Olympic Village

False Creek North is located north of False Creek and south of Pacific Boulevard between the Burrard Street Bridge on the west and International Plaza just east of the Cambie Bridge on the east.

The inlet called “False Creek” used to be five times larger than it is today. In 1859 it was named by Captain George Henry Richards who navigated his ship into the basin during his hydrographic survey of 1856-63 and expected a water link to coal deposits but instead found it to be a dead end.

Soon thereafter False Creek was used for the transport of local lumber by the newly built mills on its south shores.

The area surrounding False Creek became more attractive to businesses after the Canadian Pacific Railway extended its railway line to English Bay and the first Granville Street bridge was built in 1889 connecting the two shores of False Creek.

The CPR built large railway yards on the north shore taking advantage of 20 tax free years in return. The area of the railway yards became know as Yaletown because the railway workers who moved there, had previously worked at Yale – CPR’s main construction camp.

During WW I the east end of False Creek was filled in to create space for railway yards and terminals and by 1950 filling in all of the creek was regarded as an option after False Creek had become unsanitary and had no further commercial use.

In the 1960’s the CPR, the province and the city did a land swap which gave the province the former railway yards on the north shore. The province used the site for Expo 86 which Jim Pattison made into a great success. The city obtained the land on the south shore and involved different groups in the development of predominantly residential buildings which lease the land from the city.