Gastown travel guide

Walk north from East Side and you arrive in Gastown, site of Vancouver’s first industry and, maybe more importantly, the saloon of ‘Gassy’ Jack Deighton, after whom the district was named. One of Vancouver’s favourite historic characters, he is remembered for rowing across the Burrard Inlet and offering a bunch of thirsty workers at Stamp’s Mill all the whisky they could drink if they helped him build a bar. Within 24 hours the Globe Saloon was finished. A statue of the legendary Yorkshireman standing on a whisky barrel graces the quaint Maple Leaf Square. Behind him is the site of his second saloon, along with Gaoler’s Mews, an attractive little courtyard. Opposite is the thin curved end of the wedge-shaped Hotel Europe (1909), the first reinforced-concrete building in Vancouver and certainly one of its most charming constructions.

Just west of here is Gastown’s main drag, Water Street, site of the much- touted Steam Clock, which entertains tourists every 15 minutes by tooting and erupting in a cloud of steam. Still overrun with souvenir shops, the street is finally becoming less tacky and is positively gorgeous when illuminated at night. Many handsome old red-brick buildings and cobbled streets redeem Gastown, which also holds some of the city’s best antique shops, commercial art galleries, bars and clubs.