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Delta throwback: Chung Chuck

Chung Chuck made a name for himself as someone who wouldn’t back down
delta bc chung chuck 1976
Chung’s colourful life, and in particular this confrontation over the house boats, generated enough interest that CBC turned his story into a made for TV movie.

Let's do another throwback this weekend and visit well-known local figure Chung Chuck.

This 1976 photo from the Optimist shows him still going strong, working his Ladner farm, well into his 80s.

Born in 1898 in Canton, China, Chung Chuck came to Ladner in the 1920s and worked his way up to a foreman at the pea cannery.

In 1929, he purchased his potato plot and built a combination house and potato storage shed.

This building, with its large sign reading “Chung Chuck Potato Grower,” stood as a landmark in Delta for over 50 years.

Beginning in the 1930s, he was arrested and jailed multiple times for bootlegging his potatoes rather than selling through the marketing board.

Chung Chuck also rented the waterfront to house boaters.

In an infamous incident in 1977, he held Delta officials at bay with a shotgun for four hours after the municipality threatened to shut off the water supply to the house boaters, and to the farm, unless all the utilities were brought up to code and taxes per boat were paid.