Brought Revolution to Vancouver Fifty Years Ago
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The crew of The Greenpeace on their first voyage to protest nuclear testing at Amchitka, Alaska, FIFTY in 1971. YEARS AGO, The summer of Love BROUGHT REVOLUTION TO VANCOUVER 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 Burrard Inlet, “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 Stanley Park, 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 False Creek. 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 Vancouver Sun 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 Jimi Hendrix. 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 freedom of the press. 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.