Daniel Francis

Reading the National Narrative

April 2020

April 26, 2020

The Fred Varley cabin in North Vancouver is up for sale and this has sparked renewed interest in the famous artist's 10-year sojourn on the West Coast. Varley (that's him above) was a founding member of the Group of Seven, who are associated with eastern Canada, but he spent a very productive decade in the...

April 22, 2020

Several years ago on my first, and only, trip to New York City, I paid a visit to the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

The museum consists of a small storefront reception area where we were assigned a young guide who then led us into a nearby tenement building where the lives of early 20th century garment workers...

April 22, 2020

Spring in Vancouver.

April 5, 2020

Good news for anyone seeking to learn more about things British Columbian.

The Encyclopedia of British Columbia is now free online. My publisher, Harbour Publishing, has decided generously to make the EBC available at a time when the public, and especially students, are looking for reliable sources of information. So it has torn down the paywall. All you have to do is get yourself...

April 2, 2020

For several years I have been a member of the local heritage advistory committee, which as the name suggests advises local government on heritage issues.

As a committee, we spend a lot of time regretting the disappearance of yet one more valuable heritage structure. So it is nice to have a small success story to report.

The home pictured above is known as the Copper Cottage. Built in...