Vancouver at the Dawn

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Vancouver was a mill town rapidly becoming a bustling cosmopolitan seaport. New technology proliferated, Klondike miners brawled their way through town, political turbulence and dramatic boom-and-bust cycles were the norm, Then as now, Vancouver was young, thriving, magnificently beautiful, and troubled by serious social problems.

Here is an unusual, revealing account of daily life in Vancouver almost exactly a century ago, through the eyes of Sara McLagan, a little-known pioneer newspaperwoman and social activist, publisher and editor of the Vancouver World. The author has meticulously researched McLagan’s published writings, personal diaries and family archives to produce a unique imagined memoir, evoking Vancouver in its tumultuous youth and honouring a woman who helped it become the city it is today.