A blow to the illusion that Vancouver is some kind of laid-back metropolis where time doesn’t matter is struck by its modest collection
of oddball timepieces. Arguably the most attractive is the 1905 wooden-movement Birks Clock that stands outside the upscale downtown jewelry store at Hastings and Granville streets. Oddly, this icon was originally erected across the street on the same corner. But Henry Birks moved it up to the southeast corner of Georgia and Granville streets in 1912, where it remained until Birks moved north again in 1994. (The demolition of the terra-cotta Birks building on Georgia Street in 1974 remains a sore point with heritage activists and lots of ordinary city-watchers, but that’s another story).
Another historical timepiece is the Nine o’Clock Gun — actually, a cannon that goes off precisely at nine PM and can be heard, or felt, through much of northwest Vancouver. There are several theories about how the cannon got where it is, none definitive. The copper, tin, and antimony gun sits in a hut near the water’s edge just east of Brockton Oval in Stanley Park. It has been fired nightly since 1894, almost without interruption (the longest silent period was during World War II).
A time marker more likely to shatter your nerves is the set of ten cast-aluminum horns that goes off atop Canada Place daily at noon. Blasting out the first four notes of “0 Canada,” the Noon Horn appeals to latent nationalism, I guess. A sensible effort in the mid-1990s to remove the assemblage from its former perch atop the BC Hydro building on Nelson Street (as the building was about to be transformed into a residential complex), and pack it away forever, brought howls of protest. As some compensation, the horns now face northward, blasting their unappealing sound over Burrard Inlet.
I’ve said I wasn’t going to mention it, but I’ve seen the Gastown Steam Clock listed among the “ten least-appealing tourist attractions” in Vancouver, and it may be worth checking out on that basis alone.
When you find it in Gastown at the corner of Water and Cambie streets, you’re likely to encounter a phalanx of tourists photograph-ing one another standing in front of it as it gurgles, creaks, and puffs (every fifteen minutes). Adding to its popularity is the fact that the cast-bronze clock, built in 1977 by a local clockmaker, somewhat resembles a miniature Big Ben. Ah, the drawing power of celebrity.
If you’re in the historic district ofMount Pleasant, you can’t miss the landmark Heritage Hall (3102 Main Street, East Vancouver), built in 1916 as a postal station, and its decorative Beaux Arts tower and clock, made in Whitchurch, England. An oddity, it ticks forty-eight times every minute; a two-ton bronze bell sounds every hour from 9 AM to 9 PM. Members of the BC chapter of the National Associa¬tion of Clock and Watchmakers wind it once a week.
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