It may look like just a rock, but West Grebe Islet is a cradle of biodiversity and a marker of changing civil rights in Vancouver
At a glance, it’s just a rugged rock jutting out of Howe Sound, about a third of a hectare in size, 350 metres off of Lighthouse Park. If you squint your eyes from the shoreline you may be able to make out some birds, a Canadian Coast Guard navigational beacon, and not much else.
The course, and later the entire neighbourhood, took its name from a more famous Gleneagles in Scotland. Memberships at the club sold for $150 in its first year. The first hole-in-one was sunk by Mr. A. T. Finnie, according to a front-page story of the West Van News in March of 1928. “Anti-Semitism was an issue then and remains problematic today. It was an era when owning real estate in certain areas was still prohibited. Although there may not have been legal restrictive covenants, there surely was a bias. High society tacitly excluded Jews from its inner sanctum,” wrote Sarah H. Tobe for the journal.
The West Vancouver council of the day wanted to see Gleneagles stay. After negotiations over the price and a 2453-248 vote by West Van residents, Gleneagles became the property of the municipality in 1958, for $350,000. “He said, ‘I saw this beautiful piece of property. Absolutely gorgeous.’ And he said it has to stay that way forever,” she said. “He had incredible foresight. And I think he knew all about development, and he did not want it to happen there.”
Among those regularly spotted are a mated pair of eagles who nest on the mainland not far away, but come to perch on the Coast Guard’s light beacon. “It’s a pretty important aspect of the marine ecology and of the Howe Sound region in general,” said Matt MacKinnon, district environmental manager for West Vancouver.
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