Here in Vancouver, the time is announced every night to the entire city when the 9 O’Clock Gun booms out its report. The ‘gun’ sits on the edge of Stanley Park, facing downtown, and has been known to rattle more than one newcomer or tourist with its surprising nightly bulletin. Although Vancouverites usually turn to their companions and brightly say, “It’s 9 o’clock!”, that’s as much as most of us know about it. That ends now.
First off, it’s not a gun. It’s a 12 lb muzzle-loaded cannon, one of 16 cannons given to the “Provinces of Canada” by Britain in 1856 (still 11 years pre-confederation). Three of the cannons would end up on the West Coast. Two were left in Victoria at the Parliament Buildings (and melted down in 1940 for the war effort) and one eventually found its way to the mainland. It was brought to Brockton Point in Stanley Park in 1894 and, by and large, that’s where it’s been for 130 years.
Before cannon firing was used to proclaim the time to the city, the ringing of the bell on the Water Street Fire Hall had the job. It was rung at 8am, noon, 1pm, and then at 6pm. And one supposes that they also rang the bell if there was a fire. At some point, a 9pm alert was added so that mariners could set their chronometers.
Since nothing wakes up sleeping kids like a good explosion, the bell was demoted to fire announcements only and the 9pm time signal was taken over by the Brockton Point Lighthouse keeper who had to light a stick of dynamite and then fling it out over the water to “safely” explode on time every night. Mustn’t he have been pleased when they gave him his own cannon?
The first firing of the cannon in Vancouver was on October 15th, 1898. The gun, which had been forged in Woolwich, England in 1816 at the Royal Gun Factory, was already 80 years old at that point and pretty well travelled. Especially for something that weighed 1800 lbs. From that point on, the Stanley Park cannon has been set off almost every night. I say ‘almost’ because there are some interesting exceptions in that guy’s history.
“Ban on the Boom” was brought down by Ottawa on the Stanley Park gun from July 28, 1942, until November 11, 1943, as a war measure.
In 1949, ‘hooligans’ stole the firing cap one Sunday afternoon. The gun tender at the time was George Kilgour and he said that it was the first time someone had tampered with the gun. Then the hooligans got at the gun—again in broad daylight—by climbing the logs piled up on the beach side and somehow hopping the 12’ barbed wire fence. That’s where their plan fizzled out, so the gun wasn’t harmed.
In 1956, the cannon, suffering from wear, was taken away for a checkup. A hole was discovered in the barrel and there was fear that we’d have to get ourselves a new one. They were eventually able to sufficiently restore the cannon but, in the meantime, the army brought in two 25-pound auxiliary guns to fire off every night at 9pm while the cannon was gone. That couldn’t have been easy as these Big Boy stand-ins had to be brought in from the Bessborough Armoury, way over on West 11th at Maple. Good work, fellas!
1960 was a scrambled summer. First, the gun was triggered by lightning one June afternoon and then failed to fire later that day when it was supposed to. A few days later, the signalman got busy doing something else and entirely forgot to fire it. A month after that, it didn’t fire until it fired itself by accident an hour and forty minutes AFTER the signalman had ignited it. They were both given a stern talking to, and the jitters were finally worked out.
Hooligans revisited in 1964. They managed to get onto the rocky beach below the cannon and throw rocks into the mouth of the barrel. When it fired at 9pm, the rocks were spit out like shot and punctured the sign of the Texaco floating fuel barge that was anchored offshore, minding its own business. Nailed it right in the O! The hooligans must have been thrilled.
The trick was repeated in 1974, but the fuel barge had been prudently moved out of the line of fire and the rocks rained down on a police boat and a coast guard cutter who were parked there instead. Again, the hooligans must have been thrilled!
In 1976, during construction that was going on in the park over the course of a few months, the gun would randomly react to the vibrations and fire off at crazy times during the day. People who were still using it to set their watches were up in arms.
In 1969, Engineering students had kidnapped and held the gun for ransom for a number of days. They sent a letter to City Hall demanding that the mayor of Vancouver pay $100 to the Children’s Hospital in exchange for the gun’s return. At the time, the mayor was under sedation at Vancouver General having just undergone surgery for a bleeding ulcer. The acting mayor took over and made his mark in city politics by rudely replying no! Who says ‘no’ to the Children’s Hospital? Vancouverites immediately raised $1200 on their own and took it to the mayor’s office to give to the Children’s Hospital to get the gun back. Sheesh.
The kidnapping trick was tried again by the Engineering students in 2008, but they had been outfoxed by the city engineering department who had welded the gun in place. So, they painted it red instead.
Over the last couple of years, there has been an issue regarding the black powder used to set off the cannon. It uses about a pound and a half a day—it used to be 3 pounds!—and the city’s previous supplier went out of business. Because of a federal cap on how much black powder can be stored in one place and for how long, the gun was silenced periodically as the city tried to find a supplier and to get their shipments correctly timed, regardless of shipping slowdowns.
Listening for a cannon blast every night around 9pm is a Vancouver tradition. It’s a weird one, but it’s part of our history and we all feel like we have a stake in it. The only person who actually has a stake in it is the current gun tender who has to manually set up the gun to fire each day. It fires electronically but the muzzle has to be fed black powder and the trigger buried in that, so it can ignite.
The electronic clock that tips off the charge is housed securely in the foundation of the cannon’s protective hut (probably to keep it safe from Engineering students), and it runs a bit fast. The gun tender goes in each New Years’ Day and resets the electronic mechanism so the clock starts the year bang on the button, but as the year progresses, it starts to gain time. By the end of the year, the clock is firing up to 2 minutes before 9pm. That tends to make the “9 O’Clock” claim of Vancouver’s 9 O’Clock Gun a bit wonky but, given the old boy’s history, we can overlook that, can’t we?
