The crew of The on their first voyage to protest nuclear testing at Amchitka, Alaska, FIFTY in 1971. YEARS AGO, The summer of Love BROUGHT REVOLUTION TO Hippie smoke-ins, anti-war protests, free-love, nude-ins and rock ‘n’ roll overwhelmed a strait-laced town

BY DANIEL WOOD

46 •BCM COURTESY OF GREENPEACE BCM•47 t probably wasn’t a good and hippies carried with them an un- IN THE SPRING of 1967, a small group appearance of shops with weird names idea that Vancouver’s mayor, ease with American militarism and of Vancouver anti-war activists began like Advance Mattress Coffee House and Tom—aka “Terrific”—Camp- consumption, and sought in Vancouver gathering at the Point Grey home of Ir- The Sound of Om, hundreds of guitar- bell called the thousands of the freedom to be different. They car- ving and Dorothy Stowe. The American strumming, peace-proclaiming, long- hippies who had descended ried, as well, fresh memories of the Jef- military was deep into preparations to haired transients provoked apprehen- onI his town “slum-culture.” Or his label- ferson Airplane’s psychedelic lyrics and explode a series of atomic bombs be- sion among civic authorities and police ling people protesting the plan to build a concealed in their backpacks Mexican neath Alaska’s remote Amchitka Island who found themselves overwhelmed by massive bridge over , “Mao- marijuana. Arriving from this country’s and the group was determined to stop a contagious youth rebellion. With Viet- ists, pinkos and hamburgers.” But Camp- them. But they needed an ocean-worthy nam in the news, there had already been bell stood for all that was smug in a place boat. Joni Mitchell volunteered to do a a big Peace March downtown. And in that called itself, without the least irony, benefit concert at the Pacific Coliseum , the first Be-In drew 1,000 Terminal City. Forestry ruled. Sawmills (and brought her folk-singing friend, hippies who danced to Mother Tuckers lined . And shoreline beehive One pill makes James Taylor) and soon the anti-war Yellow Duck and tossed inflated, joint- burners belched black, dystopian smoke. group had a boat. filled condoms above the crowd. Vancouver in the mid-’60s was a place you larger, and At a subsequent meeting, Irving Stowe This, inevitably, produced a backlash. without pretence or, as future mayor closed the gathering by raising a two- The Kitsilano Chamber of Commerce Mike Harcourt would say: “It was a dull, one pill makes fingered V-sign, a hippie ‘peace’ gesture, warned parents about the dangers of grey, Presbyterian city where—if you you small, and a departing member of the group “hippie free-love practises.” Local bar- wanted to impress your date—you’d buy said, “Make that a green peace.” And so bers offered free haircuts to the dis- The Georgia Straight’s Dan McLeod in front of Sophie’s Cosmic Cafe; Below: her a Triple O hamburger at White Spot.” And the ones in the years that immediately followed, trict’s hirsute visitors. And on the cor- McLeod (blond) in the late 1960s. But what began during the spring and a few dozen Vancouver anti-war activists ner of Arbutus and 4th Avenue, The summer of 1967 obliterated Vancouver’s that mother first took on the U.S. government (pro- Arbutus Cafe (now Sophie’s Cosmic small-mindedness. Gone were crewcuts pelling global protests that halted fur- Cafe) posted a sign: “We do not serve Campbell tried—for the first, but not and the belief in chastity of their parents’ gives you, don’t ther atomic tests), and then—embracing hippies or beatniks.” the last time—to shut the crusading generation. In were long hair and newly- do anything environmentalism—turned to harass- It was, in fact, directly across the street newspaper down. But every threat from available birth control pills. Gone was ing Russia’s Pacific whaling fleet (and from the cafe that then 24-year-old, authorities only prompted McLeod and conformity. In was rebellion, idealism, at all brought about an international morato- poet-physicist Dan McLeod observed his counter-culture supporters to run confrontation and a naive sort of uni- rium on whaling) all under the banner a pair of Vancouver policemen issue an stories or cartoons more outrageous —“White Rabbit” (1967), Jefferson Airplane versal love. Taboos were challenged, and of Greenpeace. ultimatum to four hippies, telling them than those previous. fell. Public protests erupted. New social Today, with 49 regional chapters and they had 24 hours to leave town. Their One of his last legal entanglements was and cultural forces arose. Established hinterlands, thousands of west-bound 2.9 million members, Greenpeace is the crime: loitering, a quaint legal term prompted by his running a 1969 article political powers collapsed. And prompt- Canadian youth hoped to partake of world’s largest environmental organi- for “doing nothing.” Upset by this and on Cynthia Plaster Caster, a California ed by the unique alchemy of that time, the Holy Trinity purported to be avail- zation. other affronts to young people’s civil woman who gained brief notoriety for Vancouver became the crucible for ideas able in Vancouver’s budding Lotus In April, 1967, The re- liberties that spring, McLeod went to using a dental mold-making substance that produced one of the most admired Land: drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll. ported the counter-culture invasion with his Kitsilano apartment, and with $150 to create casts of rock stars’ penises, places in the world. They called it then “The Summer of a story titled: “Hippies Taking over 4th and an IBM Selectric, created Issue No. including superstar . Not

Arriving from California that year, Love.” And many would not be disap- Ave.” Drawn to working-class Kitsilano WOOD DANIEL RIGHT: TOP 1 of The Georgia Straight (datelined May amused, the mayor branded the Straight, hundreds of American draft resistors pointed. by $125-a-month house rents and the 5, 1967). Within four months, Mayor “a filthy, perverted paper” and sent in

The Georgia Straight is launched (within four months, editor Dan McLeod 1967 is arrested) 1968 The In Stanley Park, the first Centennial Museum (now ‘Be-In’ features music, MOV) and Planetarium times, marijuana and 1,000 hippies (now HR MacMillan Space Centre) open The city’s first Peace March against the 3,000 rebellious students They Were Vietnam War and yippies occupy UBC Average house Big protests against Faculty Club In belled-cap and tights, Thousands of Canadian price in proposed eight-lane Joachim Foikis becomes A-Changing drifters and American Early meetings in Point Grey of anti-war freeway through downtown Kitsilano: Vancouver’s Town Fool draft resistors arrive group that would morph into Greenpeace $26,000 Vancouver

48 • BCM BCM• 49 the police. In an effort to defend himself, McLeod went to the door of the mayor’s Tom “Terrific” home, and was about to serve Campbell Campbell (left) was with a counter-subpoena when the may- Vancouver’s or opened the door just wide enough to controversial mayor release his dog. By McLeod’s calculation, from 1967 to 1972. he faced 40 arrests, paid $20,000 in fines and legal fees and suffered a dog bite defending . Today—at age 50—McLeod’s Georgia Straight is the last survivor of scores of ’60s alternative newspapers. Reflecting today on those early years, McLeod says, “There was a sense of hope Riot-equipped American police and then. Vancouver suddenly seemed big- youths from Blaine, Washington, ger, more tolerant, more creative, more confront 500 Canadian anti-war worldly than before. There was an opti- protestors at Peace Arch Park, mism that all this crazy stuff might work, near the border. that all these changes could be extended throughout society. It was a happy time.”

IT WOULD BE misleading to believe that this ’60s happiness had its source solely in the good vibrations of that time. Moving outward from the youth- ful hippies into straight Vancouver soci- under 30, you almost certainly inhaled. ety were a lot of drugs. Resinous bricks It’s really not surprising that, during of Moroccan hashish, the size of two the intervening 50 years, Vancouver de- decks of cards, would arrive—concealed veloped the most tolerant attitude to- in hollowed-out books—from Euro- ward drug-use in North America—from pean friends. Rural pastures would fill policing to Insite’s supervised-injection each October with stooped, psilocybin- facilities to the 100-plus marijuana dis- 4th Avenue from today’s Lululemon), of Jerry Garcia and his band wander- and when Grace Slick launched into her mushroom hunters. Hollywood Hospital pensaries currently in the city. and later crashed at Point Grey Road’s ing the house naked and heading up famous, LSD-inspired “White Rabbit,” in New Westminster offered legal LSD famous—or notorious—Peace House, to the Russian Hall for a 1967 Jefferson Wisdom and everyone in the hall knew trips to those seeking psychedelic in- MOVING IN TANDEM with the north- where artists, activists, musicians and Airplane concert. Like millions of his the words: sight. (One issue of The Georgia Straight ward flow of youthful Americans came groupies met at a convenient intersec- contemporaries, rock ‘n’ roll was a ve- “If you go chasing rabbits, and you claimed that an area on the front page the central, generation-defining feature tion of drugs and desires. hicle of escape to a zanier, more sensual know you’re going to fall, tell ‘em a was soaked with LSD, and scores of gull- of the late-’60s counter-culture: psy- At 21, long-haired aspiring Vancouver world. For a few hours, you became the hookah-smoking caterpillar has given ible readers ate the paper.) But it was the chedelic music. California bands like rocker David Wisdom was resident- music. Wisdom remembers it all vividly. you the call...” And—heedlessly—into plentiful pot, sold then in baggies for $15 The , Country Joe & the landlord of The Peace House at that Psychedelic paintings framed the stage, the rabbit-hole you tumble, bellbottoms a lid, that provided much of the impetus Fish, Cream and Jefferson Airplane ap- time and has fond memories over headbands, surreal visions over re-

for the general goofiness of those times. peared in Vancouver. Some performed in ARCHIVES X2 VANCOUVER CITY OF LEFT & RIGHT: TOP of hanging out with members ality, weightless with joy. If you were living in Vancouver and were Kitsilano’s Russian Hall (directly across of Cream, hearing accounts “You felt you’re at the apex of the

The Naam vegetarian restaurant opens on 4th Ave 1970 Betty “Zaria” Andrews runs for Vancouver mayor, offer- 1969 Benefit at Pacific Coliseum ing to “repeal the law of grav- features Joni Mitchell and ity so everyone can get high” Canucks play first NHL The Georgia Straight runs provides start-up money for (no surprise: she loses) home game (they lose) article on “Cynthia Plaster Greenpeace Caster” who makes celeb- Sunday services at U Hill rity penis castings 500 anti-war protestors United Church feature rock “invade” Blaine, Washington ‘n’ roll and go-go girls Mayor Tom ‘Terrific’ (Seattle paper says: “the great- 1971 Campbell launches 12th est insult since the Alamo”) obscenity suit against Vancouver Free University Police attack hippies First ‘Nude-In’ at Wreck The Yippies stage “Be-Out” and opens with hundreds of during infamous Beach; 120 disrobe and Georgia Straight tear down fencing around courses, including “Creative “Smoke-In” (later deemed 13 arrested Burnaby’s Oakalla Prison Lovemaking” “a police riot”)

50 • BCM world,” he says now of the song’s asked her 21 year-old daughter, Shirley, would be interested in helping them the mounting crescendo that night, and for help. stop the freeway. Harcourt asked Mar- its final dictum: “Feed your head! Feed It was in 1969 that the Chans, accompa- zari, “Who are we taking on?” your head!” “You felt nothing could be nied by Darlene Marzari, a young social She replied: “Don’t worry about it, better than this,” he adds. “A new gen- planner at City Hall, showed up at the Mike. It’s just City Council. The provin- The first Be-In festival in eration had arrived. There was such ide- storefront office of a 26-year-old lawyer cial government. The federal govern- 1967, where Stanley Park alism then!” named Mike Harcourt to ask him if he ment. The auto manufacturers. The oil hosted 1,000 hippies. The word idealism comes and gas industry. The developers. The up again and again in con- construction companies. And the unions. versations about those years. Other than that, no big deal.” Idealism propelled local art- And retelling his funny, oft-told story, ists, social activists, urban Harcourt laughs. “There was a youthful planners and visionaries to cockiness then. We were troublemakers. initiate projects that flowered We were idealists. The freeway was into B.C. fixtures. The Be-Ins a horrible idea! I agreed to help.” became the annual Folk Festi- val. An abandoned church be- came the East Cultural Centre Mike Harcourt and (known as “The Cultch” to- Shirley Chan at the Mary Chan House in day). Free hippie Feed-Ins became food Strathcona today. banks. A 1969 Nude-In became Wreck Beach. Numerous new magazines, al-- ternative schools, art galleries, book publishers and performance groups ap-- peared. Urban planning, previously run top-down, became a required interac- tion between developers and affected Vancouver residents. Idealism—of a satirical, late-’60s nature—even funded Joachim Foikis, who in belled cap and Soon, placard-waving citizens, mostly nothing new seemed possible to be said, through downtown Vancouver was fi- tights wandered Vancouver for years as Chinese and often numbering 1,000, pa- the doors to the auditorium burst open, nally dead. A few months after that, the city’s Town Fool. raded along Pender Sreet and filled City and a half-dozen young men, carrying B.C.’s Social Credit government, which Hall with protesters. loaded trays and dressed in chef’s white had also backed the freeway, fell to the BUT NOTHING—ABSOLUTELY noth- Then one day in early 1972, Mayor hats and aprons, strode down the aisles socialist New Democratic Party. Gran- ing in the city’s history—was more im- Campbell, frustrated by endless delays, shouting, “Hamburgers! Hamburg- ville Island, a grimy industrial site, was portant than what a resident of Vancou- denounced the highway protesters as: ers! Anyone want a hamburger ?” And soon rezoned for public use, and is now ver’s low-income Strathcona district did. “Maoists, pinkos and hamburgers.” with everyone laughing, scores of real, one of Vancouver’s biggest tourist attrac- Mary Chan had lived on Keefer St. most (When later asked by a journalist what tissue-wrapped McDonald’s hamburg- tions. The south shore of False Creek, a of her 50-plus years. When she learned a “hamburger” was, the mayor replied, ers were hurled above the crowd and toxic stretch of sawmills and foundries, in the late ’60s that plans were moving “Someone who doesn’t have a university caught by outstretched hands. Sud- was rezoned for low-rise, low-income ahead to push an elevated, eight-lane education.”) denly, the air was full of flying—and in housing. Today, it’s globally-recognized superhighway through East Vancou- On March 15, 1972, a meeting was held some cases, disintegrating—airborne as a model of great urban planning. And ver, Strathcona, Chinatown, Gastown, in Vancouver’s Eric Hamber Second- hamburgers. People were incredulous. Vancouver—with its downtown and along the Coal Harbour waterfront and ary School where the public and civic And up on the stage, Campbell sat, waterfront both highway-free, and its then north on a Burrard Inlet-spanning officials sought to share views on the slack-jawed at the intrusion. heritage communities intact—is widely bridge over Stanley Park, Chan realized freeway’s latest incarnation: a harbour- Within a few months, Campbell and his recognized as one of the world’s most that her house lay in the bulldozers’ path. spanning bridge. On the stage was May- pro-development party were defeated liveable cities. And that in order to save her home, she or Campbell. Hundreds of people, many in the 1972 civic election that brought a Mary Chan got to live at 658 Keefer LEFT: DANIEL WOOD DANIEL LEFT: would have to stop the impending free- MELLE GREGORY ABOVE: with long-hair and attitude, filled the reformist, anti-freeway party to pow- Street for 30 more years. In saving her way. But her English was poor. So she auditorium. Well into the evening, when er. The elevated, eight-lane freeway home, she had also saved Vancouver.

Greenpeace sails from Van- Scores of transients Protesters hurl hundreds of Reformist TEAM party South False Creek occupy “People’s Park” to real (wrapped) hamburgers wins civic election; ousts conversion from Prime Minister Pierre couver to protest nuclear stop Stanley Park hotel at Eric Hamber Secondary NPA and Campbell industrial to low-rise Trudeau, 55, secretly test on Alaska’s Amchitka development public meeting, as mayor residential begins marries West Vancouver’s Island watches from stage Provincial NDP overthrows Margaret Sinclair, 22, B.C.’s long-ruling W.A.C. Freeway plan killed: and—nine months later— Riot outside Bennett SoCreds Chinatown, Gastown is born Rolling Stones’ 1972 and Coal Harbour Pacific Coliseum 10-kilometre Stanley Park NPA Mayor Campbell calls waterfront saved concert, dozens Seawall finally completed local protesters “Maoists, conversion from industrial injured (begun in 1914) pinkos and hamburgers” to public use begins

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