This map is one of the only colonial-era maps of what became the City of Vancouver in 1886. The Indian Reserves, allocated by the Government of Canada in 1877, have yet to be established and marked. Present-day Stanley Park is indicated as the ‘Military Reserve’ which was established in 1863 by the Royal Engineers when the area was part of the Crown Colony of British Columbia. But by 1865, there were active logging operations and other colonial-era enterprises none of which are indicated on this map. The two separate town reserves, in what today is central Vancouver, was part of an initial 1860s plan from the area before the plans for the terminus of the trans-Canada rail line which was conceived as part of British Columbia’s 1871 entry into Canadian Confederation.
The full natural extent of the shoreline of the False Creek inlet is sketched.
