The Outrigger was once an island of culinary culture in Prince George.
Veteran restaurant owner Jack Lee has long since passed on, but the Outrigger left a wake in local culture. Now The Exploration Place is dipping its paddle into that history and wants the public to help.
Exploration Place assistant curator Alisha Rubadeau and Alyssa Tobin from the museum's archives department are organizing a feature display about the Outrigger inside Exploration Place, recreating the restaurant and its spirit of 1960s and '70s hospitality. They believe items of past Outrigger lore are squirreled away in people's homes and sheds and summer cabins. The Outrigger, for example, was renowned for cheap meals but expensive coffee for its day - 20 cents per cup - but every customer got to keep the cup. Where are those cups now?
"We are interested in any items, large or small, and we will make whatever arrangement works for you: donate it, loan it to us for the display, bring in any photos or documents for digital copies, we want to see everything we can," said Rubadeau. "We are especially interested in photos of people doing their parties or meetings with the Outrigger in the background. Anything that might give us a different vantage point."
The Outrigger story started in Ontario in the early 1930s when Lee first learned the recipes for success in the kitchen and the business office. He owned his first restaurant in 1931 in Cornwall then operated a tavern in Windsor before moving to B.C.
According to newspaper accounts from the time, Lee then helped run the Tea Garden at Stanley Park, helped establish the WK Oriental Gardens Restaurant in Vancouver's Chinatown (circa 1935), and also worked in the on-board catering department of a steam ship. He even did a year or so of blue collar labour at a Vancouver Island pulp mill.
In 1947 he moved to Prince George where he took up a kitchen position in the city's leading accommodation facility of the time, the Prince George Hotel. He stayed there, preparing for his own entrepreneurial venture, which he finally launched in 1962.
He hired a leading architectural firm to design a new and unique building for Prince George. It had an A-frame pitch with a swayed ridge line, giving the tall, cedar shingled roof a saddled look. A South Pacific-style totem pole at the entrance outside was the main welcome feature. Inside, the interior design was themed on Polynesian decor. It was named for the impressive wooden canoe with side-keel that exemplify that region of the Pacific, and one of those was slung from the high ceiling, hanging over the heads of the dining public inside.
Newspaper clippings from the time called the new Outrigger a "landmark" and referred to it as a key piece of "downtown revitalization." Built at the corner of Dominion Street and Sixth Avenue, it was a little off the main path of George Street. There were few other buildings in the immediate neighbourhood, and perhaps none so tall.
"Jack Lee spent $200,000 on the construction of the Outrigger, and that is 1960s money. It was a huge investment at the time," said Rubadeau. "It officially opened in 1965 and became very popular."
"When you look through the newspapers and other documents from that period, you see all kinds of events held there," said Tobin. "People liked to have their big parties there: birthdays, anniversaries, wedding receptions. It was a busy place."
Lee kept an equally high personal profile. He was nicknamed "McLee" for being the only man in the town of Chinese heritage who routinely dressed in full Scottish regalia and played the bagpipes. He used this striking image at community events like the CKPG Rotary Telethon.
The popularity of both restaurant and restaurateur brought celebrities through the Outrigger door, including Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Lt. Gov. John Nicholson.
"There was a guest book. People put their names and addresses in this ledger," said Rubadeau.
"It would be awesome to get that book, if it still exists," said Tobin.
Exploration Place already has an interesting collection of Outrigger artifacts. When the restaurant finally went bankrupt in the 1990s - it had changed hands multiple times by then and was called The Bamboo House - the museum's staff got to comb the unclaimed property before it was demolished.
Very little had changed inside over the years, so some key features were salvaged, including the entrance totem pole, but many items of interest were gone. The whereabouts of a large trophy marlin, for example, and the outrigger canoe itself are unknown.
"We want to know all the stories we can get, too, from people who used to know Mr. Lee, or ate regularly at the Outrigger," said Tobin. "If you were at a competing restaurant, or worked at the Outrigger, or had a party there, if you were someone who provided services for them over the years, we want to know your stories."
For more information, or to pass on those stories and photos, email them to curatorial@thexplorationplace.com.
