Unlocking North Vancouver History

A Riveted Community: North Vancouver’s Wartime Shipbuilding

Bowling League Trophy

Social events knit the shipyard workers into a supportive fabric. Sports teams encouraged camaraderie and teamwork, and enforced workplace values of achievement through co-operation. In early 1943, the workers took charge by forming the Wallace War Workers Social and Athletic Club. Baseball and soccer teams had many talented players on their rosters; other sponsored sports included boxing, wrestling, softball, archery, roller-skating and fishing. Company picnics were large social gatherings, as well. Burrard Dry Dock’s five-pin bowling league was especially popular, and said to be the largest in the world. One hundred men’s teams and ten women’s teams were drawn from the company’s north and south yards. They included managers as well as employees, and groups of each were sometimes pitted against each other — a situation in which they tried their very best to beat each other.

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WHAT
This was the H. M. Lewis Cup trophy for Burrard Dry Dock’s annual men’s and women’s five-pin bowling-league competition.

WHERE
North- and south-yard employees and managers bowled at the DeLuxe Alleys and Pender Alleys in Vancouver.

WHEN
Most of the leagues bowled on weekday evenings; there was also an afternoon league.

WHO
A total of 110 men’s and women’s’ teams competed alongside company executives Hugh Lewis (for whom the trophy is named) and Clarence Wallace.

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