April 9th, a Joe Aspler presentation: Expo 67, reminisces on its 55th anniversary

This month marks the 55th anniversary of the opening of Expo 67, still remembered as Montreal’s finest moment. The centrepiece of Canada’s Centennial celebration, Expo is constantly ranked among the greatest World’s Fairs.

Rather than pavilions conforming to cookie-cutter designs, the finest architects provided their imagination. Designers, filmmakers, and others put together a 1,000-acre showplace and playground. Anyone who was anyone was in Montreal that summer, from performers to world leaders.

Expo showed us the future. Computers would examine problems that today, a 12-year-old could carry out on their smartphones. We could use the videotelephone. We could see a model of Air Canada’s supersonic transport, already on order for service in the far-off year of 1980. We could ride on the new-fangled Hovercraft. We could take a monorail, although it was called the “minirail”, this was the 60s after all. We could stand in line for hours to see the Labyrinth: the forerunner of IMAX. In the pavilion of the Indians of Canada, the First Nations told their story, which was different (to say the least) from patronizing, romanticized displays of earlier World’s Fairs.

Some of the future came true, some … not so much.  In Joe’s presentation, we’ll see photos from his personal collection, taken as a budding young photographer, completed by images and videos from the Internet.

Don’t miss this presentation by Joe Aspler, April 9th, on Zoom and on our website.