The elusive origins of Beer Island

No one believes me when I say this but my old friend Jonny and I coined the name Beer Island, maybe during the summer of 2011 or 2012.

We were sitting on the island — officially known as Habitat Island, though I didn’t know that name existed until I started writing this story — drinking beer on the rocks facing the condos across False Creek. 

The sun was setting. It was warm and the sky was pink. We were one of the few on the island. We’d met there a couple times before because it was, at the time, a low-key place to drink beer in a beautiful setting. It felt like an oasis away from the city’s bustle. No one seemed to know about it, despite its location right off the seawall, in the immediate western outskirts of Olympic Village — which, to be fair, wasn’t yet as populated as it is today.

All the details are foggy, of course, both by drink and memory. But I do remember we eventually stumbled on the name.

“This is like, ‘Beer Island.’”

“Yes, Beer Island!”

We raised our cans to the city beyond and toasted to the new name. We left that night and went on with our lives.

Now, to be clear, I’m not taking credit for naming the island — it’s such an obvious name for the place. But I do think there’s every possibility that Jonny and I came up with it independently of anyone else.

By 2014, there were news reports that the Vancouver Police Department were busting up parties there—parties of people drawn to the place because of the name and for the revelry such a name promised. 

So how did that happen? And how does a nickname form, spread, and become embraced by the culture? 

I remember seeing those reports and telling my girlfriend at the time, “Jonny and I made that name up, you know.” 

She didn’t believe me. And that’s fine. It doesn’t matter. It’s the people’s name now, anyway.

A man-made oasis

Habitat Island was constructed by humans during the development of Olympic Village. Prior to that, this stretch of False Creek looked nothing like it does now, an industrial patch of rail yards, storage depots, and heavy industry tied to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Tracks cut across the shoreline and boxcars sat beside warehouses. The water was murky and the soil contaminated. If you didn’t work there, you didn’t go there.

In the early 2000s, the city set out to transform the area into a model of a sustainable neighbourhood, in time to house athletes for the 2010 Winter Olympics. But building it meant reshaping the shoreline. Under federal rules, lost habitat had to be replaced.

Habitat Island was the solution. Built between 2007 and 2010 using roughly 60,000 cubic metres of excavated rock, sand, and soil, the one-acre island was engineered as a habitat offset project, a human-made ecosystem designed to function like a natural one. Its edges of cobble and sand create intertidal zones for fish, while native grasses and trees support birds and small mammals. Nearby, Hinge Park was designed as a constructed wetland, filtering stormwater before it reaches False Creek.

It was meant, mostly, for wildlife, though access for people was built in. When tides came in, the island was harder to reach, so stone slabs were added as a kind of makeshift bridge.

Habitat Island was designed to limit human impact and a sanctuary for critters. Beer Island is what happened instead. I set out to track its origins, tracing first mentions in media and on social media. Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) are effectively useless for archival research like this, but Reddit is handy.

There are a few Reddit posts from 2014 about the VPD’s “crackdown,” so I reached out to the department via email to see if they have any insight into the origins and timeline of the name. 

“We call it Habitat Island. Probably because that is what shows up on our maps and dispatch software,” wrote Sgt. Adam Donaldson, media relations officer for the VPD.

“I am aware of the name ‘Beer Island’ but I have never heard any other police officer say that. I worked in the district that encompasses Habitat/Beer Island and have been to a couple of calls there. I wouldn’t say it’s any more of a problem than any other park with respect to open drinking or drug use.”

The City of Vancouver began allowing public drinking in 22 designated parks in 2021, and subsequently expanded the program in 2023 — but Beer Island is notably absent from this designation. I reached out to the City to ask why that is, given the unofficial name of the place, but never heard back.

A 2024 Reddit post titled “Boat next to beer island” features a picture of a capsized boat in False Creek. One user commented, “Beer Island hahaha that name is going to stick.” Another replied, “I’ve only ever seen it referred to as Beer Island.”

A third wrote: “When it first opened up we always called it garbage island…”

Garbage Island, now that’s a first. I reached out to that Redditor to see if they’d offer more clarity on the timeline. When did Garbage Island evolve into Beer Island? 

They never responded. 

When Jonny and I left that night in 2011 or 2012, we didn’t market the name on social media or on any messaging boards. We just called it by how we knew it. “Let’s meet at Beer Island!”

What made it such a hidden gem in those days was, firstly, no one seemed to know about it. It also promised respite from the city without having to actually escape it. We could hide out in a convenient location. We weren’t hiding our public drinking or anything like that. We were hiding from our lives in some small way.  We were in our 20s, trying to figure our lives out. We spent our time there dreaming up whatever came next. We commiserated and we celebrated.  The island was a tiny, manufactured escape hatch to temporary freedom. And we had it, mostly, to ourselves. 

That would soon change. The earliest media mention of Beer Island was a Scout Magazine entry from February 2013.  In 2014, the Courier published a story, “Habitat Island wildlife now includes party animals.” The Beer Island name isn’t the focal point of the story, but it does mention the new nickname toward the end of the story: “Island frequenters [...]have another name for the hidden hangout spot: Beer Island.” 

By 2015, Beer Island seemed fully integrated into the vernacular. R&B Brewing launched Beer Island Session IPA, a low-ABV brew designed for exactly what people were already doing — sitting on the rocks, taking it slow. Daily Hive used the nickname alongside Habitat Island. Vancouver Is Awesome noted that the island was so well-known for partying that “it’s earned the nickname ‘Beer Island.’”

I reached out to the City of Vancouver’s media team to see if they had any insight into this timeline. I was also curious if the City had ever, at any point, considered officially honouring the nickname, which they’d done in the past with Dude Chilling Park.

They never responded. 

How does this happen?

Like just about everyone else I tell this story to, Dr. Stefan Dollinger is skeptical that we coined the name. 

“You know, you may have parallel invented it,” he says. “Or you're an early adopter. It's so obvious a name, right?”

Dollinger is a professor of linguistics at the University of British Columbia, and I reached out to get a better sense of how nicknames like this take hold in our culture.  Turns out, there’s no easy way to assess this kind of thing. 

“The input you do get is mostly false, like when you told me that you think that you coined it, you know? It’s honestly false, but people really believe that, right? So, then what sources do you go by, right?”

Right indeed. There’s no real way to officially track the origins of something like this. It’s no Dude Chilling Park, the nickname for Guelph Park, which has a specific and well-documented point of origin. Artist Viktor Briestensky created and installed the “Dude Chilling Park” sign as a prank, referencing the park’s “Reclining Figure” sculpture. 

Beer Island is more ephemeral. It was coined and passed literally through word of mouth. I’d tell my friends to come meet me at Beer Island in Olympic Village, passing it along that way. 

“There've been droves of linguists who have shied away from questions like this [the origins of words],” Dollinger says. “It was always the odd ones out that sort of looked into this. They were always considered, you know, a bit weird.”

Which, I suppose, includes yours truly. Over a decade has passed, and with it, plenty more beer consumed. It’s possible I’m misremembering all of this.

“We’re dealing with psychology and the construction of the ego. It's cultural [in North America] where, you know, the idea of being a genius is a genuine idea,” Dollinger says. 

“We always overestimate our powers when something like that happens. We think, you know, we did this. This was us.”

Before the comments roll in, no, certainly don’t think I’m a genius. I am occasionally clever, or so my mom tells me, and so is my old friend Jonny, who helped come up with the term. At some point we’ve all experienced these types of creative collaborations.

Jonny and I haven’t spoken in two years, but this story couldn’t be complete without his perspective. So I emailed him:

“I’m reaching out because I’m curious what your recollection of that time was. Do you recall this? If so, do you have any idea what year it was? 

“Am I crazy?”

He never responded.

It doesn’t really matter anyway, whether or not we actually named it — or, if we did, if we were the first to do so. Like the best spots in this city —in any city — its purpose evolved beyond what it was intended for. The people made it their own.  It’s a place to hide, hang, or reflect. It may never get an official plaque like Dude Chilling Park, and that’s fine. Locals don’t need a sign, and Beer Island belongs to the people.

And like beer’s intoxicating effects, this place facilitates memories, however fuzzy and fictional they might be. It’s a place – a state – to dream up some new vision for yourself. Or forget about yourself altogether, if only momentarily.