9 O'Clock Gun

Canada / British Columbia / Vancouver /
 cannon, interesting place
Cannon goes off every night at 9:00 PM Sharp. Sort of an unofficial place to meet up for many... "Meet me at the firing"

When you see the fluorescent lights go out, it is ten seconds until the gun fires. Try counting down to it one night and seeing how accurate you are.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_O'Clock_Gun
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   49°17'52"N   123°7'3"W

Comments

  • Somebody once put a ball in this gun and it went through the neon sign of one of the floating fuel stations. Visitors to Vancouver should be warned of this 9 o'clock ritual. If you're not expecting it, the noise is enough to make you drop your load.
  • That story is just as true as the fact that a scuba diver from Lake Mead was sucked up by a helicopter and accidentally dropped into a fire! Do you need me to translate that in French??????
  • Not an urban legend at all!! It used to be one of the great rituals of Vancouver's youth to put rocks and stuff into the 9 o'clock gun's barrel, then watch them fly across the harbour when it went off. And yes, on occasion some of the debris would travel far enough to hit the fuel barges and break windows and signs. That's why they put the screens around the gun in the early 1970s. Midnight swims from Ambleside to Stanley Park under the Lions Gate Bridge were another common stunt...once you got enough "anti-freeze" in you.
This article was last modified 12 years ago