take over the middle lane.
ID: 1965. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1965
Led to: now.
Sources: Matson, The Lions’ Gate Bridge Suspended Span Replacement, 2009.

### 8 February 1966: Vancouver council orders work on a twin Lions Gate bridge, the Sun’s summary says.
ID: 1966-02-08. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1966-02-08
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 9 February 1966, p.2. Headline and summary only.

### 1967: Premier Bennett proposes a formula for a third crossing: 40 per cent federal, 40 per cent province and city, 20 per cent others.
ID: 1967. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1967
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 23 March 2019, quoting the 1967 proposal.

### 25 March 1968: A truck hits the underpass on Marine Drive. Its roof is “peeled like a banana”, the Sun says.
ID: 1968-03-25. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1968-03-25
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 25 March 1968, p.2. Headline and summary only.

### 30 January 1969: About 50,000 vehicles a day, 18 million a year, cross the bridge.
ID: 1969-01-30. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1969-01-30
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 30 January 1969, p.28. Headline and summary only.

### 13 August 1970: Eaton’s builds a 150-foot model of the bridge in its main store and lights it up.
ID: 1970-08-13. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1970-08-13
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 13 August 1970. Headline and summary only.

### 12 May 1971: A British royal party arrives by ship from Victoria and passes under.
ID: 1971-05-12. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1971-05-12
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 12 May 1971, p.2. Headline and summary only.

### 1972: The province hires Buckland & Taylor to assess the whole bridge. The north approach’s concrete deck needs more than 1,000 potholes patched each year.
ID: 1972. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1972
Sources: Darryl Matson, The Lions’ Gate Bridge Suspended Span Replacement, 2009; MONOVA, Building a Vancouver Icon.

### 31 July 1973: For a week the bridge closes five hours a day for repairs.
ID: 1973-07-31. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1973-07-31
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 31 July 1973. Headline and summary only.

### 1974: A weight limit of 13,600 kg is set for trucks.
ID: 1974. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1974
Sources: Darryl Matson, The Lions’ Gate Bridge Suspended Span Replacement, 2009.

### August 1974: The old bridge, near the end of its first deck.
ID: 1974-08. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1974-08
This is the bridge as it was built: a narrow road on a stiffening truss. Ten years earlier the province’s own report had called the 25-year-old concrete worn and slippery, and only 3 inches thick.
Sources: BC Department of Highways, Annual Report 1963/64.

### 1975: The north viaduct gets a new, lighter steel deck, in sections, at night. Its engineers call it a first in North America.
ID: 1975. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1975
Sources: Matson, 2009; Canadian Society for Civil Engineering plaque, 2006.

### 28 September 1976: A family’s account: nine cattle jump from a towed barge under the bridge. Seven are saved, some swimming ashore at Stanley Park and in West Vancouver; two drown.
ID: 1976-09-28. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1976-09-28
Sources: Vancouver Is Awesome, 22 August 2019, by the owner’s family. No report of the day found yet.

### 28 October 1977: A $20 million modification has grown to a $32 million overhaul, the Sun reports, and will bring night closures.
ID: 1977-10-28. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1977-10-28
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 11 May 1977, p.8, and 28 October 1977, p.1. Headline and summary only.

### 20 August 1978: Night closures begin, Sunday to Thursday, 11:30 p.m. to 6 a.m., for about four months.
ID: 1978-08-20. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1978-08-20
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 9 August 1978, p.2, and 15 September 1978, p.27. Headline and summary only.

### 1979: A 1999 book says emergency repairs this year cost about $8 million. The whole bridge cost under $6 million in 1938.
ID: 1979. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1979
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, p.157. Not verified.

### 30 October 1980: Someone proposes a cable car on the bridge to ease North Shore congestion.
ID: 1980-10-30. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1980-10-30
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 30 October 1980, p.3. Headline and summary only.

### December 1981: An engineering paper reports the whole viaduct deck replaced, with solid railings chosen because of wind turbulence.
ID: 1981-12. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1981-12
Sources: Buckland, ‘The Lions’ Gate Bridge — renovation’, Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering 8(4), December 1981 (abstract).

### 1982: Engineering Week: students hang a Volkswagen shell under the bridge. Accounts differ on the year.
ID: 1982. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1982
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, pp.158–159; MONOVA.

### 21 January 1983: A crane on a barge hits the bridge in the dark.
ID: 1983-01-21. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1983-01-21
At about 7 p.m. on a Friday, at the end of the rush hour, a tug towed the pile-driving barge Green Giant through the First Narrows, from Roberts Bank to a repair yard in the inner harbour. The barge’s crane boom, about 61 metres long, stood almost upright. It hit the upper chord of a side truss on the west side of the bridge, 122 metres south of the middle of the span. The bridge swayed and pushed at least one car into the next lane. Nobody was hurt. The boom broke and fell back onto the barge, “like a house of cards”. At the repair yard a spokesman said he did not want to think what could have happened to the bridge if it had not broken. Over the weekend a repair crew bolted a strengthening beam to the top of the damaged truss, and the southbound curb lane opened again on Sunday afternoon. Nobody had told the harbour master, Henry Vondette, beforehand, against the harbour rules. The tow was in the eastbound channel, not under the high middle of the span. There was a harbour bylaw for safe shipping, he said, “but you can’t legislate against stupidity.”
What the Museum makes of it: The first report came out on Saturday the 22nd, and it says “Friday”. The papers give the boom’s length as 60, 60.9 and 67 metres. The Museum uses 60.9 metres (200 feet), from The Province of the 26th, the one report with measurements. It also gives the clearance where the boom hit: about 63 metres, and 3 metres more at the middle.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 22 January 1983, p.3; The Province, 23 January 1983, p.6; The Vancouver Sun, 24 January 1983, p.A12, and 25 January 1983, p.B4; The Province, 26 January 1983, p.C8.

### 8 March 1983: Queen Elizabeth II’s party sails through English Bay and under the bridge.
ID: 1983-03-08. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1983-03-08
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 8 March 1983. Headline and summary only.

### 10 August 1984: A businessman proposes lighting the bridge with 25,000 bulbs for Vancouver’s centennial.
ID: 1984-08-10. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1984-08-10
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 10 August 1984. Headline and summary only.

### 3 October 1985: Fog delays the installation of a new lighting system.
ID: 1985-10-03. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1985-10-03
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 3 October 1985, p.5. Headline and summary only.

### 19 February 1986: One hundred and seventy lights come on along the cables.
ID: 1986-02-19. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1986-02-19
At 7:30 p.m. Premier Bill Bennett gave the signal from the ferry Queen of Tsawwassen. The Guinness family paid for them. The firm that strung them, CHE Williams, had installed the bridge’s first lights in 1938. A Sun editorial proposed the name Gracie’s Necklace, for Grace McCarthy. Two months later a letter to West Vancouver council called them a “glaring, cheap bit of tinsel”.
Numbers: 170 lights; 100 watts each.
Led to: 2009-07-20.
Sources: North Shore News, 21 February and 18 April 1986; The Vancouver Sun, 20 and 24 February 1986; BC government release, 20 July 2009.

### 15 July 1987: Two Greenpeace protesters hang in a hammock from the cables for nearly 24 hours.
ID: 1987-07-15. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1987-07-15
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 16 July 1987, p.3; The Globe and Mail, 16 July 1987. Headline and summary only.

### 1988: UBC engineering students are said to have made the lights flash “UBC Engineers Do it Again” in Morse code. One of them told the story to Popular Science in 2008.
ID: 1988. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1988
Sources: Bob Parks, “Extreme Engineering”, Popular Science, August 2008. One account; no report of the time found.

### 27 January 1990: Fallen trees in a snowstorm close the bridge for four hours, said to be the first weather closure since 1975.
ID: 1990-01-27. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1990-01-27
Sources: The Province, 28 January 1990, pp.1 and 4. Headline and summary only.

### July 1990: Three lanes on the old deck, ten years before it is replaced.
ID: 1990-07. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1990-07
Sources: Wikimedia Commons, Giorgio Galeotti, “Lions Gate Bridge - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - July 1990”.

### 17 September 1991: A high-steel painter at work on the bridge makes the Sun’s front page: “A bridge too high”.
ID: 1991-09-17. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1991-09-17
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 17 September 1991, p.1. Headline and summary only.

### 26 June 1992: Cyclists ride onto the bridge to campaign for a bike lane.
ID: 1992-06-26. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1992-06-26
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 27 June 1992, p.3. Headline and summary only.

### 26 November 1992: An oil spill on the bridge jams 20,000 cars.
ID: 1992-11-26. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1992-11-26
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 27 November 1992, p.A1. Headline and summary only.

### 1993: The province says it will take the aging bridge down, Don Luxton later recalls. Heritage Vancouver fights the plan for five years.
ID: 1993. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1993
Sources: Vancouver Courier, June 2013, quoting Don Luxton.

### July 1993: The province opens public consultation on a Lions Gate crossing: over 1,000 comments, 21 options.
ID: 1993-07. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1993-07
Sources: Mike Belyea, SFU MA thesis, 1998; d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999, p.164.

### 15 September 1993: Chunks of concrete fall from the bridge onto the Stanley Park seawall, narrowly missing walkers.
ID: 1993-09-15. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1993-09-15
Led to: 1997-04-18.
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, as cited in Belyea, SFU thesis, 1998.

### 1994: A model of a twin bridge is made. It later turns up in a Burnaby thrift store.
ID: 1994. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1994
Sources: Eve Lazarus, ‘Saving History: Twinning the Lions Gate Bridge’, Vancouver Exposed, 2017.

### 1995: A structural study says the bridge is safe only until 1999. After that it must be replaced or repaired.
ID: 1995. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1995
Sources: Mike Belyea, The Choice of Alternatives in the Replacement of the Lion’s Gate Bridge, SFU MA thesis, 1998.

### 20 February 1996: Vancouver council weighs more than 20 options for a new crossing.
ID: 1996-02-20. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1996-02-20
Sources: Vancouver City Council minutes and report RR1, 20 February 1996.

### 18 April 1997: The province invites bids for a new four-lane crossing. It is never built.
ID: 1997-04-18. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1997-04-18
Led to: 1998-12.
Sources: City of Vancouver, Transportation & Traffic report, 30 April 1997.

### 14 August 1997: The minister floats a toll of up to $2.
ID: 1997-08-14. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1997-08-14
Sources: North Shore News, 20 August 1997.

### 13 November 1997: A North Vancouver chamber of commerce survey: 87 per cent of 205 drivers oppose a toll.
ID: 1997-11-13. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1997-11-13
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 13 November 1997.

### 1998: The province settles on rebuilding the bridge, still with three lanes.
ID: 1998. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1998
Sources: d’Acres & Luxton, Lions Gate, 1999.

### December 1998: Design work for the rebuilding finishes.
ID: 1998-12. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1998-12
Sources: Darryl Matson, The Lions’ Gate Bridge Suspended Span Replacement, 2009.

### April 1999: The contract goes to American Bridge/Surespan for $86.5 million.
ID: 1999-04. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1999-04
Sources: Darryl Matson, The Lions’ Gate Bridge Suspended Span Replacement, 2009; MONOVA, Building a Vancouver Icon.

### 2 November 1999: Vancouver’s bicycle committee notes the bridge’s sidewalks are 1 to 1.4 metres wide.
ID: 1999-11-02. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#1999-11-02
Sources: City of Vancouver Bicycle Advisory Committee, Lions Gate Bridge Sidewalk Safety, 2 November 1999.

## The new deck (2000–01)

The whole suspended structure was replaced in pieces, at night, with traffic back each morning.

### 9 September 2000: The first new deck section goes in, overnight. That Monday the bridge fails to reopen by 6 a.m., and traffic jams the Second Narrows.
ID: 2000-09-09. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2000-09-09
Led to: 2001-09-29.
Sources: North Shore News, 13 September 2000.

### 19 October 2000: A hanger, one of the vertical cables that hold up the deck, breaks at its socket at 3:30 a.m. as crews remove its pin. The bridge stays shut until 6:50.
ID: 2000-10-19. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2000-10-19
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 19 October 2000.

### 8 November 2000: The first 236 imported hangers, from India, are rejected: galvanizing scraped, sockets out of line. Completion slips to 2001.
ID: 2000-11-08. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2000-11-08
Sources: The Province, 8 November 2000.

### 20 December 2000: Forty-four of the 54 deck sections are still to go, and the bridge has closed 20 times.
ID: 2000-12-20. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2000-12-20
Sources: North Shore News, 20 December 2000. The 54 sections and the order of work, from the north end: D. Matson, “The Lions’ Gate Bridge Suspended Span Replacement”, Transportation Association of Canada, 2009.

### 23 March 2001: The bridge closes from Friday night to Monday morning. Crews replace the last two old sections over land.
ID: 2001-03-23. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2001-03-23
Sources: The Province, 23 March 2001.

### 29 September 2001: The last new deck section goes in.
ID: 2001-09-29. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2001-09-29
The first section was replaced on the night of 9 September 2000. Crews took out the suspended structure in 54 pieces and lifted in new ones, and traffic came back in the morning. The new structure was about 35 per cent wider but no heavier, so the towers, cables and anchorages took no extra load from it. Its engineers believe this was a world first. Canada’s register of historic places calls it the first time that the deck, hangers and stiffening trusses of a suspension bridge were replaced together without closing the bridge to traffic.
Numbers: 54 sections replaced.
Led to: 2001-12.
Sources: Buckland & Matson, Proc. ICE Bridge Engineering, 2003; Canadian Register of Historic Places.

### December 2001: The north approach is strengthened against earthquakes, with extra piles where the ground could liquefy.
ID: 2001-12. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2001-12
Sources: Canadian Consulting Engineer, 2002; Klohn Crippen Berger, project page.

## Today (2002–now)

A national historic site, and a working road.

### 2002: The last layer of paving goes down. It had to wait for warm weather.
ID: 2002. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2002
Sources: Darryl Matson, The Lions’ Gate Bridge Suspended Span Replacement, 2009.

### 7 January 2002: The Globe and Mail calls the rebuilt bridge a “modern miracle”.
ID: 2002-01-07. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2002-01-07
Sources: Jane Armstrong, ‘Bridge retrofit a modern miracle’, The Globe and Mail, 7 January 2002.

### December 2003: The Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada confirms the bridge’s national historic significance.
ID: 2003-12. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2003-12
Sources: Parks Canada, Canadian Register of Historic Places, Lions Gate Bridge.

### 2004: A provincial regulation uses the bridge’s official name: First Narrows Bridge.
ID: 2004. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2004
Sources: Provincial Public Undertakings Regulation, B.C. Reg. 513/2004.

### 10 December 2004: Canada lists it as a National Historic Site.
ID: 2004-12-10. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2004-12-10
The national register gives 10 December 2004 as the date of recognition. Ottawa announced it on 24 March 2005, citing the bridge’s “elegant design”.
What the Museum makes of it: The government’s release is dated 24 March 2004, but it quotes Stéphane Dion as Minister of the Environment, a post he took in July 2004, and the government’s archive files it under March 2005. The Museum takes 2005.
Sources: Canadian Register of Historic Places, no. 11711; Government of Canada, news release, “Government of Canada announces the designation of new national historic sites”, 24 March 2005 (dated 2004 on the release).

### 2005: Philip L. Pratley, an engineer of the bridge, is named a National Historic Person.
ID: 2005. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2005
Sources: Parks Canada, Directory of Federal Heritage Designations, “Pratley, Philip Louis”, designated 3 August 2005.

### 13 July 2006: Engineers unveil a plaque: National Historic Civil Engineering Site.
ID: 2006-07-13. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2006-07-13
Sources: Canadian Society for Civil Engineering plaque record, 2006.

### 15 December 2006: A storm fells about 10,000 trees in Stanley Park. At least 20 fall on the causeway, and police close the bridge.
ID: 2006-12-15. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2006-12-15
Sources: North Shore News, 17 December 2006.

### 30 March 2007: A two-year, $800,000 traffic study draws a North Shore News headline: “Study states the obvious at great expense”.
ID: 2007-03-30. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2007-03-30
Sources: North Shore News, 30 March 2007. Headline and summary only.

### 17 September 2007: The Sun interviews the man it calls the last living member of the 1938 construction crew.
ID: 2007-09-17. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2007-09-17
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 17 September 2007, p.11. Headline and summary only.

### February 2008: Another Volkswagen Beetle is lowered off the bridge, credited to UBC engineering students.
ID: 2008-02. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2008-02
Sources: The Province, 5 February 2008, p.A10, “Gun prank flops as car drop scores”; The Vancouver Sun, 5 February 2008, p.A14.

### 20 July 2009: The cable lights change to LED, expected to use about 90 per cent less power.
ID: 2009-07-20. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2009-07-20
Sources: BC government news release, 20 July 2009.

### August 2009: A $40 million project replaces the old “Blue” bridge over the Capilano River. The new bridge has three lanes, and one southbound lane continues onto the Lions Gate Bridge.
ID: 2009-08. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2009-08
Sources: North Shore News, 19 August 2009.

### 2010: Final Destination 5 films on the bridge at night, with replica sections built at Lions Bay.
ID: 2010. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2010
Sources: Hollywood North Buzz and Art of VFX, 2011.

### February 2010: During the Olympics about 27,000 vehicles a day cross in each direction, 12 per cent below normal.
ID: 2010-02. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2010-02
Sources: Kurji & Miska, BC Ministry of Transportation paper, Transportation Association of Canada, 2011.

### 26 March 2011: The lights go dark for Earth Hour.
ID: 2011-03-26. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2011-03-26
Sources: North Shore News, 25 March 2011. Headline and summary only.

### 24 April 2012: The Sun reports that the bridge’s height could limit cruise-ship growth.
ID: 2012-04-24. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2012-04-24
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 24 April 2012, p.C1. Headline and summary only.

### 17 July 2013: A “Places That Matter” plaque is unveiled, with a Guinness family member present.
ID: 2013-07-17. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2013-07-17
Sources: Vancouver Heritage Foundation, Places That Matter: Lions Gate Bridge, 17 July 2013.

### March 2015: An old plan to bar private cars by 2030 resurfaces. The minister says no closure is planned.
ID: 2015-03. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2015-03
Sources: Global News, North Shore News, Daily Hive and Georgia Straight, March 2015.

### 20 August 2015: A metal bump 1.75 inches high across all three lanes causes long delays.
ID: 2015-08-20. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2015-08-20
Sources: Global News, 21 August 2015.

### June 2016: Expansion joints and bearings are replaced in a $4.2 million job. The province lists the bridge among five lifeline bridges brought up to seismic standards.
ID: 2016-06. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2016-06
Sources: The Province, 10 June 2016; BC Government news release, 2016.

### 2017: The Canada 150 dollar coin includes the bridge in its design.
ID: 2017. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2017
Sources: CBC News, 2 November 2016, “St. Catharines man’s design chosen for Canada 150 loonie”.

### 2018: The province announces ship-collision protection for the south tower.
ID: 2018. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2018
Sources: BC Government news release 2018TRAN0040-000530; ReNew Canada, 2018.

### 16 April 2019: A pod of killer whales is filmed near the bridge.
ID: 2019-04-16. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2019-04-16
Sources: CTV News, 16 April 2019.

### 29 August 2019: The ministry explains how the middle lane works: staff watch more than 40 cameras and switch it by hand.
ID: 2019-08-29. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2019-08-29
Led to: now.
Sources: TranBC (BC Ministry of Transportation blog), 29 August 2019.

### 2020: A precision sector light is installed under the bridge to guide ships through the First Narrows.
ID: 2020. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2020
Sources: Sabik, video “Precision Sector Light PEL-4 installed on the iconic Lions Gate Bridge”, 26 November 2020. Sabik’s web page of 25 October 2024 dates the work to October 2024; the Museum follows the earlier video.

### 18 July 2020: A comet over the bridge.
ID: 2020-07-18. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2020-07-18
Comet NEOWISE, a faint streak above the lit cables, from the Stanley Park seawall.
Sources: The time is the camera’s, on the Wikimedia Commons file page.

### November 2020: Two 82-metre container cranes from Shanghai pass under the bridge at low tide, their booms lowered.
ID: 2020-b. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2020-b
Sources: CTV News, 29 November 2020; GCT Global Container Terminals, news release, 27 November 2020.

### 3 May 2021: Police stop an attempt to block the bridge and arrest seven people.
ID: 2021-05-03. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2021-05-03
Sources: The Province, 4 May 2021.

### 25 May 2021: The province announces a $4.7 million upgrade of the middle-lane signals.
ID: 2021-05-25. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2021-05-25
Sources: BC Gov News, 25 May 2021.

### 3 March 2022: The bulk carrier Marvel I breaks down just after passing under and lightly grounds near Ambleside.
ID: 2022-03-03. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2022-03-03
Sources: Global News and New Westminster Record, March 2022.

### 29 April 2022: Three full closures switch over the electrical systems.
ID: 2022-04-29. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2022-04-29
Sources: BC Government news release 2022TRAN0035-000638; BC Ministry of Transportation.

### 30 October 2022: Thousands of protesters form a human wall along the bridge and causeway, against Iran’s government.
ID: 2022-10-30. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2022-10-30
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, 30 October 2022.

### 25 September 2023: A sheet of metal catches on a signal gantry and closes the bridge for about an hour.
ID: 2023-09-25. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2023-09-25
Sources: North Shore News, 26 September 2023.

### 4 February 2024: The bridge and the Stanley Park causeway close from 7:30 to 11 a.m. for scheduled tree removal.
ID: 2024-02-04. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2024-02-04
Sources: The Vancouver Sun, online, 2 February 2024, “Traffic alert: Lions Gate bridge, Stanley Park causeway to see partial, full closures this weekend”, a notice before the closure.

### 26 March 2024: The day a ship brings down the Baltimore bridge, the province says the risk here is very small.
ID: 2024-03-26. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2024-03-26
Sources: Global News, 26 March 2024.

### 18 February 2025: A new port rule: some outbound ships must take a tethered tug through the First Narrows.
ID: 2025-02-18. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2025-02-18
Sources: Vancouver Fraser Port Authority notice, 2025.

### 8 March 2026: The Ironworkers Memorial Bridge closes overnight, and officials send drivers to the Lions Gate.
ID: 2026-03-08. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2026-03-08
Sources: BC Government news release 2026TT0028-000236.

### 27 September 2026: Star Princess, the largest cruise ship yet to visit Vancouver, passes at low tide.
ID: 2026-09-27. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2026-09-27
Sources: Daily Hive, 29 September 2026, “Vancouver welcomes its biggest cruise ship ever as season winds down”.

### 12 November 2026: Still three lanes.
ID: 2026-11-12. https://lionsgatebridge.org/museum#2026-11-12
The middle one still changes direction. The province’s counter at the south end recorded an average of 56,582 vehicles a day in 2025.
Numbers: 56,582 vehicles a day, 2025 average.
Sources: BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit, TRADAS traffic counts.