It’s arguably the oldest tourist destination on the North Shore.
Recently shared video shows the Capilano Suspension Bridge as it looked in the early 1980s, when gas was as cheap as it was leaded and The Empire Strikes Back was the biggest movie at the box office.
The footage was uploaded to Super8 World Tour, a YouTube page that collects and shares old reels people shot while on vacation.
Right at the outset, the video shows likely inaccurate and offensive caricatures of Indigenous people that were once on display, although carvers from local First Nations were invited to display their totem poles there.
The bridge looks much the same as it does today, although certainly there have been changes in the vegetation over the last four decades.
The first Capilano Suspension Bridge opened in 1889. Revered Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) chief August Jack Khahtsahlano was among those who worked on the project, swimming the rope across the Capilano River.
It has been totally rebuilt several times since then and today, it draws in more than million visitors per year.
