Lynn Valley

The first settler of the North Shore can be traced back to 1860, when a sawmill was built to harvest the trees. A few years later, the mill near bankruptcy, a American from the state of Maine by the name of Sewell Prescott Moody, bought the sawmill and quickly brought it back to profitability.

Sewell Prescott Moody died in 1875 when the ship he was on sank in a storm off Cape Flattery while on its way to San Francisco. The townsite that grew and the sawmill quickly became known as Moodyville.

The Early Settlers

Clearing the land and harvesting the trees, settlers started building homes and developing the North Shore. The first area to be developed is what is now known as Lower Lonsdale. From there, the development grew up the slopes and out to the east and west.

For a while, the upper reaches of Lonsdale Avenue, went by the name of “Pig Alley” because the residents kept pigs... and the winding road up toward the lower reaches of Mount Seymour was known as “Snake Hill”

Growth
Lynn Valley Road, named after a British Royal Engineer (John Linn) who settled there, was a long boardwalk set in the middle of virgin forest.

By 1890, there were approximately 100 people residing on the North Shore. A formal petition was made to the Lieutenant Governor and The District Municipality of North Vancouver was declared in 1891.

Moodyville, the original townsite to the east of Lower Lonsdale was excluded from the new municipality at the request of the proprietors of the mill.

The new municipality was 259 sq. km. (100 sq.mi.) and stretched from Horseshoe Bay in the west to Deep Cove and the western shore of Indian Arm in the east.