Vancouver's history as a city has its roots in what was a tiny settlement nicknamed Gastown. The name Gastown came into use because a Fraser River pilot turned saloonkeeper with the name Capt. John 'Gassy Jack' Deighton was in 1867 the first settler on the site from which Vancouver was to evolve. (In Victorian times the term 'to gas' referred to talking a lot, something which Captain Deighton had become famous for.)

"The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions."