The museum’s collection
Share your story
The Lions Gate Bridge opened in 1938. Every year there are fewer people who walked it on the first days, paid the toll or helped build it. If you or your family have a memory, a photo, a film or an object, we would like to hear about it.
Published
Send it by email
- Write to [email protected]. The button below starts the email for you.
- Tell us what it is, when and where, who is in it, and how you know. Attach photos, or a link to them.
- We reply within a week. Nothing goes on the site until you say yes.
What we are looking for
Memories
The first walk across in 1938. Paying the toll, until 1963. The night closures of the 2000–2001 rebuild. A storm, a ship, a commute you will not forget.
Photographs and films
Any decade. Family albums, slides, home movies. A phone photo of an old print is fine. What is written on the back often matters most.
Papers
Tickets, toll books, receipts, letters, plans, programmes, newspaper clippings.
Objects
Anything from the bridge or its builders. Please keep it safe and send a photo first. Then we will work out with you how to record it.
Family stories
Someone who built it, painted it, ran a toll booth, kept the lights, or switched the lanes.
What we promise
- You keep it. You keep the copyright and the object. We ask before we show anything, and we credit you the way you choose: your name, your initials, or no name.
- We check it. We compare what we can with newspapers and archives. A memory is shown as a memory, in your words.
- We never sell it. What you send is not used for advertising and is not passed on.
- You can change your mind. Write to us and we take it down and delete our copy.
Under 18? Please ask a parent or guardian to write to us with you. How we handle your email: Privacy.
Why now
The bridge was built with private money and run as a business until 1955. Some of its story is in public archives. Much more is in family albums, in boxes in basements, and in the memories of people who crossed it when it was new. Each story you send becomes part of the museum’s collection, with your name on it.