Self Guided Historic Walking Tour of Vancouver - Triumph of the Automobile

Digital

History & heritage Museum Science & technology Self-guided Tour

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Date and time

This activity runs the duration of Culture Days.

Location

Vancouver, BC

Access

Free.

Offered in English.

About

In the 21st Century our lives, our city, and our civilization have been built around our cars. It's easy then, to forget that they are a relatively recent invention. The first car was seen on Vancouver's rutted roads in 1899, and a mere half century later, by 1950, our society was well on its way to transforming into an all-embracing car culture.

Few people alive today can remember much of this transition, so it might be difficult to understand just how fast and dramatic the rise of automobiles was. For us today, the only comparison can be to the rise of computers. They first began appearing in the 1970s, gained popularity in the 1990s, and in the 2010s practically every job, every business, and every person's social life depends utterly on computers. We can scarcely imagine our lives without them. That is what it must have seemed like for people in the 1950s, looking back 50 years before the car reigned supreme.

In this tour we will learn about the fascinating early history of cars: who invented them and why, how people felt about them, and how they came to conquer Vancouver and much of the world.

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Organizer

On This Spot

On This Spot guides people on a tour back in time, showing & telling the history that surrounds them. On each spot, users will find themselves standing in the footsteps of a photographer who took a historic photo. On site tourists/users can use the built-in camera feature to create their own then-and-photos, which can be shared on social media and saved as a digital souvenir. Selections of these photos are chained together into walking tours that take a deep dive into local history.

On This Spot strives to make history engaging, educational, and accessible to all with a focus on easy to use features and a succinct writing style. The aim is to create an intuitive user experience that provides historical unparalleled depth without overwhelming or confusing users.