1971 footage from the Maplewood Mudflats in North Vancouver, from Mudflats Living by Robert Fresco and Kris Paterson.
The Mudflats was an off-grid community of artists, hippies and squatters who built ramshackle cabins on stilts using driftwood and salvaged materials. In December 1971, the District of North Vancouver evicted them and burned their homes in order to clear the land for the development of a $100M shopping center and apartment complex.
The following year, former Mudflats residents put on the two-week-long Dollarton Pleasure Faire on the site, which was timed to clash with the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors. Eventually public outrage trumped development and today the Maplewood Mudflats is mostly a wildlife refuge.
