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Discovering Kwilakm
  • Discovering Kwilákm
  • About
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  • Changing Climate
    • Hotter Ocean Temperatures
    • Changing Ocean Chemistry
    • Rising Sea Levels and Intensifying Winter Storms
    • When Seashore Temperatures Spike – Killer Heat Dome 2021
  • Terminal Creek
    • Where does Terminal Creek’s Water Come From?
    • Signal Crayfish
    • Terminal Creek Fish Hatchery
  • The Lagoon
    • The Tidal Inlet that became the Lagoon
    • Aquatic Plants
    • Chum Salmon
    • The Beaver
    • Canada Geese
    • Three-Spined Stickleback
  • Shores
    • Nearshore Forests
    • Beaches
    • The Terminal Creek Sand Flats
    • The Curious Clay Beds of Kwilákm
    • Blue Mussels
    • Clams
    • Purple Stars
    • Oysters in Kwilákm
  • Shallows
    • Eelgrass
    • Young Chum Salmon
    • Winter Bay Birds
    • Year-Round Bay Birds
  • Deeper Waters
    • Plankton
    • Northern Anchovy
    • Harbour Seal
    • Octopus
Conservancy logoBowen Island Conservancy
    • About
    • Get Involved
  • Discovering Kwilákm
    • About
    • Get Involved
  • Changing Climate
    • Hotter Ocean Temperatures
    • Changing Ocean Chemistry
    • Rising Sea Levels and Intensifying Winter Storms
    • When Seashore Temperatures Spike – Killer Heat Dome 2021
  • Terminal Creek
    • Where does Terminal Creek’s Water Come From?
    • Signal Crayfish
    • Terminal Creek Fish Hatchery
  • The Lagoon
    • The Tidal Inlet that became the Lagoon
    • Aquatic Plants
    • Chum Salmon
    • The Beaver
    • Canada Geese
    • Three-Spined Stickleback
  • Shores
    • Nearshore Forests
    • Beaches
    • The Terminal Creek Sand Flats
    • The Curious Clay Beds of Kwilákm
    • Blue Mussels
    • Clams
    • Purple Stars
    • Oysters in Kwilákm
  • Shallows
    • Eelgrass
    • Young Chum Salmon
    • Winter Bay Birds
    • Year-Round Bay Birds
  • Deeper Waters
    • Plankton
    • Northern Anchovy
    • Harbour Seal
    • Octopus

Photo: Will Husby

Shores

Deep Bay Brickyards

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Discover Kwilakm » Story » Shores » Deep Bay Brickyards
Brick debris on the shore
A pile of discarded broken bricks along the south shore of Deep Bay near the Causeway marks the site of the former Mannion brickworks and ship loading docks. Photo: Bob Turner

The shores of Kwilákm once rang with the sounds of mining and industry. In the late 1800s, two major quarry operations mined the steep clay banks near what is now the Lagoon, and manufactured tons of red bricks that were used in the buildings of Vancouver. Piles of discarded broken bricks still can be found on the shores of Kwilákm.

Broken bricks covered in barnacles
The broken bricks have been colonized by a rich variety of green rockweed, white barnacles and blue mussels. Photo:Will Husby

As historian Irene Howard writes in “Bowen Island 1872 – 1972”(available to borrow from the Bowen Library), brickmaking was an important industry in the Lower Mainland during the early days of the building of the city of Vancouver, and the 60 to 80 acres of blue clay underlying Kwilákm and Snug Cove (link to Clay Beds) was a valuable resource. The clay was exposed in steep banks, easily quarried by hand, and then formed into molds, air dried, and baked in wood-fired kilns to make bricks. Ships were loaded with the bricks during a high tide, and transported to Vancouver. This industry preceded construction of the Causeway, when what is now the Lagoon (link to Lagoon section) was a narrow inlet of the sea.

SS Rothesay at Port
S.S. Rothesay in 1899 at the Mannion Brickyard in Deep Bay during the late 1800s. Photo: Courtesy of Bowen Island Museum and Archives.
City Hall, Vancouver
The City Market building on Main St. in 1928, was built in 1889 of Bowen Island bricks, and served as Vancouver’s City Hall from 1898 to 1929. Photo: Courtesy of
City of Vancouver Archives #CVA 1376-88.

One clay quarry and brickyard was on the north side of what is now the Lagoon and owned by David Oppenheimer, an entrepreneur and mayor of Vancouver from 1888-1891. The other brickyard, operated by Joseph Mannion, was near the south end of the Causeway. After closure of the Mannion brickyard, the flat floor of the clay pit became the site for Playing Field #1 and a popular band shell for the Union Steamship Company resort.

Old clay pit at Cardena Rd.
The #1 playing field of the Union Steamships Company resort was built on the flat floor of the Mannion clay quarry. Photo: Courtesy of Bowen Island Museum and Archives
View of the lagoon
A view across the Lagoon and Causeway to the south shore of Kwilákm and former site of Joseph Mannion’s clay pit and Brickyard. Photo: Bob Turner
View of the lagoon
A flat bench, now the site of private residences on the north shore of the Lagoon, is the former site of the Oppenheimer clay pit and brick yard. Above the steep bluffs underlain by clay is the Deep Bay residential neighbourhood. Photo: Bob Turner

More About Shores

  • Shores
  • Nearshore Forests
  • Beaches
  • The Terminal Creek Sand Flats
  • The Curious Clay Beds of Kwilákm
  • Deep Bay Brickyards
  • Blue Mussels
  • Clams
  • Purple Stars
  • Oysters in Kwilákm
  • Does Kwilákm Have Two Species of Oyster?
  • Oyster are Pretty Awesome Creatures
  • Oysters and People
  • Oyster Harvesting: Health and Safety


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