Daniel Francis

Reading the National Narrative

Lunch at the Vancouver Club

Apr 10, 2024

This past weekend the Vancouver Historical Society held its annual luncheon to commemorate the incorporation of the city in 1886. This year's lunch was at the Vancouver Club in the ballroom of its gorgeous 1914 "clubhouse" downtown on Hastings Street.

Attendees, which included myself, enjoyed a delicious lunch, an instructive talk by society president Michael Kluckner (viewable on YouTube) and as a special treat a guided tour of the building's secret rooms and back staircases.

It gives me an excuse to post one of my favourite photos from my book Becoming Vancouver, a 1920 shot of the Club's membership, oozing respectability and white male privilege. (City of Vancouver Archives PortP1187)