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Hippie runaways in Vancouver: Their stories

Broadcast Date: Nov. 12, 1967

Winter 1967. CBC Radio reporter James McGibbon visits the Kitsilano district of Vancouver to find out more about the newest kind of hippie; the juvenile runaway. These youngsters, usually aged 13 to 17, aren't fleeing a society they can't identify with, they're fleeing bad homes, parental abuse and problems at school. On the streets and in a Digger-run shelter, McGibbon talks to runaway girls and the people who want to help them.

Some of the stories seem shocking. Can these be hippies? The flower children? The idealistic youth with a bong in one hand and a Buddhist text in the other, preaching peace, love, harmony, acid and the Grateful Dead? Although they sound like nothing more than troubled kids, they are considered hippies. But they're what "real" hippies call "plastic hippies" — just kids playing with drugs for kicks.

The plastic hippies are unhappy with their lives at home and are attracted to what looks like an easier life, smoking pot and hanging out. By early 1968, they seem to have taken over the scene in the major cities. Some find village life not as attractive as they'd imagined. They return home. Others are picked up by police and forced home or into detention centres. Still others fall into lives of drugs and prostitution. The newspapers ask, "Where have all the flowers gone?"

Hippie runaways in Vancouver: Their stories

• The Diggers were a kind of hippies-helping-hippies organization which provided free feed-ins, clothing exchanges and shelters for hippie youth.
• The Vancouver Digger house was located at 2227 3rd Avenue. It was visited almost daily by police, who would sometimes find as many as 100 kids sleeping on the dirt floor in the basement. The building was demolished before the end of 1967.

• The twelve Diggers who ran the house ranged in age from 19 to 27.
• It cost 25 cents a night to crash at the Digger pad, but if you were broke it was free. The money helped pay for rent, heat, light and the 4 p.m. meal.
• Toronto's Digger house, called the Hippie Haven, opened on Feb. 8, 1968, after a long battle with Toronto City Council. The Haven was a 14-room house located at 115 Spadina Rd.

• City council agreed to rent the house for the hippies' use, but only on the condition that no more than 20 people live there at one time. Within one week of its opening, 80 hippies were settled inside. The hippies voted to determine who would go.
• Doctors and counsellors visited the house on a regular basis. They reported seeing people with poor mental health, malnutrition, venereal disease, low education levels and trench mouth — a painful infection of the gums.

Hippie runaways in Vancouver: Their stories

Medium: Radio

Program: Counterpoint

Broadcast Date: Nov. 12, 1967

Guest(s): Marjorie , Little Joe

Host: Martin Robin
Reporter: James McGibbon

Duration: 15:11

Last updated:
June 28, 2005