Raymond Saunders, the creator of the steam clock in Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood, died Saturday at the age of 83, according to a family member.
Saunders built and serviced outdoor clocks in B.C. and around the world for more than four decades.
He was best known for the Gastown clock, which was built in 1977 and has become an oft-photographed and much-discussed tourist attraction.
Daughter Julia Saunders remembers her father as a “kind, generous, funny” man.
She said she plans to put some flowers inside the steam clock and post a note to let the Downtown Eastside community know about her father’s passing.
“It’s an honour to to be his daughter and to see what he’s contributed to the world,” she said.
Raymond Saunders shows how he adjusts time on the steam clock he built in the Gastown neighbourhood in the 1970s.
Saunders told CBC News on the clock’s 40th anniversary that it was the first steam clock he had ever worked on.
“The Gastown clock was a real struggle,” he told CBC News in 2017.
He said he originally estimated building the clock would cost $25,000 when he proposed it in 1975, but the project eventually came in at $58,000.
Saunders said it was built to cover a steam vent the city found unsightly. The project was part of the city’s effort to revive the historic downtown neighbourhood.
“I’m really proud of how popular it’s become — like an icon for the city,” he said.
The clock has had critics who call it a piece of faux history that is not actually powered by steam.
“It’s presented in a way that makes countless tourists think that it’s some kind of ancient device when it’s actually from 1977,” comedian Colin Sharp told CBC News in 2017.
Saunders said the clock’s design was meant to reflect the era of the buildings around it — not to deceive anyone.
He said the clock uses two electric motors — one to wind it up and another to ventilate it. He said it did once use a steam-powered motor, but it only lasted 10 years before breaking down.
He added that steam does prompt the clock’s signature whistle.
In addition to the Gastown clock, Saunders also serviced street clocks in Vancouver’s Kerrisdale and Mount Pleasant neighbourhoods, and the clock tower in the Maillardville neighbourhood in Coquitlam, B.C.
In 1977, the City of Vancouver revealed the Gastown steam clock.
