Posted: Jan. 23, 2021 9:00PM | Last Updated: Jan. 23, 2021 8:27PM

CHEK

Millions from around the world travelled to Vancouver to experience Expo ’86.

The impact of that event, which put Vancouver on the international stage, can still be felt in the province 35 years later.

In 1989, all of the records from the Expo ’86 Corporation were transferred to the Royal BC Museum.

“That includes over 800 boxes of textual records, about 100 boxes of visual records, and then another 100 audio recordings and video recordings,” said the museum’s archivist, Kate Heikkila.

The original vision for the fair was a celebration to commemorate Vancouver’s Centennial.

“The first CPR train came to Vancouver in 1886 and the city of Vancouver was incorporated that same year, and so it started off as a local trade fair, around the theme of transportation,” she said.

“In 1982 that scope expanded, to be a universal fair on a larger scale, similar to Expo ’67 in Montreal. It was a huge idea. Vancouver wasn’t on the international level, as somewhere like Montreal would have been in 1967,” said Heikkila. “It was relatively resource-based still, very industrial, especially in the area of False Creek where they were creating it.”

That “huge idea” became Expo ’86, and it changed the city, and the province, forever.

“Without Expo ’86, there wouldn’t be a lot of the infrastructure that we think of today as emblematic of Vancouver,” says Heikkila. “So it did change Vancouver. It sort of transitioned both the city and the province away from a resource-based economy. It became a tourism destination and really, brought a lot of money into the city and a lot of investment.”