By Shea Henry/Special to The News
It is safe to say that Port Haney would not have become a bustling centre of early settler life without the building of the wharf.
The importance of this structure to the early settler years of Haney is often overlooked.
While the wood and materials have been replaced through the years, the heritage of the site is still very much intact, with the wharf sitting right where it was originally built, at the bottom of 224th Street.
The settler history of the future wharf began with the purchase of a pre-emption by James Wickwire in 1860.
The first name for the area was in fact Wickwire’s Landing.
It wasn’t until around 1877 that Thomas Haney arrived to the area and purchased Wickwire’s 160 acres from him.
The area briefly bore the name “Haney’s Landing,” until 1882 when the wharf was built, turning the landing into a port.
The Canadian Pacific Railroad was in full swing getting their railroad finished and it was at that time that the building reached Maple Ridge.
A wharf was then built at the bottom of 224th Street (Then Ontario Street), as a landing spot for CPR materials.
After that work proceeded on the railway – both towards Port Hammond and back towards Mission.
The wharf would eventually house businesses, receive goods and persons into the area, and see the shipment of lumber, bricks, frozen fish, and all of the other industrial products of early Maple Ridge.
As an aside, our Hammond readers will be delighted to hear that in the early years of Port Haney, the town site was referred to in the Columbian Newspaper as a “suburb of Port Hammond.”
Since then, the wharf has been renovated, added to, rebuilt, and rethought.
It is now part of the Maple Ridge Heritage Walk and a lovely place to sit and enjoy a beautiful sunset along the river.
It adds a character to the historic neighbourhood of Port Haney, and is the best enjoyed during the summer and our annual Music on the Wharf concerts.
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The Maple Ridge Historical Society has been throwing an annual concert at the wharf ever since 1996, but the musical heritage of the wharf begins at least as far back as 1899.
In late September of 1899, the “New Westminster Bandsmen” began a concert at the Guichon Hotel in New West. They then proceeded down to the wharf, boarded the steamer Glenora, steamed their way up the Fraser to Port Haney, along the wharf, and up to the Haney Community Hall playing their instruments all the while.
They apparently entertained for hours and at midnight played their way back down to the Glenora – it’s captain impatiently tooting the whistle for them to hurry up because it was midnight,
According to a newspaper article the most fondest of memories were made that night.
While no traveling concerts take place for our bands on the wharf you can be rest assured that fun and excitement of that night lives on 123 years later in the Music on the Wharf concerts throughout the summer.
Join us for our annual summer concerts on the wharf and be part of our history our heritage and our community.
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– Shea Henry is executive director of the Maple Ridge Museum & Archives
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