Lost Treasure Found: Donald Duck’s Tribute to Vancouver’s Press Club

Imagine a time when a stiff drink was hard to come by, and journalists needed a secret hideaway to unwind. Back in 1933, that’s exactly why some savvy Vancouver reporters banded together to form the very first Vancouver Press Club, a private watering hole for the city’s “ink-stained wretches.” Fast forward to 1958, as the club approached its 25th anniversary, Michael Dean of The Province newspaper decided to aim high: he wrote to none other than cartoon legend Walt Disney himself, hoping for a special anniversary note.

Incredibly, his bold move paid off! Disney—or at least an artist from his renowned company—responded with a truly unique piece of memorabilia. “Congratulations! 25th anniversary Vancouver Press Club,” the message read, positioned above an adorable sketch of Donald Duck tickling the ivories, accompanied by his mischievous nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie playing a standup bass and flute. What made it even more special? The illustration was hand-colored and signed, “Me Too, Walt Disney.”

 A Wall of Cartoon Royalty

This charming illustration found its place of honor, framed and mounted on a wall inside the club at 595 Beatty St. It joined a collection of other congratulatory illustrations from beloved cartoonists of the era, including Blondie (by Chic Young), Archie (by Bob Montana), and Hi and Lois (by Mort Walker and Dik Browne). These cartoons regularly appeared in The Province or Vancouver Sun. Dean’s connection to the companies that syndicated these popular cartoons likely explains how his ambitious request reached the right hands.

 The End of an Era, The Beginning of a Hunt

Fast forward again to December 30, 1970. The original Vancouver Press Club closed its doors for good, and its fixtures went up for auction. Among the items, antique dealer Uno Langmann shrewdly purchased the entire collection of cartoons as one lot for just $75. “They were all screwed into the wall, you know, with two screws for each (artwork),” he recalls.

Langmann has carefully preserved these unique cartoons for more than half a century. However, as he approaches his 90th birthday on September 6, he feels it’s time to find them a new permanent home. He has already generously donated 20,000 photos from his vast collection to UBC, and now he’s actively seeking the perfect institution for these precious cartoons. “I held them back, because somebody had obviously made the trouble to contact all the cartoonists,” he explains. “I don’t care if they went to a new press club, but this should be together.”

Alas, a physical press club no longer exists in Vancouver; the last one, located on Granville and West 6th, closed in 1999. The city once had a Newsman’s Club in the basement of the Hotel Georgia, but that too is long gone. Even the more recent Media Club by the CBC shut its doors in 2017.

 From “Newspaper Row” to Nicotine-Stained Walls

The original Press Club first opened its doors on March 17, 1933, coinciding with St. Patrick’s Day. While the 1934 city directory (published by The Vancouver Sun) doesn’t list a “Press Club,” it does feature a “Newspaper Club of B.C.,” which was likely its original name.

The Newspaper Club’s address was 119 West Pender, suite 525, located on the top floor of the Shelly building. This was an ideal spot for local reporters and editors, as Pender Street was known as “newspaper row” during that era. The Vancouver Sun operated a few doors down at 125 West Pender, The Province’s printing press was at 189 West Pender, and the city’s third paper, the News-Herald, was located at 414 West Pender.

In 1937, a fire at The Sun’s Pender location forced it to relocate to the iconic Sun Tower at 500 Beatty. Both The Sun and The Province eventually moved out of downtown to the new Pacific Press building at 2250 Granville in 1965. This relocation likely contributed to the slow decline of the Press Club on Beatty Street, which, by all accounts, sounded a bit rough around the edges. Old customer Vern Bethel vividly recalls its “shaggy rug walls that were filled with nicotine” from decades of smokers.

 The Mystery of Fraser Wilson’s Art

Despite its somewhat dingy interior, the club housed some truly remarkable memorabilia, including 13 large “oil painted” cartoons by Fraser Wilson. Wilson, a former Sun artist and passionate trade unionist, had been controversially fired during the tumultuous Province newspaper strike of 1946.

Today, Wilson is celebrated for his epic 85-foot-long mural at the Maritime Labour Centre, a powerful depiction of Vancouver’s working waterfront and B.C.’s resource industries around 1947. However, in a December 31, 1970, story, Sun reporter Lorraine Shore described Wilson’s paintings at the Press Club as more modest, illustrating “scenes of junior reporters peering through keyholes and photographers snapping pictures of shapely blonds.” Shore reported that these Wilson paintings were all purchased by Bob Henry of Van-Kam Freightways, costing between $45 and $100 each. Their current whereabouts, sadly, remain unknown. One can only hope that these fascinating pieces of Vancouver’s journalistic and artistic history will also resurface someday.

Beyond the Ropes: Vancouver’s Wild Wrestling Renaissance

Hold onto your seats, Vancouver! The city’s independent wrestling scene isn’t just thriving; it’s absolutely exploding with creativity, athleticism, and a healthy dose of pure, unadulterated entertainment. Forget what you thought you knew about wrestling, because in Vancouver, you’ll find everything from body slams involving “spot prawns” to jaw-dropping moments featuring… well, let’s just say a staple gun!

Take Tara Zep, for example. The “Vile Villain” found herself in deep trouble against the “Homicidal Artist” Drexl. He’d used a staple gun to attach sponsor flyers to her, and then positioned her over a tin garbage can. As the crowd held its breath, Drexl climbed the ropes, ready to deliver a devastating body slam. But just when it seemed like the underdog was finished, Zep miraculously rolled away, leaving Drexl to crash onto the trash can in a truly uncomfortable landing. Seizing the moment, Zep grabbed her trusty folding chair—emblazoned with “Zep”—and drove it, shoulder-first, into her pained opponent, sending him tumbling. The roar from the packed house was deafening!

This electrifying scene was just one highlight from a sold-out WrestleCore event at the Rickshaw Theatre. The evening’s “Destroy Wrestling” theme perfectly matched the seven-match card featuring popular local heroes and villains, live punk rock from Wait//less, and even projections of a flaming dumpster!

The Mastermind Behind WrestleCore’s Success

Kobra Kai, also known as Stevan Cvjetkovich, is the former pro wrestler who founded WrestleCore. Along with his partner, Calamity Kate, he has meticulously organized 38 events since launching the promotion seven years ago in Vancouver. An astonishing thirty-seven of those events have sold out, a testament to the surging popularity of local wrestling.

Today, the Lower Mainland boasts at least eight independent wrestling promotions, including WrestleCore, Canadian Apex Wrestling, Nation Extreme, Boom! Pro, No Fate, INvoke, Dusk, 365, and All Star.

“Wrestling has definitely gone a lot more mainstream in the last 10 years,” Cvjetkovich explains. “When I first started, the audience was very minimal. I would be shocked if there were 100 people in the audience.” He credits Wise Pro Wrestling, a local company started by Kenny Lush and brothers Tom and Franjo Pavlovic in 2016, with “setting a new standard of how it should be done” and inspiring the formation of other successful promotions.

Innovation and Uniqueness Drive the Scene

This surge in popularity has led to incredible innovation and a diverse range of wrestling experiences. For instance, the night after Zep’s wild staple gun showdown, Prawn Cena was seen body-slamming “Taryn from Accounting” at the Legion on Commercial.

While the Rickshaw Theatre crowd was exclusively adult, the Legion audience included several young families and children. Furthermore, no one was using a staple gun unless it was to hold together the hilarious spot prawn costume worn by wrestler Izzy McQueen!

“One of the challenges is that every event has to be unique and original,” says Max Mitchell, principal owner/operator of Boom! Pro. “That means the branding, the title, all the graphic design. Once you do a lot of these, you begin to get creative with your titles.” The Saturday night event at the Legion was Boom! Pro’s third annual “Spot Prawn Season” card. “Spot Prawn Season felt like a uniquely Vancouver name for a show,” Mitchell explains. “It’s really just marked by a couple of things: we hand out a ceremonial wreath, and there’s an appearance by Prawn Cena.”

Bringing Wrestling Joy to New Audiences

Before launching Boom! Pro three years ago, Mitchell produced comedy shows. After falling in love with wrestling himself—a process that admittedly took years and repeated exposure to WrestleMania courtesy of friend and Boom! Pro co-creative Travis Woloshyn—he even organized a private match for his family and friends on his 40th birthday. Just six months later, he purchased his own wrestling ring.

Mitchell’s mission is clear: to help more people discover the sheer joy of wrestling. “During the time that I was falling in love with wrestling, I would show clips of matches to people around me, trying to help them understand that there was this incredible thing taking place, and to convince them that it was worth their time and energy. And failing. I did this for eight years.”

Finally, Mitchell found inspiration in an unexpected place: his wife. “Because she doesn’t like wrestling, or even action films,” he says. “And I thought, ‘If I can create a wrestling show that my wife will enjoy, we’ll have something to draw in this huge group of people who don’t even know that they would like wrestling.’ So it would have to be funny. But wrestling is inherently funny. It is so strange and ridiculous that you have to laugh, especially if you’re experiencing it for the first time.”

Pushing Boundaries and Embracing Multitudes

Wrestling, however, contains multitudes, as Zep, with her fearsome appearance and staple punctures, can attest. She has even formed her own promotion, No Fate, aiming to bring a more extreme version of the art to Vancouver.

“I have a vision for this company,” Zep asserts. “There are hundreds like it in the U.S. Canada seems to be a little more hoity-toity in its rules and regulations. Especially in the B.C. area, people are afraid to push boundaries. That’s one of my main goals, to push boundaries and give fans something they’ve never seen before.”

Despite her “Destroy Wrestling” bout with Drexl being the stuff of nightmares, Zep is no stranger to the more comedic aspects of Boom! Pro. “I do all kinds of wrestling,” says Zep, who will face All Elite Wrestling star Leyla Hirsch at Vancouver Island Wrestlefest II on June 27 in Nanaimo (tickets available here). “I love doing comedy matches. I’ve pretty much only done comedy matches for Nation Extreme Wrestling because that’s the character and story I’ve been telling with that company. But I think a lot of B.C. promotions are maybe a little intimidated by me and my look.”

If you need any more convincing that there truly is a wrestling event for everyone, let’s give Chris Parry the final word. “I think wrestling is the greatest form of live entertainment in the world,” states Parry, a former Postmedia journalist who owns and operates Nation Extreme Wrestling (next event: June 14 at the WISE Hall, tickets available here).

“I just got through watching Tom Cruise spending a few hundred million bucks on stunts that he gets to plan for months and then do and redo and redo, while my guys are in the ring on a Saturday night, writing storylines on the fly, doing stunts they’ve had maybe a few minutes to go through, that they have to pull off first time, every time — without fail — or someone gets really hurt, while folks are yelling at them and cameras follow their every move.”

Feeling curious now? Upcoming events include Dusk’s Butterfly Suplex on June 22 at Performance Works on Granville Island (tickets available here). Also, mark your calendars for the August 31 No Fate pro-wrestling show at The Pearl. Don’t miss out on Vancouver’s incredible wrestling scene!