Dollarton, North Vancouver

The Dollarton area is a beach, slope and suburb in the District of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is one and one-half kilometres south of Deep Cove.

The area is named for the Robert Dollar shipping line which owned a sawmill and wharf there from 1918 to 1941. The Pacific War shut down the lumber trade and the sawmill machinery was sold to Gordon Gibson's Vancouver Island operation. Dollar's Mill was at the foot of Bakerview St. A cedar mill operated beside the Dollar mill, and its cement foundations are a legendary ruin in adjoining Cates Park.

Notable residents

Author Malcolm Lowry and his wife Margerie lived in the area in the 1940s in a shack on the Maplewood Mudflats between the Second Narrows Bridge and the Burrard Reserve. He died June 27, 1957 in the town of Ripe, Essex in England. His presence in the Dollarton area's history is celebrated in the annual "Under The Volcano" music and poetry festival, named after his most famous novel. It is held in Cates Park, on the shores of Burrard Inlet, where there is also a monument in his memory. The Lowry collection Hear Us O Lord From Heaven Thy Dwelling Place contains the moving story "The Forest Path To The Spring" describing life with his muse Margerie at Dollarton, which was for Lowry a respite in a turbulent life. The descriptions of environment and fellow shack-dwelling neighbors are both detailed and beautiful.