First Aircraft Flights

Minoru Park–called Centennial Park till 1960–was home to a number of aviation ‘firsts’ long before the Vancouver Civic Airport was built on Sea Island. The flat, open landscape here made it an ideal place for early planes to take-off and land.

In 1910, Charles Hamilton piloted the first powered flight in western Canada from Centennial Park. It was a true community event, with over 3,500 people turning out to cheer Hamilton on and watch him make two flights overhead. Other ‘firsts’ soon followed: the first airplane constructed in greater Vancouver flew from here (1911), the first airplane passenger flight in British Columbia (1912), the first solo flight in Canada by female pilot Alys McKey Bryant (1913), and finally, the first airmail flight left from this Park across the Rocky Mountains to Calgary (1919).

Photo Credit: Charles Hamilton’s Curtiss biplane on Minoru, 1910. City of Richmond Archives #1978 15 18