Dollarton, North Vancouver: Homes for Sale, Prices, Schools and Daily Life

Dollarton lies between Mount Seymour Parkway and the water. The province's place name record puts it on the west side of the entrance to Indian Arm, the long inlet that runs north from Burrard Inlet. Dollarton Highway arrives from the west, turns north beside Cates Park/Whey-ah-Wichen and climbs to the Parkway. The District's street data calls that last stretch North Dollarton Highway.

The land falls toward the east and the south. Natural Resources Canada's elevation data gives 86 metres above sea level for Fairway Drive at Mount Seymour Parkway, 65 metres for Fairway Drive at Dollar Road, 36 metres for North Dollarton Highway at Dollar Road and 13 metres for Beachview Drive at Dollar Road. Fairway Drive runs along the upper side. Baycrest Drive and Roslyn Boulevard cross the middle, and Beachview Drive and Lowry Lane follow the lower side near the water.

In our view, Dollarton suits a buyer who cares more about space and the water than about shops. The map on this page shows a grocery store and a cafe near the middle of the area. For a library, a community centre or a wider choice of stores, residents go to Parkgate or to Deep Cove village.

This shore is part of the traditional territory of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. The District's 2006 plan for Cates Park/Whey-ah-Wichen, written with the Nation, records three archaeological sites inside the park, the largest of them at Roche Point. A provincial map of 1914 labels a settlement called Roslyn at this location, according to the BC Geographical Names record. A street here is named Roslyn Boulevard today.

The name Dollarton comes from a sawmill. The park plan says the Canadian Robert Dollar Co. bought land here in 1916 and built a lumber and shingle mill that people called Dollarton. The North Shore Heritage Preservation Society dates the purchase to November 9, 1916, gives its size as 100 acres and says the site could then be reached only by boat. It has the mill running by 1917, while a note in the province's record gives 1919. Robert Dollar, who lived from 1844 to 1932, was born in Scotland, built his business in the United States and founded the Dollar Steamship Company.

A post office named Dollarton opened on July 17, 1918, and the 1930 BC Gazetteer listed Dollarton as a post office and lumber settlement. The park plan says the mill closed in 1942 and many residents moved away. After the Second World War new people and businesses arrived, among them boat builders such as Matsumoto Shipyards. The post office became a branch of the Vancouver post office on October 17, 1960.

The writer Malcolm Lowry lived in Dollarton. The Canadian Encyclopedia gives the years as 1940 to 1954 and calls those the happiest and most productive years of his life. From 1941 to 1944 he and his wife, Margerie, revised the novel Under the Volcano in their shack on the shore, and it was accepted for publication in 1946. The park plan adds that the couple first paid $10 a month in rent, lost their home to a fire in 1944 and rebuilt it. Most of the shore shacks in the park were pulled down in 1958. The District placed a plaque for Lowry at Roche Point in 1987, and a trail in the park carries his name.

The map on this page shows a Nesters Market and a JJ Bean cafe near the middle of Dollarton. The nearest library and community centre on the map are Parkgate Library and Parkgate Community Centre, west along Mount Seymour Parkway.

Little Cates, the part of the big park nearest the houses, works as the local park. The 2006 park plan lists a playground, a grass field, tennis courts and the remains of a large sawmill burner there. In August 2025 the District enlarged the pickleball area from four courts to six and added systems to contain and absorb the sound. Sherwood Park Elementary is at the west end of Dollar Road and Seycove Secondary is on Caledonia Avenue, north of the Parkway. In our experience, many children here walk to school.

Dollarton Highway and Mount Seymour Parkway are the two roads to Deep Cove, so both carry visitors as well as residents. In our experience, summer weekends are the busiest, when people drive to the park, the boat launch and the village.

Cates Park/Whey-ah-Wichen fills the point at the south end of Dollarton, and the District and the Tsleil-Waututh Nation run it as partners. The photo at the top of this page was taken on one of its beaches. The boat launch is open all year for recreational boats up to 36 feet long, and day tickets are sold at a pay station on site.

The two partners have been rebuilding the park's shoreline to slow erosion. On September 22, 2026, the District said the last stage, at the rest of East Beach and at Little Cates, was expected to start in October and finish in November. It described this stage as smaller than the earlier work, with angular rock along the lower shore, rounded boulders on the beach and the removal of some hazardous trees.

Smaller parks sit among the houses. The District's park data lists Lowry Lane Park as a neighbourhood waterfront park for quiet use, where dogs must be on a leash, and Fairway Park and Sherwood Park as neighbourhood parks. Dollar Road Waterfront is a District park on the shore at the east end of Dollar Road. Roche Point Park, a sports park at the north end of the 4000 block of Dollar Road, lies on the west edge of the area.