Plan would have included 800 acres of new industrial land reclaimed from Burrard Inlet.
During the Great Depression, all sorts of public works were pitched as make-work projects for the unemployed. One of the biggest called for a canal and infill to create industrial land and docks at the Second Narrows in North Vancouver.
“Conquering Tides of Second Narrows,” read a headline above an illustration of the plan in the July 19, 1931, edition of the Sunday Province.
“The ship canal will provide lockless passage for vessels, with sufficient room for passing in the canal,” said the cutline for the illustration. “It indicates, too, wharfage which will be created by reclamation. Land traffic, it will be seen, will come across the present bridge — the draw span permanently closed — traverse the reclaimed land and cross the new canal on a draw bridge.”
The “present bridge” in 1931 was a span that had been opened in 1925 but had been closed after a barge hit the centre span on Sept. 19, 1930, causing the middle of the bridge to fall into the water.
This meant there was no way to get to the North Shore from Vancouver by bridge — the Lions Gate Bridge wouldn’t open until 1938.
The illustration is pretty basic, but shows a new man-made shoreline that diverts Seymour Creek west so it doesn’t interfere with the canal, which is depicted with a couple of large cargo ships sailing through.
The reclaimed industrial land looks like the world’s biggest log boom, with wharves at the eastern and western ends and several factories and warehouses in the main body of the reclaimed land.
There was a lot of pressure on local politicians to reopen the bridge and create more industry and jobs, and at the “suggestion” of North Vancouver council, Vancouver council approved “immediate undertaking of canal construction” on July 13 “as a measure for unemployment relief.”
The plan was devised by the Cote Commission, which had been appointed by the federal government to “investigate the Second Narrows Bridge situation.”
The commission submitted a plan to the House of Commons on May 29, 1931, that called for a 200-foot wide, 30-foot deep canal that would cost $3.11 million ($57 million in 2022 dollars).
“The canal will allow the largest class of ships proceeding to Dollarton, Barnet, Ioco, Port Moody and points on the upper basin with greater ease and safety,” said The Province.
Filling in 800 acres of water and tidal flats for reclaimed industrial land on the North Shore brought the cost up to $5.25 million ($97 million today).
In an editorial on May 31, The Province said the Cote Commission offered “an able and practical solution of the essential problem” of the Second Narrows, the tides and currents.
“The problem to be met at Second Narrows is that a ship must literally ‘climb’ 1.5 feet in half a mile,” the paper noted on June 14. “For there is that difference in the height of water at two ends of half a mile centering on the bridge at extreme tides.
“The Cote scheme allows the ship to ‘climb’ this in 2.5 miles of straight canal, for the difference in the height of water at two ends of the proposed canal is the same as that at two ends of the Narrows half mile.
“It means the ship going through would meet the maximum current of three knots per hour — and then only at two or three extreme tides in the year — as against the present eight-knot current under the bridge.”
The tides and currents had caused several accidents — The Sun noted that 20 ships had run into the bridge between 1925 and 1930.
But Ottawa never acted on the Cote plan. The middle span of the Second Narrows was rebuilt for $900,000, and the bridge reopened on June 18, 1934. The repair was paid by the Vancouver Harbor Board.
The current Second Narrows Bridge opened on Aug. 25, 1960. It is known as the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge in honour of 18 people who were killed when the bridge collapsed on June 18, 1958. A diver died searching for bodies in the wreckage, bringing the death toll to 19.
