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Deadman Talking

This island has a history as peculiar and sinister as its name. The Squamish once suspended their dead in the branches of the towering firs, and several casualties of Vancouver’s 1886 Great Fire were interred there. But it was the site’s strategic military position, plus those big trees, once suitable as ships’ spars, that have been the real curse.

When Vancouver was incorporated, one of the first things its 1880s leaders did in an act of incredible prescience was apply to lease the big unutilized military reserve adjacent to their little frontier town. In 1887, the federal government agreed. And 1,000-acre Stanley Park was born. Municipal officials believed they’d leased all the military reserve, including Deadman’s Island. But court proceedings raged on to determine who actually held legal lease to the island. Was it or wasn’t it part of Stanley Park?

Early maps were unclear; the courts equivocated. To clarify matters, Vancouver renewed the old lease to Stanley Park in 1908 for 99 years, leaving the issue of Deadman’s Island in legal limbo. When the legal wrangling was resolved 20 years later, Vancouver leased the island from the catch-all Department of the Interior, Ordnance, Admiralty, and Public Lands. That would have been that – Stanley Park finally intact – had the Pacific war not begun.

Pointing to clause 6 of the lease, the federal government rescinded the agreement with Vancouver in 1942, claiming the island’s importance as a military base. The island has remained in naval hands, despite endless calls for its return, ever since.

When I ask Lt-Cmdr. Wan about Vancouver re-acquiring the lease to Deadman’s Island, he suggests half-jokingly that the city get in line. “Every year, I get inquiries from developers trying to buy it or exchange it for property they’ve got elsewhere,” he says, shaking his head. The point is moot. I try a different tack: “Suppose the navy shares the island with the city?” This, too, he dismisses, arguing it’s tactically impossible. It’s a matter of national defence, he says. The island is an operations site for sensitive actions. “Like?” I ask. Like the big 1997 APEC conference when it served as a secure heliport, he tells me. 1997? A secure heliport? That sounds like a reach. A lot of people could have enjoyed it since then.

Later, when I repeat Wan’s arguments to Vancouver Park Board director, Jim Lowden, he snorts at the idea that HMCS Discovery serves some sort of defensive role. “For the life of me, I can’t see a valid reason for it being there,” he says. “It was part of Stanley Park. Just unlock the gate. They have nothing to defend there. And they have nothing to defend it with!”

At my prompting, Lowden confesses his secret vision for the place: small public ferries – like those serving Vancouver’s Granville Island today – crossing Coal Harbour from the heart of downtown straight to the island’s wharf, providing waterborne access to Stanley Park and substantially cutting summertime traffic. As well, the Schwarzenegger barbecue and picnic grounds would be open to the public, and the sand flats that surround the island would be available for seashore explorations. And, most importantly, a major new Pacific Maritime Museum would be built along a section of the island’s intertidal foreshore. The navy, long part of the region’s maritime history, could stay put if they wanted and fit right in. The Squamish, whose maritime exploits are legendary and land claims to the site legitimate, could fit in too. It would be win-win-win for the three jurisdictions with competing claims to the island: the city, the navy and the First Nations.

When I explain the site’s convoluted history to Sam Sullivan, the city’s newly elected mayor, and propose a sort of phoenix-like public rebirth of Deadman’s Island, he says, “It’s a great idea!” He then recalls how, as a Vancouver boy, he viewed it as a mysterious place where visitors weren’t allowed. And he tells me he’d like to explore the possibility of the navy and the federal government sharing it with the people of Vancouver and the world. For now, however, the gate to the causeway is closed and a polite commissionaire passes muster on those few who enter.

But one day, the tide may turn. HMCS Discovery? Or the Isle of Dreams? Closed to the public? Or open to all? There are moments when the stars align and opportunity appears. On these auspicious occasions, thoughtful politicians will act and the ghosts of the dead will dance and a long lost Atlantis will arise – green and beckoning from the sea.

Write to us: letters@enroutemag.net

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