Granville Island is a peninsula and shopping district in the Fairview neighbourhood of

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...

, British Columbia, Canada. It is located across

False Creek False Creek (french: Faux ruisseau) is a short narrow inlet in the heart of Vancouver, separating the Downtown and West End neighbourhoods from the rest of the city. It is one of the four main bodies of water bordering Vancouver, along with Eng ...

from

Downtown Vancouver Downtown Vancouver is the central business district and the city centre neighbourhood of Vancouver, Canada, on the northwestern shore of the Burrard Peninsula in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. It occupies most of the north shor ...

under the south end of the Granville Street Bridge. The peninsula was an industrial manufacturing area in the 20th century. The area was named after

Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville, (11 May 181531 March 1891), styled Lord Leveson until 1846, was a British Liberal statesman and diplomat from the Leveson-Gower family. He is best remembered for his service as Secreta ...

. Granville Island includes a

public market A marketplace or market place is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a ''souk'' (from the Arabic), '' ...

, a marina, a hotel, the False Creek Community Centre, as well as various performing arts theatres including the

Arts Club Theatre Company The Arts Club Theatre Company is a Canadian professional theatre company in Vancouver, British Columbia, founded in 1958. It is the largest urban not-for-profit theatre company in the country and the largest in Western Canada, with productions ta ...

and

Carousel Theatre Carousel Theatre (also known as Carousel Theatre For Young People) is a professional theatre company for young audiences located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The company stages plays for young people, families and educators at the Wat ...

Granville Island was used as the finale of the film '' Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol'' (2011). The Vancouver International Children's Festival, the Vancouver Fringe Festival, and the Vancouver Writers Fest are all located here.

Transportation

False Creek Ferries and Aquabus provide ferry service from Granville Island to

, Yaletown,

, the West End, and Vanier Park. Other water transportation options include a

water taxi A water taxi or a water bus is a watercraft used to provide public or private transport, usually, but not always, in an urban environment. Service may be scheduled with multiple stops, operating in a similar manner to a bus, or ...

service to Bowen Island provided by English Bay Launch. WESTCOAST Sightseeing and Vancouver Trolley Hop-On, Hop-Off services both have stops located at Granville Island. Between 1998 and 2011, the Vancouver Downtown Historic Railway operated between Granville Island and Science World. The streetcar is now permanently shut down.

History

The peninsula was originally used by the Musqueam Indian Band and the Squamish people as a fishing area. The city of Vancouver was called Granville until it was renamed in 1886, but the former name was kept and given to

Granville Street Granville Street is a major street in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and part of Highway 99. Granville Street is most often associated with the Granville Entertainment District and the Granville Mall. This street also cuts through resid ...

, which spanned the small

inlet An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In marine ...

known as False Creek. False Creek in the late 19th century was more than twice today's size, and its tidal flats included a large permanent

sandbar In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. ...

over which spanned the original, rickety, wooden Granville Street bridge. This sandbar, which would eventually become Granville Island, was first mapped by Captain George Henry Richards in the British Boundary Commission's naval expedition in 1858–59, and the island today conforms roughly to the size and shape documented at that time. A British Admiralty Chart of 1893 shows the island in greater detail and conforming even more accurately to today's Granville Island.Hayes, Derek. "Historical Atlas of Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley False", 2005. p. 104. The first attempt to stabilize the sandbar by driving

piles Hemorrhoids (or haemorrhoids), also known as piles, are vascular structures in the anal canal. In their normal state, they are cushions that help with stool control. They become a disease when swollen or inflamed; the unqualified term ''he ...

around the perimeter was an unofficial attempt to create some free real estate shortly after the creation of the original Granville Street bridge in 1889. The Federal government put a stop to the work as a menace to navigation, but the piles are still visible in a photo taken in 1891. In 1915, with the

port of Vancouver The Port of Vancouver is the largest port in Canada and the fourth largest in North America by tonnes of cargo, facilitating trade between Canada and more than 170 world economies. The port is managed by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, whic ...

growing, the newly formed Vancouver Harbour Commission approved a reclamation project in False Creek for an industrial area. A island, connected to the mainland by a combined road and rail bridge at its south end, was to be built. Almost of fill was

dredge Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing da ...

d largely by a man named Alvin Kingston, from the surrounding waters of False Creek to create the island under the Granville Street Bridge. The total cost for the reclamation was $342,000. It was originally called Industrial Island, but Granville Island, named after the bridge that ran directly overhead, was the name that stuck. The very first tenant, B.C. Equipment Ltd., set the standard by building a wood-framed machine shop, clad on all sides in corrugated tin, at the Island's western end. (Today the same structure houses part of the Granville Island Public Market.) The company repaired and assembled heavy equipment for mining and forestry industries and used barges for shipping. By 1923, virtually every lot on the Island was occupied, mostly by similar corrugated-tin factories. During the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, one of Vancouver's several hobo jungles sprang up on the

flats opposite Granville Island's north shore. " Shackers" lived on the island, in town, or in floathouses, and survived by fishing and beachcombing and sold

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus '' Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Onco ...

smelt Smelt may refer to: * Smelting, chemical process * The common name of various fish: ** Smelt (fish), a family of small fish, Osmeridae ** Australian smelt in the family Retropinnidae and species ''Retropinna semoni'' ** Big-scale sand smelt ''A ...

, and wood door to door or at the public market on Main Street. They were basically self-sufficient and were left alone. During the Second World War, Wright's Canadian Ropes on the island was Canada's biggest manufacturer of heavy-duty wire rope. Their Green Heart product was supplied to forestry and mining industries. A fire in 1953 gutted their Granville Island factory so they moved to south Vancouver in 1956. In 1972, a federal order-in-council assigned management of the 14-hectare site to

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) (french: Société canadienne d'hypothèques et de logement) (SCHL) is Canada's national housing agency, and state-owned mortgage insurer. It was originally established after World War II, to help re ...

(CMHC). The federal government invested $24.7 million there between 1973 and 1982. In 1979, the federal and provincial governments converted a 50,000 square foot building to the Public Market. In 1980, the Emily Carr University of Art & Design was added to the island.

Ron Basford Stanley Ronald Basford, (April 22, 1932 – January 31, 2005) was a Canadian politician and lawyer who was a long-time Canadian Cabinet minister in the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau. Based in British Columbia, he was known as "Mr. Gr ...

, the Minister responsible for CMHC was, was referred to as Mr. Granville and was later recognized with the naming of Ron Basford Park on Granville Island. In 2016, the federal government announced a commitment to develop a 2040 plan to redevelop the island, in part because the Emily Carr University was going to move off the island.

Granville Island Public Market

The Granville Island Public Market was established in 1979 as a location where farmers and other food vendors could sell to consumers. It operates year-round in an enclosed facility where customers can purchase fresh produce, meat, fish and seafood, cheeses and other products, many locally sourced. There are generally 50 vendors in the market. The market includes retail food vendors, selling a range of items from Mexican, Asian, Greek and deli food to candy and snacks. The market attracts both local residents and tourists. The market includes a "kids market" designed for children.

Other businesses

Granville Island Brewing The Granville Island Brewing Company (GIB) was a brewery originally based on Granville Island in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in 1984 and calls itself "Canada's first microbrewery". In 1989, it was sold to the wine conglomer ...

Co. is the name of a beer company which originated on Granville Island in 1984, but whose main base of operations was moved to

Kelowna Kelowna ( ) is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the head office of the Regional District of Central Okanagan. The name Kelowna derives from the Okanagan word ' ...

, British Columbia, some time later. In 2009 it was purchased by Molson's Brewery and continues to brew small batches of its varieties at the Granville Island brewing original site, and offers beer tasting and tours of their brewing facilities. Ocean Concrete is the longest-established tenant on the island, having set up shop there in 1917. In 2014, OSGEMEOS (Portuguese for THE TWINS), consisting of brother duo Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, revamped the concrete silos with their ongoing mural project, 'Giants'. Granville Island is home to several theatre companies such as the

, Arts Umbrella, Axis Theatre Company, Boca Del Lupo, Carousel Theatre for Young People, Ruby Slippers Production Company, and the Vancouver Theatre Sports League. Canada's only physical hammock shop, the Hamuhk Hangout Place, has been operating on Granville Island since 1995.

Gallery

Vancouver desde la isla Granville, Canadá, 2017-08-14, DD 18-23 PAN.jpg, Vancouver seen from Granville Island Fresh berries at the Vancouver, BC farmers market.jpg, Fresh berries at the Granville Island Public Market Granville Island Entrance.JPG, Granville Island entrance RonBasfordParkHILL.jpg, Hill is center of Ron Basford Park in Granville Island Granville Island Marina 2018.jpg, Granville Island Marina Muelle en la isla Granville, Vancouver, Canadá, 2017-08-14, DD 28.jpg, Granville harbour Granville Island 1922.jpg, North-west Granville Island in 1922. Many of the buildings shown here are still standing as of 2006.

Notable residents

* Jim Coleman (1911–2001), Canadian sports journalist, writer and press secretary

References

External links

Official Granville Island website

Granville Island Cultural Society
Information about busking (street performing) on Granville Island and theatre information
Satellite image of Granville Island
from Google maps.
Granville Island Day Vendors Association website

Granville Island Business and Community Association website

Granville Island Works community website

The Growing Pains of Vancouver
– Internet radio documentary discussing Granville Island from 24'00" till 34'43". {{Shopping Malls in Metro Vancouver Shopping districts and streets in Canada Shopping malls in Metro Vancouver Neighbourhoods in Vancouver Busking venues Retail markets in Canada Islands of British Columbia Tourist attractions in Vancouver Former islands of Canada Adaptive reuse of industrial structures in Canada Market halls Food retailers