Community

McEwan Partners enjoyed a Nooner at the Nat on May 29^th. The Canadians pulled off a win, and we’re pretty sure it was down to our cheering.

Launched in 2017, our annual Festivus party has been a holiday highlight for us at McEwan Partners.

This year, on December 4th, our firm had the pleasure of hosting 30 of our “foes” from other litigation boutiques around town for a (collegial) airing of grievances and enjoyment of libations around the Festivus pole. 

Thank you for enjoying Festivus for the Rest of Us with us.

Our firm believes in giving back to the community we serve. We are honoured to have our firm star shine brightly alongside other donors as part of the St. Paul's Hospital Foundation Lights of Hope annual holiday display which runs from November 27, 2025, to January 02, 2026.

About Lights of Hope 

The Lights of Hope was conceived to help fill traditional funding gaps and support those who play a critical role in serving the healthcare needs of our community. Donations support groundbreaking research, the delivery of compassionate patient care, and enrich the lives of patients, long-term care residents and their families. If you want to support the Lights of Hope campaign, visit: Help St Paul's.

In case you missed the lighting ceremony, here are a few pictures from that special, festive evening.

Ken McEwan, K.C. recently joined Pulat Yunusov on The Yunusov Question to discuss the Rogers case, litigating on the West Coast, and Ontario's influence on BC.

Listen to the podcast to learn more.

The McEwan Partners team brought back the annual Day of the Dead lunch of delicious traditional Mexican food from The Mexican, Antojitos y Cantina.

Evan plays saxophone with his own bands and others, and recently played with the band, History of Gunpowder, at the Hornby Island Music Festival.

After a successful food drive earlier this year and as a part of our continued efforts to give back to the community, McEwan Partners decided to help Covenant House Vancouver with back-to-school preparations. Our team put together 50 back-to-school kits for the youth at Covenant House Vancouver, consisting of a range of essential items purchased off their wish list. Thank you, Covenant House Vancouver, for this opportunity!

Community engagement is important to the team at McEwan Partners. Recently, Ken McEwan, K.C. attended the 2024 For Children We Care Gala with colleague George Macintosh, K.C. and donated $25,000 towards the Clinical Trials Super Hub at BC Children’s Hospital on behalf of the firm. As a gala held towards a mission to transform children’s health by breaking down barriers in accessing trials, this contribution will support BC Children’s Hospital transform the future of children and families throughout the province by opening doors to life-changing treatments.

Thank you to the gala committee for this opportunity to make a positive impact! To learn more about supporting BC Children’s Hospital, please visit: https://fundraise.bcchf.ca/event/for-children-we-care/home

McEwan Partners held a successful food drive for Covenant House Vancouver this past month. As a team dedicated to giving back to the community, we were able to collect and donate 576 food items. Thank you, Covenant House Vancouver, for this opportunity!

The team at McEwan Partners is dedicated to giving back to the community and grateful for the opportunities to make a positive impact. Long time supporters of the arts, our colleague George Macintosh, K.C. and his spouse, Jessica Yan Macintosh saw an opportunity to share the value of art with the broader community and recently made a $1 million donation to the Vancouver Art Gallery. The gift will enrich the Gallery's educational initiatives, with an emphasis on making art more accessible to newcomers and underserved children and youth from diverse backgrounds. Part of the donation will also go toward constructing the new Vancouver Art Gallery at the Chan Centre for the Visual Arts, set to open in 2028.

At a recent reception, Jessica and George Macintosh highlighted art's impact on young people.

The Vancouver Art Gallery has shown it knows how to connect underserved kids to the magic of art. That's why we donated," explained Jessica and George Macintosh. "If just five children a year sense what art can do to enrich the rest of their lives, our gift will have been worthwhile.

Every donation counts! To learn more about supporting the Gallery, please visit https://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/donate.

Since its inception in 2017, McEwan Partners has partnered with Moraine Winery for our branded label of their Meritage wine, adding their Cliffhanger White and Frizzante Chipuchka in 2020. Our images show pictures of historic British Columbia on the front, and associated stories on the back.

2017

Meritage Vintage (2015)

The image on the label is from 1910, looking north up Washington St. from Columbia Ave. (now also Hwys. 3B and 22) in Rossland, B.C. The building on the right was designed by Francis Rattenbury for the Bank of Montreal. Completed in 1899, it remains today.

2018

Meritage Vintage (2016)

The label image is of Mount Stephen House, once located in Field B.C. in the Kicking Horse River Valley. Designed by Thomas Sorby, it opened in 1886 as a meal stop between Banff and Golden. By 1902 it was expanded by Francis Rattenbury, assuming the more tudor design pictured. In its heyday, the lavish railway hotel was frequented by wealthy Europeans. It was demolished in 1963. Mount Stephen, in the background, was named for George Stephen, a president of the CPR.

2019

Meritage Vintage (2017)

In 1894, construction of the Kaslo and Slocan Railway turned south around Payne Bluff, 1000 feet above current Hwy. 31A. Working west from Kaslo along the Valley of the Ghosts, the K&S advanced toward Sandon, B.C. using narrow gauge track to allow sharper turns around the mountains and building 30 trestles along the route. At the time, Sandon was the object of an all-out race between the K&S and the CPR's Nakusp and Slocan Railway, which was approaching from the north-west on the steepest grade ever attempted in the world. The prize was ore from the richest silver district in Canada.

For some years, the district's riches kept both lines busy transporting ore as well as freight and passenger traffic. But the CPR's 1898 purchase of the Trail smelter was a competitive blow to the K&S, which also endured washouts, slides and a devastating 1910 forest fire. It was sold to the CPR in 1912.

2020

Meritage Vintage (2018)

Built to serve as a link in an ill-fated all-Canadian route to the Klondike, the SS Minto was re-routed by the CPR to the West Kootenay along with her sister ship, the SS Moyie. Assembled in 1898, the sisters plied the Arrow Lakes and Kootenay Lake respectively, each leading a fleet of sternwheelers, barges and tugs, ferrying passengers and freight, and forming an essential link with rail networks in the region. Pictured at Arrowhead with the SS Rossland to her right, the SS Trail behind, the durable Minto operated year-round, her composite steel and wood frame pushing barges ahead to break ice in heavier conditions. Her shallow draught allowed her to navigate the Narrows between the Arrow Lakes, and to beach at farms along her route. Two campfires at night, or a white flag by day, hailed the Minto to shore to deliver supplies, and bring news from the outside world. The Minto’s final run from Robson to Nakusp was on April 24, 1954.

Cliffhanger White (2019) and Frizzante Chipuchka (2019)

The SS Minto stopped service on the Arrow Lakes three years before her sister ship, the SS Moyie, made her own final journey on Kootenay Lake on April 27, 1957, stopping at towns and landings along the way. In Kaslo, the Moyie was greeted by a banner “Better Lo’ed ye ne’er will be. Will ye no come back again.” She remains at Kaslo today, a National Historic Site and the oldest intact sternwheeler in the world. Efforts to preserve the Minto failed. In 1968, the Keenleyside dam, a product of the Columbia River Treaty, reached completion, silencing the Narrows between the Upper and Lower Arrow Lakes, engulfing former townsites including Burton and Arrowhead, and submerging the beaches where farmers had signalled for the Minto with their campfires. On August 1, 1968, the Minto was towed out into Galena Bay where, beneath the towering peaks of the Selkirk range, she was lit ablaze before sinking to the lake bottom below.

2021

Meritage (2019) and Frizzante Shipuchka (2020)

Our label captures Martha Collins's spirit. This entrepreneur thrived in the west’s male-dominated mining towns, from California to the Klondike. In BC, she owned hotels in Rossland, Ymir, Waneta, and Erie, there advertising “If you are looking for a good day’s fishing go to Erie, put up at the BC Hotel…for the best brands of wines, liquors, and cigars…” Her claims included Ymir’s Canadian Bell, and Erie’s Armstrong and Treasure Box Group, which employed four miners. The woman pictured is fishing on the Kootenay’s lower Bonnington Falls. A hundred yards downstream, the West Kootenay Power and Light powerhouse neared completion, to be linked to Red Mountain by the world’s longest transmission line. It powered the mines by day, and Rossland’s hotels and bars by night, including Martha Collins’ – the Collins Hotel on Washington Street, competed in 1897. The building still bears her name. Celebrate her by supporting #ReferToHer.

2022

Cliffhanger White (2021), Shipuchka Frizzante (2021), and Meritage (2020)

Our label depicts the Hagwiglet Bridge that facilitated trade between the Gitxsan territory on the west and the Wet'suwet'en territory on the east, traversing the river called Wet'sinkwha. A number of different bridges have formed the link, including ones pre-existing visual or written documentation, known only through oral histories. Our image, from 1872, is of a bridge constructed by Hagwiglet villagers. It provided a 1.8 m pathway across a span of 45.7 m, joining cliffs over 30 m above the river. For nearly 50 years, the bridge carried hunters, explorers, prospectors, traders and settlers across the river. As pictured, it was first constructed using wooden poles tied together with cedar bark. It was later strengthened with wire originally intended for the ill-fated Russian-American telegraph, but abandoned at Hazelton, where the river flows into the Skeena. The telegraph had been commissioned to Colonel Charles S. Buckley. The river below now bears his name.

2023

Cliffhanger White (2022), Shipuchka Frizzante (2022), and Meritage (2021)

At low tide, the peaks of the undersea mountain dubbed Ripple Rock were a mere 2.74 and 6.4 metres below the powerful current of Seymour Narrows. Described in 1791 by George Vancouver as “one of the vilest stretches of water in the world,” Ripple Rock’s churning waters lay waste to 120 vessels, with at least 114 drownings. When, in 1873, Esquimalt was initially chosen as the terminus for the promised national railway, the anticipated route reached the coast at Bute Inlet. After crossing several islands, ambitiously, it would use Ripple Rock’s peaks to anchor spans across the Narrows to Vancouver Island. Ultimately, the railway took its more southerly route and, in a different feat of engineering, tunnels were bored from Maud Island down and across the ocean floor, then up to the peaks to pack them with explosives. On April 5, 1958, the largest non-atomic blast the world had seen tore the peaks from Ripple Rock.

2024

Shipuchka Frizzante 2022, Meritage 2022, and Cliffhanger White 2023

Carved by glaciers, the Chilkoot Trail connected Dyea, Alaska to Lake Bennett, BC. Long a trade route guarded by the Tlingit people, during the 1880s pressure increased to open the route to others. On August 16, 1896, gold was discovered in the Klondike. Word filtered south, and the rush was on. Our image is of stampeders making the climb up the Golden Stairs in Chilkoot Pass. Near the summit, they were met by the North West Mounted Police, who inventoried the supplies being packed to the goldfields. Each stampeder was required to bring a year’s food and other provisions, weighing approximately one ton. Stampeders packing their own goods made the 33 mile trek from Dyea to the Yukon River’s headwaters at Lake Bennett and back repeatedly, and might travel 1000 miles in all. In 1898, stampeders accumulated at Lake Bennett, waiting for spring thaw. Only in the days following May 29, did a flotilla of some 7000 boats set off for Dawson City.

2025

Cliffhanger White 2024, Meritage 2023

Gold was discovered in 1859 at Rock Creek near the southern boundary of the newly formed Colony of British Columbia. American miners surged across the border. As the town boomed, the ensuing sustained disorder was dubbed by the colonial papers as “The Rock Creek War.” In 1860, an alarmed Governor Douglas determined to build a trail through the southern interior to protect British sovereignty. Edward Dewdney was enlisted to build the trail, starting from Fort Hope. By the time the trail reached Rock Creek, the rush was over. Authorized by Governor Seymour, Dewdney continued construction to Wildhorse Creek, the site of another gold rush, and hired William Fernie to complete an extension connecting the trail from there to Fernie. Our image is of a bridge over Elk River on that extension. While the Dewdney Trail fell into disuse within decades of its 1866 completion, BC Highway 3 largely follows its route, from Hope to the Crowsnest Pass.

McEwan Partners enjoyed a Day of the Dead lunch of delicious traditional Mexican food provided by The Mexican, Antojitos y Cantina.

Happy Día de Muertos!

McEwan Partners bought their employees lunch, had some fun and gave back to the community at the same time!