How were commercial activities in Burrard Inlet significant to Vancouver’s development?
“But perhaps the most important development of the 1860s, in view of the later importance of Vancouver, was the emergence of Burrard Inlet as a harbour whose activities began already to rival those of Victoria and New Westminster. The inlet’s trade was then based entirely on logging. On the south shore Edward Stamp in 1865 began to build his Hastings Mill, and two years later “Gassy Jack” Deighton founded the Deighton hotel on the first urban nucleus of Vancouver, Gastown, whose respectable name was Granville. Farther west, Jeremiah Rogers began a spar-cutting operation at Jerry’s Cove, which later became Jericho Beach. On the north shore, at Moodyville, which later became North Vancouver, “Sue” Moody had already built a steam-driven mill. From both Hastings and Moodyville, sailing ships carried sawn lumber and spars to San Francisco and Latin America, to Australia and China, and even to Britain. The Burrard Inlet mills and their tiny settlements still seemed appendages to New Westmins
