The Vancouver steam clock

In the late 1960s, someone came up with the idea of doing up the old buildings in Gastown, a neighbourhood destroyed by a fire in 1886, to revitalise Vancouver's historical sites. Gaslamps were added and the roads paved with small bricks. Besides the Indian craft shops, it is home to a curious steam-powered clock created by Vancouver clockmaker Ray Saunders, based on plans dating back to 1875. It weighs 2 tonnes and whistles every hour as a result of steam generated by an underground system. Inaugurated in 1977, the clock is an inextricable muddle of chains, pulleys and steel weights driven by a cylinder steam engine. Its mechanism is visible behind its bronze and glass structure.