Heritage Management Strategy

This theme explores Coquitlam's distinctiveness, through key city elements such as arts and culture, significant achievements, and urban and neighbourhood character. Understanding the city's unique social, cultural and physical context can assist in more people in the community seeing themselves reflected in the city's heritage.

Recognizing Indigenous Roots

Indigenous culture is a critical part of Coquitlam's roots and identity. Acknowledging Kwikwetlem First Nations traditional lands and creation stories that establish the earliest and ongoing relationships to the land are essential for reconciliation.

Development Supporting Growth

As the greater Vancouver metropolitan area grew, Coquitlam became a new place to live. While some felt that Coquitlam would never thrive as a bedroom community, developers building residential subdivisions found buyers for the large treed lots and modern houses on newly created streets up the mountain slopes.

Shaped By Geography

Coquitlam's geographical location with its southern boundary next to the Fraser River and its northern boundary within Coast Mountains has created an urban and human geography that varies from the southwest to the northeast, resulting in microcosms of diverse history and culture across the city. The histories of Maillardville, Riverview and Little Korea are different from the northeast's proximity to nature or the urban City Centre. Acknowledging that the city's different neighbourhoods are individual entities contributes to Coquitlam’s identity. These historic neighbourhoods, each with their own heritage, physical and cultural context, and landscape and architectural traditions are evolving into modern communities designed for the future.

A Strong Arts & Cultural Community

Coquitlam's identity is defined in part through its arts and culture context. This is found in community arts organizations and places such as Place des Arts and the Evergreen Cultural Centre, public art and the city's many individual artists. It also connects to the BC film sector prominence in Coquitlam, where locations across the city are used as backdrop for major productions. The City’s current efforts to develop a new South West Arts & Heritage Centre demonstrates the value placed on arts and culture by the community, and is a sign of the future contributions and role arts and culture will continue to have in the city.

The Evolving City Centre

Other City initiatives that contribute to Coquitlam's identity is the creation of destination green space in Town Centre Park, a former gravel pit and the sustaining of a robust urban tree canopy, both of which underscore the importance of nature in the community. Coquitlam Centre, a Tri-Cities retail hub since 1979, now being master planned as a new town centre, reinforces Coquitlam's urban core as a destination and not a through route to elsewhere. Iconic and remembered places such as the mall, the Westwood Racetrack and others are ongoing contributors to the city's identity.

Well-Known Figures with Coquitlam Roots

The city's distinctiveness can be found in its celebration of high-profile residents who have made significant achievements in their respective fields, including Academy Award winners, musicians, architects, medical professionals, politicians, social change-makers, athletes and others.

Story image: Coquitlam Summer Concert Series

This theme focuses on the importance of transportation and communication, historical and current, to Coquitlam.

Early Transportation

The Coquitlam and Fraser rivers have provided a travel route for the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm, Kwikwetlem First Nation, since before remembered time, with the village site of slakəya’nc located near the meeting of the Coquitlam and Stó:lō (Fraser) Rivers. Canoes remain an important cultural element for the Kwikwetlem, illustrated by a historic canoe dedication ceremony that took place on the Riverview Lands.

River transportation and rail and road construction have been fundamental to Coquitlam’s settlers and city's development and character. The city’s growing forest and agricultural economies required transportation routes, and the physical environment influenced the ways in which people travelled and how goods were shipped.

Economic Influences to Transportation

The city’s position with easy access to the Fraser River made it a choice location to settle and develop settler economies. The first shipments of lumber from Fraser Mills were by ship from the company’s docks on the river.

Major Corridors and Roadways

The first roadway, the Pitt River Road, was constructed in 1862 by the Royal Engineers linking a ferry landing used for crossing the mouth of the Coquitlam River to New Westminster. The construction of North Road between Indian Arm in Port Moody and the Fraser River waterfront in New Westminster provided access for the settlement and development in Coquitlam, and today remains a major transportation corridor.

The Coast Meridian Road was formed out of the original survey line that aligned with the Dominion Survey system and was located approximately 122°45 west longitude. Coquitlam's Townships 39 and 40, surveyed in 1874-75, lie west and east of the Coast Meridian respectively, establishing the gridded lot pattern of the city.

The Railway Connection

Another major impetus to the creation of the municipality was the establishment of the Westminster Junction spur line of the Canadian Pacific Railway to the Fraser River port of New Westminster in 1911. With the completion of the spur line offering another transportation option, the area’s farming and logging industries began to thrive.

The Lougheed Highway

Coquitlam received a major boost in the mid-20th century with the 1953 opening of the Lougheed Highway to Vancouver along the north side of the Fraser River, making the city more accessible and setting the stage for increased residential growth. The original Pitt River Bridge was opened in 1957 by Premier W. A. C. Bennett, extending the new highway eastward. The completion of the Port Mann bridge in 1964, helped turn Coquitlam into the modern suburb it is today.

Plans to reroute the Lougheed Highway in 1972 were met with mixed reactions because of impacts to agricultural lands. The Coast Meridian Overpass, constructed in 2010, connects Coast Meridian Road and Lougheed Highway the north with Kingsway Avenue and Broadway Street (Port Coquitlam) on the south.

The Arrival of the SkyTrain Evergreen Extention

In 2016, as part of the burgeoning city centre, the long-awaited Evergreen Extension of the Millennium SkyTrain Line opened in 2016, running from Lougheed Town Centre in Burnaby to Lafarge Lake in Coquitlam, further solidifying City Centre’s future as a major nexus of the region’s northeast. The city has four SkyTrain stations on the Millennium Line that are a part of the extension. Prior to the Skytrain extension, in 1995, the West Coast Express established the first frequent passenger rail connection to Coquitlam’s City Centre.

Story image: SkyTrain on Clarke Rd.

An active community and sense of belonging are significant aspects of Coquitlam, with community support, social and cultural institutions, nature, outdoor activity, the arts and local events playing major roles in city life and community well-being.

Cultural Influences

Kwikwetlem First Nation cultural practices, artifacts and cultural identities have been inherent in the region over millenniums, creating a diverse material and spiritual culture.

Settlers and and newcomers brought their own traditions. Immigrant and marginalized groups established themselves in the community represented by Chinese Canadian market gardens, restaurants and shops, the Sikh community's gurdwara at Fraser Mills with lumber provided by the company, while Francophone community and culture continue to thrive in Maillardville.

Spiritual and Social Connections

Churches of all faiths formed an integral part of the social fabric of early Coquitlam. Apart from fulfilling the spiritual needs of the residents, much of their socializing revolved around the church, in the absence of community centres and other recreational facilities. Dances and craft fairs took place at the Agricultural Hall.

The Natural Outdoors as a Social Connection

Social and community life in Coquitlam encompasses outdoor activity and culture that has long been a part of everyday life. The network of recreational trails throughout the city provides opportunities for trail walks and Burke and Eagle mountains are popular for mountain biking and hiking, including the challenging Coquitlam Crunch. The Trans Canada Trail follows LaFarge Lake along city greenways, while Terry Fox's favourite training route helps memorialize his accomplishments.

There are numerous parks, including Mundy Park, the largest civic park, Coquitlam River Park, Minnekhada and Colony Farm regional parks, a regional park reserve at Widgeon Marsh and the southern portion of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park.

Recreational Activities

A variety of recreational, cultural and civic institutions are part of the fabric of Coquitlam. Long a Coquitlam landmark, the Vancouver Golf Club opened in 1911, becoming one of the finest championship courses in the nation. Operational until 1990, the Westwood Racing Circuit opened on the Westwood Plateau in 1959, an area then far removed from the region’s population centres. Mountain recreation is emphasized by Burke Mountain Ski Resorts ski lodge and rope tow operation on Coquitlam mountain during the late 1960s. This ski culture was represented by more than 100 family-held ski cabin leases on the mountain. Today, the mountain slopes are crossed by an extensive network of mountain biking trails.

Sports and Events

Significant sporting events have taken place in Coquitlam. The B.C. Summer Games were held in the city in 1991, while the torch relay for the 2010 Olympics featured Coquitlam residents as torch bearers. The city's large community sports program, including soccer, lacrosse, track, softball and baseball, is significant from not only a recreational perspective but as part of the city's identity.

Other annual events of note include the Highland Games, Teddy Bear Picnic, Kaleidoscope Festival, Lights at Lafarge, Coquitlam Crunch, Terry Fox training route and the Man in Motion Tour (Thermal Drive), as well as ongoing features such as casino performances and the city's international food scene.

Story image: BC Summer Games Opening Ceremonies, 1991

This theme focuses on the ways in which Coquitlam's economic history and diversity has grown and evolved over time.

The Kwikwetlem First Nation utilized the abundant rivers, floodplains and hillsides around today’s city to hunt, fish for salmon and eulachon and gather medicinal and food plants.

From its transformation as an early mill and forestry town to a major regional centre, diverse economic opportunities have included hunting, food gathering, trapping, fishing, logging, sawmilling, agriculture, gravel mining, small businesses and retail. Coquitlam's evolving contemporary economy includes its emergence as a regional commercial and corporate centre and its filming and tourism potential. All of these economic endeavours have influenced the form and character of today's city.

Agriculture and Food Production

Coquitlam’s warm summers, mild winters and fertile soil were factors that provided land highly suitable for farming. From large farms such as Colony Farm, the family-owned Booth and Brehaut farms and the Whiting and Pollard greenhouses, to smaller-scale homestead farms and family garden plots, Coquitlam has sustained itself agriculturally throughout its history. Most Coquitlam families had fruit trees and vegetable gardens in their back yards or cultivated a designated allotment nearby. There were Chinese market gardens, ubiquitous poultry farms and mushroom and strawberry growing operations. The Poirier Street Farmers Market, established in 1996, is the longest running suburban farmers market in the Lower Mainland.

Immigrant Contributions to Local Economy

The Canadian Western Lumber Company, known as Fraser Mills, became one of the largest sawmill enterprises in the Commonwealth and Coquitlam’s first and major employer.

Immigrants have long been a part of the work force in Coquitlam. Until 1909, many of the mill’s labourers were of Chinese, Japanese and South Asian descent who faced discrimination in the workplace and in the community. As a result of race riots in Vancouver, Fraser Mills management provided incentives for French Canadians to relocate to Coquitlam to replace the mainly Asian work force subject to severe discrimination.

Retail and Shopping

From the 1940s to the 1970s, Coquitlam developed into a shopping mall destination, contributing to its suburban character. The Cariboo Shopping Centre, Lougheed Mall, Westwood Mall, and the 1979 Coquitlam Centre drew shoppers from all of the neighbouring communities, reinforcing the area as a major centre. Tourism Coquitlam is a key supporter of the city's economy, through entertainment, dining and retail, Town Centre Park, Silver City Cineplex theatre, cultural events such as Canada Day and Festival du Bois and arts and outdoor activities.

Modern Enterprise

While Coquitlam is still primarily a residential suburb, new economic opportunities are arising through the development of City Centre and enhanced transportation options. Some large industries remain, including gravel extraction, wood products production, wholesaling and warehousing, and transportation and trucking, while new and exciting initiatives include major mixed use development, Qnet, and major headquarters and employers. Today, the Kwikwetlem First Nation operate successful entrepreneurial projects such as the Kwikwetlem Business Park and KFN Enterprises LP, economic development initiatives committed to promoting self-determination and long-term growth of the Nation.

Story image: Richard Whiting in the family greenhouse on Rochester Avenue, 1922

This theme identifies the diversity of Coquitlam's people, human geography and settlement that has occurred within its distinctive landscape between the Fraser River and the mountains, and why people have chosen to come here and stay here. This is reflected in the city's multiculturalism and connected yet diverse heritage values, stories and points of view. These untold stories of the past can reveal how the city can look to its future.

Earliest Inhabitants

Prior to settler arrival, there has been a continuous post-glaciation record of human occupation dating from the early Holocene period, 5,000 to 10,000 years ago. The Kwikwetlem use the land to collect medicinal and food plants, berries, and to harvest fish and game.

Building Road Connections

The city’s geography has influenced much of its settler history, including settlement and agriculture on the flatter lowlands, logging on the mountain slopes, and river and roadway transportation. North Road was constructed to connect two key water bodies, Indian Arm and the Fraser River, and while built to provide access to Port Moody’s port facilities, North Road effectively opened up the wilderness area to settlers that would become Coquitlam.

Diversity and Growth Over the 20th Century

In the early decades of the 20th century, settlers were drawn to work in the logging industry and sawmills and for the agricultural potential of the area, establishing numerous homesteads and farms along the municipality's main roadways. Ads in the local newspaper promised investors and potential residents that Coquitlam was to be the “industrial centre of greater Vancouver.” People lived in Burquitlam, Maillardville and other pockets of settlement occupying vibrant compact neighbourhoods within a large piece of relatively uninhabited land.

Throughout its history, people have been attracted to Coquitlam to settle and stay here. In the 1930s, there was a wave of migrants from Saskatchewan and other prairie provinces escaping agricultural drought and the Depression, often of Francophone, Ukrainian or Scandinavian descent.

Throughout Coquitlam’s history there has been continued immigration of people of a variety of cultures. Chinese and Japanese immigrants found work at the sawmill at Fraser Mills. South Asians, mostly Sikhs from the Punjab, arrived in the early 20th century to clear land, farm, and work in the lumber industry. The Francophone community at Maillardville eventually formed the largest Francophone centre west of Manitoba. More recently, an Iranian community has been established in the city, while an area known as Little Korea thrives in Burquitlam.

Recognizing Truths of the Past

The city also identifies with less positive aspects of immigration, with the early Asian workforce replaced for racial reasons. Japanese Canadians were removed from the community during World War II, while the Komagata Maru incident is remembered by the city's South Asian community. Legacies of these cultures are ongoing contributors to the city's identity.

Southwest Coquitlam comprises the original settler core of the city, with the community of Maillardville and the Fraser River industrial sector giving way to the residential areas of Austin Heights with high and flat plateau topography. In between, residential neighbourhoods associated with different settler groups have evolved into places with modest houses and individual character. Coquitlam and its people have evolved and changed over the course of its history, and is today one of the fastest growing cities in the province.

Story image: Seafood store in Burquitlam's Korean neighbourhood

Understanding Coquitlam's distinctiveness as an emerging regional focal point, its history of governance and the institutions found within its city boundaries is significant in addressing the city's civic future. As the centre of the Tri-Cities area, Coquitlam's systems, institutions and human relationships are, and will be, instrumental in creating an important central place within the wider region.

The Kwikwetlem First Nation

Indian reserves, established by the Colonial government after B.C. became a colony in 1858, had severe impacts on local Indigenous communities’ land use, rights and access. Coquitlam Reserves #1, the ancient village site of slakəya'nc and #2, setłama'kmən, located on the Coquitlam River within city boundaries and allocated to the Kwikwetlem First Nation, are small areas of land within the larger territory within which Kwikwetlem have resided and provided stewardship since before remembered time.

Becoming a Municipality

Today’s city had its beginnings as the Corporation of the District of Coquitlam, incorporated in 1891 as an outgrowth of Westminster Junction, a sparsely populated community on the Fraser River. The independent Corporation of the District of Fraser Mills was incorporated in 1913, a 390-acre company town along the Fraser River, the same year Westminster Junction ceded to become Port Coquitlam. In 1971, Fraser Mills and Coquitlam amalgamated, incorporating as one city in 1992.

The City Centre

While Maillardville emerged early as the city's civic core, the need for representation throughout the larger city resulted in an active decision in the 1970s and 80s to shift Coquitlam's commerce and administrative hub to a more centralized location. Coquitlam’s Regional Town Centre, with a central location providing a diversity of retail, office, cultural, recreational and educational services, benefits from a centralized transportation system at a regional scale, making it one of eight designated Regional Town Centres under Metro Vancouver’s Regional Growth Strategy. It is becoming the new heart of the city.

Relationship to Provincial Government

Provincial government institutions also reflect Coquitlam's regional significance. A prime example is the Riverview Lands, known traditionally by the Kwikwetlem First Nation as smu’q wa ala, the Place of the Great Blue Heron, which housed thousands of psychiatric patients over more than one hundred years and is now a significant heritage site and public green space within the city’s borders. The agricultural component of the institution is now Colony Farm Regional Park, located alongside the provincial Forensic Psychiatric Institute. Coquitlam is home to a more recent and unique post-disaster oriented building, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure's Transportation Management Office.

Schools and Education

School District No. 43 supports 32,000 students in a system of 59 elementary, middle and secondary schools, each with its own personality representative of its students, staff, and community. Douglas College, the largest public degree-granting college institution in B.C., is located in the City Centre.

Health and Spiritual Places and Institutions

The city's two cemeteries, the civic Robinson Memorial Park Cemetery and the Riverview Cemetery, are significance spiritual sites within the city. Critical health services are provided by nearby Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, further representing Coquitlam's regional, institutional nature.

Heritage Institutions

Coquitlam's heritage, including built, natural and intangible heritage, artifacts and documentation is considered critical to understanding the city's past and contributing to its present and future. The City of Coquitlam Archives, Coquitlam Heritage and other cultural and heritage institutions support heritage as a foundational part of the city.

Story image: East Lawn Building at Riverview

This theme explores the significance of Coquitlam's natural history to its identity and development, particularly the importance of the Coquitlam River, an iconic and defining geographical feature of the city that tangibly and abstractly creates a thread that resonates throughout the city's history.

The Coquitlam River

Fed by numerous tributary creeks and streams, the Coquitlam River originates in the Coast Mountains near Indian Arm and flows south into Coquitlam Lake, a watershed region behind the Coquitlam Dam, and into the Fraser River. Coquitlam Lake and its associated reservoir provide the city's source of drinking water.

The Coquitlam River has been a source of life for the Kwikwetlem for millennia, a defining feature of the Nation's large territorial lands. The name, kʷikʷəƛ̓əm, refers to “red fish up the river,” a small early sockeye salmon that once ran in great number in the Coquitlam River and spawned in Coquitlam Lake. Elders talk of these sockeye as running so thick that it was difficult to navigate canoes.[1]

Coquitlam's Unique Geographical Location

Coquitlam is uniquely situated with its southernmost boundary in the floodplain of the Fraser River, and its northern boundary deep within the wilderness of the Coast Mountains. The city sits within a glaciated landscape including a still-existing glacier created by the final Fraser Glaciation that impacted the region between 10,000 to 14,000 years ago. Other significant natural features include DeBoville Slough, a wetland ecosystem linking the Pitt River with Hyde Creek, and the Pitt-Addington Marsh Wildlife Area, both home to eagles, osprey, herons and other birds, and large and small mammals.

With the Fraser and Pitt rivers forming two of the city’s boundaries, nearby mountain peaks that include Burke, Eagle and Coquitlam mountains, and the presence of Mundy, Lost, Como and Lafarge lakes - the last two as former gravel pits restored as significant and beautiful ecological assets - as well as numerous creek corridors, nature plays a significant role in defining Coquitlam's character and identity.

The regional climate and geography have produced a rainforest ecosystem in the Coastal Western Hemlock biogeoclimatic zone, with vegetation that is dominated by western hemlock, Douglas-fir, western red cedar, red huckleberry, Alaskan blueberry and ferns, all resources contributed to the flourishing of Indigenous cultures.

Location Shapes Coquitlam's Growth and Evolution

Coquitlam’s geography has influenced its settler history, sometimes with significant impacts. Dam construction to provide the city's water has been devastating through its impact on natural waterways and Kwikwetlem traditional lands, particularly for decimating the sockeye salmon run which gave the city its name and remains a key issue for Kwikwetlem today. Coquitlam river flooding over the last century necessitated dyking projects beginning in the 1990s.

The city is fortunate to be infused with nature. City Centre connects nature and culture, while Mundy Park epitomizes this theme as a significant link between the city's uplands and lowlands, playing a role in the regional green network and providing a critical heart of green infrastructure. Parks abound, the city’s dykes are recreational amenities, and the nearby mountains, historically supporting skiing, now host mountain biking, hiking and other outdoor recreational opportunities. Coquitlam can truly claim "fun is in our nature."

Story image: Coquitlam River

A thematic framework is a structure that uses themes to help conceptualize past events and to place sites, people and events into their historical context. Historical themes are defined as key ideas for describing a major historical force or process which has contributed to the history and evolution of a place.

How Do Thematic Frameworks Help Identify Heritage Resources?

Thematic frameworks have a number of interconnected uses in the identification and management of heritage resources.

They are an important tool for both the contextual overview of heritage resources and the comparative analysis of the significance of individual resources. Themes guide judgments about what types of heritage resources might exist on a site or in an area, and assist in the assessment of their heritage significance. The use of major themes can draw attention to gaps in existing histories.

Thematic Frameworks Support Value-Based Heritage Conservation

Thematic frameworks support value-based heritage conservation, which is currently considered best practices in Canada. The organizing of a community’s heritage into themes is an excellent fit for values-based conservation and heritage management because it supports a broad, layered and inclusive perspective of heritage values and resources.

Discovering Where Stories and Places Fit in the Overall Context

Linking heritage resources with one or more themes helps to determine a site’s comparative significance in a local, regional, national and international context, assisting in the process of determining which sites should be conserved or protected.

A thematic framework helps communities to identify and manage a range of sites that represent aspects of local, regional, national or international histo­ry. Gaps in the stories of particular neighbourhoods can be identified, facili­tating the management and interpretation of additional heritage resources.

The concept of representativeness can also be used as a tool to select the best examples of a particular type of heritage resource, given that capacity for the management and interpretation of historic sites will always be limited.

Coquitlam's Heritage Themes

Aspects of Coquitlam’s heritage are organized under the following seven themes, which together seek to succinctly encapsulate the history, physical character and central stories found in its community heritage, as well as creating a web of relationships and storylines linking the city’s history, heritage values and historical resources.

These themes are unique to Coquitlam and are intended to serve as a foundational tool of the heritage strategy, informing decision-making around heritage conservation into the future and providing confidence and consistency around heritage decision-making in Coquitlam, from initial questions at the inquiry desk to complex developments and Council priorities.

Click to read about each of the draft themes for Coquitlam's heritage:

Uplands to Lowlands: Geography Shapes a City

A Regional Nexus

Diverse Landscape, Diverse People

Sustenance Economy to Commercial Centre

Community Connections

Canoe Route to SkyTrain

Evolving Community Identity

Story Image: North Road