‘Described as a cannon’: Crews dig up WWI artillery piece at PNE in B.C.​on April 1, 2025 at 8:18 pm

Crews excavating the site of a new amphitheatre at the PNE in Vancouver last Thursday have uncovered a piece of Canadian military history.

“They picked it up, or were able to lift it with a crane, and discovered it was what was initially described as a cannon,” PNE spokesperson Laura Ballance said Tuesday.

“Certainly one of the questions that was asked very quickly … is it loaded?”

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No, it wasn’t loaded. And no, it wasn’t actually a cannon either.

Archeologists and military historians have since determined what work crews located was a field artillery piece, likely more than a century old.

“Circa 1914, and at the time the Canadian military had a presence here, they had a building not far from here for many years where we believe it may have been stored at one point, and then for some reason, it ended up under the asphalt of what people across British Columbia know as the PNE amphitheatre, which will be the site of the new Freedom Mobile Arch next summer,” Ballance said.

Hastings Park and the current PNE site have a long history with the Canadian Forces, and the site was used by the military — primarily for training, parading and deploying troops — during the First World War, between 1914 and 1918.

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“I was told by the city archeologists that they’ve never found anything like this anywhere in the city. We certainly haven’t found anything like this,” Ballance said.

“It just speaks to the PNE’s importance and longstanding relationship, and Hastings Park’s relationship to so many facets of Canadian life today.”

The PNE is currently working with City of Vancouver archeologists and archivists to determine the artifact’s history, along with the next steps to return it to the Canadian Forces as a museum piece.