Article content A small crowd gathered at Brockton Point on a recent warm Vancouver summer evening, ready to brace themselves for a big bang that has been echoing across Burrard Inlet since the late 1800s. The Stanley Park Nine O’Clock Gun has been a reliable timekeeper in the city nearly every night for 130 years. It has been a signal to kids back in the day that it was time to head home.
It’s been the target of vandalism by UBC’s notorious engineering department pranksters, who painted it red one year. It also went silent for a time during the pandemic, when supply chain shortages led to difficulty getting the gunpowder needed to set off its nightly charge. It even went off two hours early for a time to coincide with the 7 p.
m. salutes to health-care workers in the early days of COVID. Those gathered near the venerable old gun last Thursday were all set to cover their ears and leap out of their skins at 9 p.
m. Chuck Mackenzie was there with his grandkids, hoping they too could experience the jump-scare of a sound he remembers while growing up in Vancouver. So were several dozen tourists who had heard about the historic landmark.
“At 8:59 p.m., the buzzer sounded to warn the crowd that the cannon was about to blast off,” Mackenzie recalled.
“The crowd was absolutely silent while waiting for the lights to flash letting us know that there was only seconds left to wait.” And then ..
. nothing. At 9:03 p.
m., when all they got was the sound of silence, Mackenzie and .