Richmond-Bridgeport.
2 candidates, one seat.

The Musqueam Indian Band, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, says on its website that its ancestors have lived in the Fraser River estuary and looked after it for thousands of years. The band lists Richmond and YVR Airport among the places that are today portions of its territory. On 10 June 1976 Musqueam's elected leadership and members signed the Musqueam Declaration, which states that Musqueam people hold aboriginal title and aboriginal rights within the territory their ancestors occupied and used.

On 21 June 2017 Musqueam and Vancouver International Airport signed a 30-year agreement, The Musqueam Indian Band - YVR Airport Sustainability & Friendship Agreement. YVR's announcement quotes Chief Wayne Sparrow: “YVR is located on our traditional lands.” It lists scholarships and jobs, one per cent of annual YVR revenue for Musqueam, and the protection of archaeological resources among the terms.

The City of Richmond Archives tells part of the story from the colonial survey of the 1860s. Its book on Sea Island says the northwest and southwest corners of the island were set aside for Musqueam in 1862, and that these lands stayed in Musqueam title until 1973. In that year, when a new runway was proposed, most of the reserve on Sea Island was exchanged for property south of Canoe Pass in Ladner. The book gives the land that remains in Musqueam title on Sea Island as 5.3 hectares, with rights along the water's edge, southwest of McDonald Slough.

The Archives' book names Hugh McRoberts as the first European settler on Sea Island, in 1861. In the winter of 1861 to 1862 he built the first dyke on the island, an earth bank that keeps tides and floods off farmland, and in the next summer he harvested a field of wheat. Hugh Boyd and Alexander Kilgour began a farm on the south side of the island in 1866 and called it Rosebrook Farm.

In April 1879 twenty-five settlers signed a petition asking for a municipality, and five of them lived on Sea Island. BC Geographical Names records that the Township of Richmond was incorporated on 10 November 1879. The first election was held on 5 January 1880 at the home of Boyd and Kilgour on Sea Island, and Boyd was chosen warden, the title then used for the head of the council. The council met in that house through 1880.

In November 1880 the municipality was divided into three wards, and Sea Island formed Ward A. Boyd led the council until 1886. The Archives' book says the council later moved to the first Town Hall on Lulu Island, at River and Cambie Roads, although Sea Island stayed an important part of the municipality.

The first bridges joined Marpole on the Vancouver side of the North Arm to Sea Island and then to Lulu Island. The Archives' book says they took six years of meetings between Richmond, Vancouver, the province, the federal government and the Canadian Pacific Railway, and that they were finished in November 1889. Officials kept them closed at first because they looked unsafe. On 3 January 1890 a sheet of ice carried away the section that swung open for boats. The book says this early link lasted until the Oak Street Bridge was completed in 1957.

Harry Eburne moved his store to Sea Island, between the two bridge spans, in 1891, and in 1894 the post office in his store was officially named the Eburne Post Office. The Archives' newsletter says that by 1914 the Bridgeport area had a flour mill, a shingle mill, an iron bar mill, the Dominion Safe Works, a sawmill and many residents. The Richmond Sentinel, using the Archives' schools exhibit, reports that Bridgeport School was a combined elementary and secondary school from 1910 to 1927 and then an elementary school until 1980.

The City's heritage inventory places the Pitt River Bridge in the Bridgeport neighbourhood. The Canadian Pacific Railway built its steel spans for a crossing of the Pitt River, and the inventory says the bridge was completed in October 1907. In 1957 Western Canada Steel had the central span and two steel frames barged down the Fraser River and set on log supports, so that vehicles could reach its plant on Twigg Island, the western half of Mitchell Island. The inventory says the plant closed in 1988.

The Archives' book says that a joint air board chose Sea Island in December 1928 from nine possible sites, because the island could be used almost at once after a few fences were removed. The City of Vancouver bought the land from farmers at $600 per acre, and construction began in 1930. Premier S.P. Tolmie opened the City of Vancouver Airport and Seaplane Harbour on 22 July 1931. An air show ran from 22 to 25 July, and the book says an estimated 70,000 people visited the airport in those four days. The airport had two paved runways, one 2,350 feet long and one 1,350 feet long.

Commercial flights began in 1934, when United Airlines started a trial service to Seattle. The Richmond Museum says the airport was renamed Vancouver International Airport in 1948, and the Archives' newsletter says a new $32 million terminal opened in 1968. The City's heritage inventory lists the Britannia Hangar, built in 1957 and 1958 for Canadian Pacific Airlines, as the first jet-age hangar in Canada.

The airport also changed the island itself. The Archives' book says that a shell midden at a permanent house site on Sea Island, a heap of shells left by people who lived there, was levelled and covered by an airport runway in 1953.

During the Second World War the airport became a Royal Canadian Air Force base, and the Archives' newsletter says Boeing Canada built a plant there to make patrol bombers. Wartime Housing Limited, a federal government company, built 328 houses of three designs for the workers. The first residents moved in during January 1944. The community was named Burkeville after Stanley Burke, president of Boeing Aircraft, and its streets were named after aircraft. The Richmond Museum says workers could walk from Burkeville to the Boeing plant at 5400 Airport Road South in half an hour.

The Archives says the new community was controversial, because the federal government took farmland by law and many farmers had to move. The City's heritage inventory says Ernest Cooney's farm was taken in 1942, and that his barn was kept as a community building. It still serves as the Sea Island Community Centre and is the last barn on Sea Island. From 1944 to 1947 Burkeville stood outside both Richmond and Vancouver. Richmond Council brought it into the municipality by a bylaw in May 1947, and the houses were then sold to the people renting them and to returning soldiers.

Sea Island School held its grand opening on 17 October 1947. Reeve Grauer chose the name from three choices: Sea Island, Princess Elizabeth and Frasea. The City's heritage inventory says the school served students until 2019, when it closed because too few children were enrolled. BC Geographical Names records that the name Burkeville was adopted on 26 November 1979, as the Township of Richmond had recommended.

The Richmond Museum says that Indigenous Peoples set up seasonal fishing camps at Terra Nova during the salmon and sturgeon runs, and that the area was named Spul’u’kwuks after the water that bubbles up with natural gas. The City of Richmond's heritage inventory describes a Musqueam shell midden at Terra Nova as the first evidence of human settlement there. The first non-native settlement began in 1868. The City says that in 1890 the land was awarded to Hugh Youdall, and that five settlers and fishermen who had lived on it since 1886 named their home Terra Nova, meaning new land. The Museum says Newfoundland fishermen arrived in the late 1880s, and that James and Isabella Mellis came from Newfoundland in 1887.

The Museum says the Terra Nova Cannery began operations in 1892, and the City says the Alliance Cannery was built in 1895. BC Packers bought both in 1902. The City's inventory says the original cannery ran until 1928 and was then used for storing nets and as a fish station until the 1970s, when its buildings were removed. In the 1890s James Mellis ran a stagecoach between Terra Nova and Vancouver, carrying produce one way and supplies and mail back.

The City says James Thompson bought his own land in Terra Nova in 1896 and served on the school board. The Archives' schools exhibit says James Thompson Elementary School, named for him, has stood at 6211 Forsythe Avenue since 1967. The Museum records that families of Japanese descent at Terra Nova had to leave in 1942, when people of Japanese descent were removed from coastal communities and interned, and that one fishing family later returned. The City's page for Thompson Community Centre, at 5151 Granville Avenue, says a non-profit community association works with the City to offer programs in the Thompson area.

The Archives' schools exhibit says the Oak Street Bridge opened in 1957, that the Marpole Bridge was torn down, and that it was not truly replaced until the Arthur Laing Bridge in 1976. J.N. Burnett Secondary School opened in stages from 1968 to serve the growing population of northwest Richmond. In the City Centre, the City's heritage inventory says the congregation of Richmond United Church dedicated its present building on Cambie Road on 24 September 1961.

On Sea Island the Cora Brown subdivision, built for returning soldiers on the northeast corner of the island, had its first residents in December 1946 and grew to more than 200 households. In 1966 the federal Minister of Transport announced that the whole of Sea Island would eventually be taken for airport expansion. Hearings ran for fourteen days in January 1973. The Archives' book says all the houses in Cora Brown were bought by the government by the end of 1974, and that Burkeville was not taken. It remains the only residential area of any size on the island.

The Canada Line opened on 17 August 2009, three and a half months ahead of schedule, with opening ceremonies at the YVR-Airport terminus station. The Province of British Columbia's news release gives the cost of the project as $2 billion and describes the line as rapid transit between downtown Vancouver, Richmond and the airport.