Ah, this discussion begs mention of a fine Vancouver tradition, the "Nine O'Clock Gun". I will quote from a Parks Board text:

"The Nine O’Clock Gun, cast in England in 1816, was brought to Vancouver in 1894 and originally used to assist mariners set their ships’ chronometers. The 12 pounder, muzzle loaded naval cannon was restored in 1986 as a Canadian Centennial project."

The gun is sited on the east side of Stanley Park, facing up Burrard Inlet on the north side of downtown. Its immediate downrange trajectory encompasses the route taken by the most wealthy yachtsmen to the premier mooring at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, as well as the marine refuelling floats conveniently positioned to serve the floating behemoths, in a region known as Coal Harbour. So it is fortunate that the nightly discharge is of powder only ...well, usually. Over the 115 years the gun has been used, it has been necessary to escalate the security around the installation, as a result of unexpected shellings of the harbour due to mischievous loading of various rounds into the gun. Prior to the installation of an automatic remote firing mechanism, this required great stealth and cunning, but there was an interval in the early sixties when the first fences surrounding the unattended fieldpiece were regarded as a fascinating challenge by the youth of the period, and until the gun was secured behind a fully roofed chainlink cage, the proprietors of the gas barges had to endure occasional bombardment of shrapnel from beach stones and bottles, which knocked out the occasional window and holed the big illuminated oil company signs.

And even that was not enough to secure the muzzle from determined delinquents, so the "restoration" cited in the quote above involved moving the gun forward to the edge of the seawall, so that the muzzle was high above the beach, and the rest of the gun fully encased in a glass and stone enclosure. You can see a nice example of its discharge at this link: http://g45world.blogspot.com/2006/07/nine-oclock-gun-in-stanley-park.html