By Ines Keane
It is called an island, and the sources are careful to say it is a peninsula. Wikipedia describes Granville Island as a peninsula and shopping district in the Fairview neighbourhood of Vancouver, across False Creek from Downtown, under the south end of the Granville Street Bridge. It was formerly an industrial manufacturing area. Today it holds a public market, restaurants, a marina, a hotel, a community centre, artists’ studios and workshops, and theatres.
How an island was made
Wikipedia says the sandbar was first mapped in 1858 and 1859, and that in 1915 the Vancouver Harbour Commission approved a reclamation project in False Creek for an industrial area. It was first called Industrial Island, and Wikipedia says Granville Island, named for the bridge overhead, was the name that stuck.
The Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Places That Matter page gives a slightly different account. It says the National Harbour Commission took over the sandbars in 1916, built a seawall, and filled the area to create about 40 acres of leasable land.
The island’s own website says the Public Market opened on July 12, 1979, with 21 tenants. That agrees with Wikipedia, not with the heritage page. We show all three and do not choose. Our reading: 1978 may mark the start of reopening work and 1979 the market’s formal opening, but none of the pages says so.
Tin sheds and heavy equipment
Wikipedia says the first tenant, B.C. Equipment Ltd., built a wood-framed machine shop clad in corrugated tin at the island’s western end, and that the same structure houses part of the Public Market today. The company repaired and assembled heavy equipment for mining and forestry. The heritage page dates that first tenancy to 1917. By 1923, Wikipedia says, virtually every lot was taken, mostly by similar corrugated-tin factories. The heritage page adds that by the 1930s forty industrial companies employed 1,200 people on the island.
Industry then faded. The heritage page points to a postwar decline and a run of fires in the 1950s.
The 1970s turn
Both Wikipedia and the heritage page place the change in the 1970s, under Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The heritage page says that from 1975 the old industrial buildings were reused for studios, shops, markets, restaurants and community groups, and that the corrugated tin was painted in bright colours. The island’s website describes the change as a transformation “from an industrial wasteland to one of the most beloved public spaces in Vancouver”. That is the island’s own promotional wording.
What is there to look at
The island’s website says the Public Market is home to more than 50 independent food purveyors, and describes market artisans who show locally made, handcrafted goods. Wikipedia gives “generally 50 vendors”. On the website’s own account, “in the Net Loft Shops and in the Artisan District, many of Canada’s best artists and designers can be found”. That is a promotional claim, not a ranking we can test.
Wikipedia also lists theatres and festivals on the island, and says ferries link it to Downtown and other points on False Creek. Schedules change, so we left them out.
Why it matters to a buyer
The buildings are industrial and date from the early twentieth century, and the retail use dates from the late 1970s. When a piece is described as “from Granville Island”, the useful questions are about the maker and the studio, not the address. The sources we read name no individual makers, and we have not named any.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia, which anyone can edit and which carries a note that the article needs more citations. The island’s own website, which is promotional. A heritage page from the Vancouver Heritage Foundation. All three are secondary accounts. We read no archive or city record.
What we left out
Opening hours, closures and prices. Reclamation and investment sums. Living artists, mural makers and the architects of the 1970s plan. Any claim about what the market sells beyond what the island itself says.
Quick answers
What was Granville Island before it became a market? The Vancouver Heritage Foundation says the National Harbour Commission took over the sandbars in 1916 and filled the area to create about 40 acres of leasable land, and that by the 1930s forty industrial companies employed 1,200 people there.
When did the Granville Island Public Market open? The island’s own website says July 12, 1979, with 21 tenants. A heritage page from the Vancouver Heritage Foundation says 1978.
Where are the artisans on Granville Island? According to the island’s website, in the Net Loft Shops and the Artisan District. The wording is promotional, and the page names no makers.
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Roam first. Shop later.