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One of music’s most successful artists is wading into the debate over lifeguards at Vancouver beaches.
Peter Gabriel, originally part of Genesis, might never have reached the “Big Time” in 1986 if it had not been for a Vancouver lifeguard three years earlier.
In a Facebook post, Gabriel said that he was in Vancouver in 1983, opening for David Bowie, when he went windsurfing at Spanish Banks.
“The wind got too strong for me so I folded up the sail as I’ve been taught to do and swam toward the shore,” Gabriel wrote.
“However, I got caught up in the rip tide and ended up going out a lot faster than I could swim back in.”
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Gabriel said he took off his orange vest and started waving it and the lifeguards on the beach swam out and saved him.
He said he was able to do the show that night with Bowie at BC Place.
Gabriel added that he is alarmed that some of the lifeguards may be removed as the Vancouver Park Board is considering cutting the number of lifeguards on duty by half, meaning they would be removed from Trout Lake, Sunset Beach, Third Beach and Spanish Banks.
A former lifeguard told Global News that lifeguards do more than just watch the water.
“We have multiple things that occur, anything from pedophiles that lifeguards catch, to the education numerous times a day to help people be safe,” Andrea Nicholson said.
“Children that get stuck on the sandbar with the tide coming in around them, making sure that we pull them off that in time, just being aware and doing the 360 constantly.”
Gabriel said he is an “enthusiastic supporter from the U.K.” of keeping the lifeguards at Vancouver’s beaches.
Global News reached out to the Vancouver Park Board but did not hear back by deadline.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
