Why Canada Destroyed Its Own World's Fair: Expo 67

My book, The Times You Grew Up With, takes you back: https://paulmcallister.store In 1967, Montreal hosted the most attended world’s fair in history. Expo 67 drew nearly 55 million visitors to an island that hadn’t existed three years earlier. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome became the most famous structure in Canada. Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 reimagined urban housing. Sixty-two nations built pavilions that architects still study today. The fair cost $283 million and left a $210.7 million deficit — yet generated $480 million in tourism revenue in a single summer. Then it was over. And nobody could agree on what to do next. Mayor Jean Drapeau’s city kept the site open as Man and His World, but attendance collapsed from 12.5 million visits in 1968 to 1.4 million by 1972. Most of Île Notre-Dame’s pavilions were bulldozed in 1975 to build an Olympic rowing basin. On May 20, 1976, welders accidentally set Fuller’s dome on fire, burning away its acrylic skin in thirty minutes. The steel skeleton sat empty for fourteen years. By 1984, the exhibition was permanently closed. This is the story of how the greatest world’s fair of the twentieth century was dismantled by the same ambition that built it — and what remains on those islands today. Sources: “Expo 67,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (britannica.com/event/Expo-67) “Expo 67,” Wikipedia, citing Fulford, Jasmin, and BIE records (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_67) “Goose Village,” Wikipedia and Historic Places Days Canada (historicplacesdays.ca) “Montreal Biosphere,” Wikipedia, citing Environment Canada records (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Biosphere) “Domesday: Bucky Fuller’s Dome on Fire,” Julia Wolcott, Cabinet Magazine, Issue 32 (cabinetmagazine.org/issues/32/wolcott.php) “La Ronde (amusement park),” Wikipedia, and EPR Properties investor press release, April 6, 2026 (investors.eprkc.com)