Gastown Galleries

Nestled in between Vancouver's cosmopolitan downtown, and it's impoverished east side, Gastown is a charming historic district filled with aboriginal art galleries, jewelry stores, souvenir shops, pubs and restaurants.  Founded in 1867, the same year as Canada, Gastown has an interesting history...

"The south shore of Burrard Inlet was a wilderness. Its only non-native settlement was a lumber mill where the owner didn’t allow alcohol on the premises. One September day, “Gassy Jack” Deighton arrived (he received his nickname because of his penchant for spinning tall tales and talking without end). He stepped ashore with a barrel of whiskey, telling the millworkers that if they’d build him a saloon, he’d serve them drinks. The saloon was up and running within a day…just across the property line of the mill. Gastown was born." - http://www.gastown.org/history/index.html

Gastown is also famous for it's steam powered clock...

Gastown is within easy walking distance of my hotel, and is also kind of on the way to the IBC, so on Saturday and Sunday morning, I walked through the district, stopping to look through the many galleries it has to offer.

The photos above are from Hill's Native Art Gallery, which features a huge array of native carvings, masks, drawings, and prints.

The Inuit Gallery of Vancouver had some amazing carvings too (see above three photos).

But I think I liked the Coastal Peoples Fine Arts Gallery the best (above 4 photos).

I really love the Native art, but the prices for some of the pieces I saw range from $2,000 to over $50,000!

There were just too many cool pieces to show you here, so I have posted all of my Gastown photos on my Flickr account.