BIOSPHERE SURVIVES URBAN SPRAWL

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

T

he cold blue ocean waters wash up against the northern Cascade mountains, and the rains flow the water back down into the shoreline again, with a bit of extra downward force from the melting snow, winter having left behind in the warm sun a rapid spring run off and green flowery alpine meadows.

This careful balance was turned asunder when a mad fire, ignited by humans meddling with Mother Nature along the inlet waters, spread from the single room wood frame shops in Gastown to the tenements of the West End.

The fires burned so hot and were so destructive that the sirens can still be heard 139 years later, like a haunting screaming ghost, breaking all the peace and all the serenity possible from Canada’s poorest street corner in the Downtown Eastside to the liberal infused hideaways, such as Jim Deva Plaza, off Davie Street, to the Bathhouse along English Bay.

Just a century before the city was raised by nature’s precocious elemental cauldron, the urban footprint was covered by old growth trees nurtured in a carefully balanced rainforest biosphere that was used by First Nation People for fishing and hunting up and down the ebbing and flowing coastal waters.

The continued influence of the Indigenous People is evident all around as residents and visitors alike interact with this fragile Planet Earth.

Totem poles represent this unique Indigenous cultural heritage of living, hunting and gathering fish and game over a life cycle of birth, death and rebirth within a diverse natural landscape. The life stories of the Haida and Tlingit peoples of the Pacific Northwest are carved into the ancient timbers that had survived the oscillating torrents of nature, growing ever so incrementally every year, year after year for centuries.

The green canopy had grown so high into the blue sky that the sun and moon would disappear from the tracking trails.

The Europeans were the second wave of immigrants to arrive many moons ago now, eventually setting down to harvest the centuries old timber as easily as pruning the hedgerow. The whiteman explorers entered the region as early as the 1740s, whom in turn enlisted more people to build communities and a way of life living off the land in parallel with the Indigenous Peoples.

Vancouver once relied heavily on this biosphere to employ tree fallers, grapple yarders and logging truck drivers, as well as associated secondary and tertiary employment, just as reliant on the earth around them as the Indigenous people had been – and then the early European explorers from Russia, Denmark and Britain.

Today, Hollywood North, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft maintain a significant presence in the city, with these sustainable industries from the e-universe having moved up the Coast from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Seattle as the cost of living and market for jobs and housing compelled the tech titans north into available city spaces.

Vancouver’s Stanley Park is at the center of this urbanized ecosystem.

Stanley Park was one small part of the old growth rainforest, set aside on Coast Salish territory as an urban park, for the city dwellers to enjoy as the wood-framed tenement buildings and single room shops eventually gave way to brick and stone skyscrapers built just a few steps beyond the park boundaries.

Vancouver got a second start, as many other cities did in those early years of North American urbanization, after a Great Fire swept through the urban footprint, and through a lot of brush and forest still around and about everywhere in 1886.

The stubborn minded developers still used the timber planks for construction. But many other architects and builders took nature’s true warning and switched to manufactured brick and carved stone quarried nearby along the Sunshine Coast.

The Marine Building at Burrard Street and Hastings still survives to this day as one of the world’s most beautiful Art Deco buildings completed in 1930 – a skyscraper by Vancouver standards whose beauty matched the tallest building in the world at the time, the Art Deco Chrysler Building in New York City, built during the same year.

The city did not protect many of those original brick and stone buildings from redevelopment. Real estate developers forced an unhappy middle ground that became known as facadism. In the worst of the best case scenarios, builders produced a thin skin replica of the old architecture being replaced, such as the Georgia Medical-Dental Building at Howe Street and West Georgia.

The Georgia Medical Dental Building was demolished in 1989, except for bits and pieces of the Art Deco. Replacement nurses on the existing building stand as patrons, watching over the city as shining examples of the resilience needed to survive in these modern times, just as the original patrons had done for seven decades.

The original terra-cotta nurses were delicately removed prior to demolition, them weighing a few tonnes each, and now ornament the Technology Enterprise Facility at the University of British Columbia, after being restored.

The Beach Apartments on Beach Avenue near Thurlow were torn down all but the front façade. The developer artificially supported the front wall with stilts and other metal mechanical contraptions until the rest of the building could be gutted and replaced with a modern structure.

This incremental modernization of the city can currently be witnessed in the Stadium District, at the corner of Robson Street and Cambie Street.

The West End still has a few Victorian and Edwardian era single family detached homes, preserved at Nelson Park and at various discreet locations throughout the residential tenancy area, still surviving even after higher density construction was deemed necessary – to meet the demand for housing and/or the need to turn a profit.

When just yesterday, it seems, the arts and entertainment venues such as the Orpheum and the Commodore Ballroom on Granville Street had difficulty keeping the doors open without government subsidies and private fundraising, despite the names on the marque, the shows often now sell out with many entertainers performing two or three shows during the Vancouver stop of a multi-city world tour.

The relatively small and delicate Vancouver Art Gallery has renovated the gallery’s east courtyard into a more inviting public meeting place, as a concrete tiled patio with benches, as well as an open space for the many off-the-grid rallies and citizen protests.

One of the Pacific Northwest’s most renowned artists, Emily Carr, has finally been given her own gallery room after most of her collection at the Art Gallery had been rotated out of the archives two or three paintings at a time, over the years.

Carr had lived with the Indigenous Peoples in the Haida Gwaii long enough for the native cultural influences to become unmistakably intertwined with her iconic paintings, as much as the earth and all of God’s creatures made their way into the iconic totem poles unique to the Pacific Northwest.

Vancouver has rapidly matured, unfortunately more so than the transportation system, resulting in a horrible traffic gridlock that can mysteriously absorb precious hours of the day, like a fissure in time working the streets, bridges and subways, unmistakenly dissolving the day without redemption.

Visitors should arrive by any other means than a motor vehicle. If you have to drive, such as in a recreational vehicle because you are on that big cross country tour of a lifetime, you should park outside the city core, near one of the SkyTrain Stations.

The Skytrain is the fancy word Vancouverites use for elevated rapid transit trains that connect certain suburbs to Downtown Vancouver, and the Downtown with Vancouver International Airport in Richmond.

The rapid transit system is far from intimidating, not being nearly as complicated as the Underground in London or the Metro in Paris, there being very few transit lines to choose from in Vancouver. The main rapid transit interchanges are at Commercial Drive and Broadway in Vancouver, and of course, Waterfront Station in Downtown Vancouver, where passengers are presented with the choice of getting off the system altogether or staying on the system, but getting off one line and changing to the one other line. This delicate emersion into the city also occurs at the Lougheed Town Centre Station.

Transit riders can choose either this way or that way, with a remote possibility of travelling full circle but only completing the circle with great effort. Visitors should avoid using the system during the morning and evening rush hour, because the system is overcrowded during these heavy volume times, there being too few transit cars and too short transit stations.

Waterfront Station is meant to be the downtown transportation hub, allowing passengers access to the airport connection, the SeaBus – which is a passenger only ferry boat that takes people a short distance over water to the Lonsdale Quay Market in North Vancouver. The transportation hub also provides access to a commuter train to Coquitlam, and the SkyTrain that eventually goes to the suburbs, such as Burnaby, New Westminster, Surrey, and Coquitlam.

Private seaplane companies use nearby harbour moorage from where people are flown to various destination, including the Provincial Capitol, Victoria on Vancouver Island. For those visitors who prefer helicopters, there is also a helicopter operator.

A freight train yard and massive cranes used for offloading shipping containers from international cargo vessels, hidden in the back behind Waterfront Station and Gastown, reminds everyone that the harbour is a working harbour adjacent to the Port of Vancouver, and that industry, in various incantations, being the very reason Vancouver began here along the inlet waters at Gastown.

The Gastown Steam Clock marks the former town center where a tavern along Water Street was the gathering place for mariners, loggers and mill workers to celebrate the hard fought for earnings from a rugged life in the elements.

Unfortunately, Historic Gastown has fallen into disrepair. The cobble stone road has been neglected, and several trees have been removed, but oddly enough, not the tree stumps. Matters got much worse when an old timber framed tenement building burnt down. And then one building has been undergoing transformation from heritage designation to modern facadism, for what seems like for years now.

The cruise ship terminal is nearby at Canada Place, where as many as four cruise ships at a time can dock, including the possibility of a fifth one docked on the other side of the inlet, but only if absolutely necessary. The cruise ship terminal in Downtown Vancouver brings to the city about 300 ships and 1.2 million passengers per year.

Private companies also operate transportation services, especially for tourists, which requires additional payment. Certain tourist attractions also provide a free shuttle, but the cost at the back end for the admission ticket to the attraction might surprise you.

CAPILANO SUSPENSION BRIDGE

Capilano Suspension Bridge offers a free shuttle from the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre, where the international cruise ships dock, but the price of admission to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park is about $71.95 CDN. Visitors to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park also need to book a timed entry.

To get across to the North Shore, travellers have to cross the three-lane Lions Gate Bridge built from Stanley Park for the higher income communities of West Vancouver and the British Properties in 1938. The bridge sidewalks have designated bicycle lanes separated from pedestrians by carefully positioned directional signs, with a green guard rail and amber flashing bicycle crossings along the causeway. In Vancouver generally, a green lane or a red square on the roadway means a bicycle uses that area of the road.

People are encouraged to use the right hand side sidewalk on Lions Gate Bridge. So, heading north, use the right hand sidewalk. And heading south, use the right hand sidewalk.

Bridge motor vehicle traffic congestion is controlled by changing the direction of the middle lane. Motor vehicle accidents frequently stop traffic in two of the three lanes as first responders travel up one of the lanes to the crash site. I generally believe that fender benders are caused by drivers trying to sneak a peak of the spectacular views that can be seen at the high point of the bridge.

On the upside, the Capilano Suspension Bridge is just one of four attractions in the same local area on the North Shore. The Cleveland Dam (often called the Capilano Watershed/Reservoir) is a brisk walk two kilometres up hill, and then Grouse Mountain is quite a bit further up hill on Nancy Green Way, perhaps too far of a walk from the Capilano Suspension Bridge.

The public transit bus does go up Nancy Green Way. So, if you bought a transit ‘day’ pass, and downloaded the apps, you should be able to find a bus stop on the opposite side of the street, and catch a 15 minute bus ride up the hill, first stopping at Cleveland Dam, if you want, and then eventually heading on up to Grouse Mountain.

Grouse Mountain has a large gondola that takes a lot of people, maybe 100 or more at one time, up and down the mountain. The mountain corporation recently installed a new high speed 8 person Blue Gondola, which is currently in preferred use.

The Grouse Grind is just off to the right at the first parking lot. The Grind is a vertical exercise for above average to expert hill climbers that takes between one and two hours at a good pace. The trail has an unpredictable combination of natural rock steps, concrete slabs for steps, as well as wooden staircases with and without railings. The climb over 2.5 kilometers increases in elevation by 800 meters at about a 56% to a 70% grade.

The Grind is part of the fitness lore in Vancouver, particularly on the North Shore.

Entrance to the Grind is free, but riding the Gondola down has a price. The Capilano Suspension Bridge and Grouse Mountain Resort are operated by privately owned corporations.

HANGING OUT

The second full day of your visit might involve hanging out and bragging over a few pints about how much the Grind hurt you the day before and throughout the early morning before that first cup of coffee and glass of orange juice.

Cottage brewers have been establishing themselves throughout the province, and although I dislike flavoured beer, such as grapefruit infused beer, you can find in many pubs and restaurants a good lager, hefeweizen and IP brewed by small batch breweries using the Bavarian Purity Laws.

Take the Skytrain to either Granville Street Station or Waterfront, and then take the Canada Line toward the Richmond Airport. Get off at Yaletown Station, and start looking for a sidewalk sandwich sign advertising pints for sale.

Granville Station is one of the deepest rapid transit stations in Vancouver. And you will have to walk a bit to get to street level on Granville. Do not take the Dunsmuir Street exit otherwise your internal GPS will get twirled around.

Once on Granville Street, you have to head south a short distance, uphill along Granville Street to the Vancouver Centre Station, just on the opposite corner of the intersection of West Georgia Street and Granville. If you go to Waterfront Station, you have almost as long a walk through the station from the Terminus Station platform to the Canada Line platform, but the walkway is well marked with signage above your head. The train only takes a few minutes to Yaletown. You might also notice that the train is no longer elevated.

The Canada Line was built for the 2010 Winter Olympics using a controversial trench constructions method as opposed to tunnel boring. Merchants did not want an elevated train through the Downtown, so the city used a few existing service tunnels from old rail traffic, and also dug trenches into the streets, and then gradually filled in the trenches with infrastructure. The type of underground rock below the city made too much and too slow work for the tunnel boring machines. This project was a massive undertaking that took several years to complete as only two people were ever working on the trenches at any one time. These people have not yet come forward to identify themselves.

The streets are still useless to the merchants and customers, despite not having an elevated train, since many of the already too few street side parking spots were taken up with bike lanes, and too many people are merely commuting through the downtown to get somewhere else. On the upside, the city has become bicycle commuter friendly over the years, with several bike share vendors and car share companies. Find an appropriate app. And then, off you go.

To watch the commuter parade of bicycles, just walk the Dunsmuir Street section east from Burrard Street to Beatty, during commuter hours. Some bicycle commuters have become so fanatical that they bicycle commute in snow, rain or shine 365 days a year. The Dunsmuir bicycle lanes extend into the lower income working class neighbourhoods of East Vancouver and onto the original city bicycle corridor of Adanac.

Yaletown was redeveloped, from one level shops and old warehouses that had been in existence in support of the old resource industry operations nearby at False Creek. The supply line area has been converted into restaurants, high density residential towers and offices, construction of which began to revitalize the area in earnest during the 1990s.

Yaletown was once the warehouse district servicing the False Creek sawmills where the logs harvested in the old growth forests up north were towed to and from along the ocean and along the many inland waterways. The Yaletown District had suffered from the volatility of the boom and bust retail cycle for years, but the high density redevelopment increased the population, resulting in more foot traffic and the increased financial viability of converting store fronts and old warehouses into restaurants and business spaces.

People can have a meal in Yaletown and wander around a bit before heading to Granville Island.

To get to Granville Island from Yaletown, head south down Homer Street across Pacific Boulevard past David Lam Park toward the water. The seawall extends along the downtown shoreline where several docks around False Creek are used by a private company running tiny electric ferry boats to Granville Island, Kitsilano and Science World.

The little blue electric ferries have been transporting people across the short inlet since 1982. You can purchase a ticket at the dock to cross over False Creek to Granville Island.

Visitors of Granville Island get a sense of the heavy industry that operated throughout the False Creek area prior to the urban renewal. The year-round public market includes detached artisan shops operating where once heavy industry supplied materials to construction sites.

The market has the best of everything – with residents being able to pick up ingredients for fine dinning. Tourists can stop for lunch and buy some freshly made fudge. More pints of beer mentioned earlier can be purchased on the patio at Bridges Restaurant, a long standing Vancouver landmark for enjoying food and drink in the summer sunshine.

VANCOUVER SEAWALL

By day three you have probably seen bits and pieces of the seawall that has been built along the Vancouver shoreline. The last section of the seawall has finally been put in place so that visitors can travel the seawall from the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre, near Waterfront Station, all the way to Granville Island and then some more seawall into Kitsilano and Spanish Banks near the University of British Columbia.

You can enjoy small sections of the seawall on any one of your days. The Coal Harbour section extends from the Convention Centre passed the 2010 Winter Olympic cauldron toward Stanley Park. You can shortcut to English Bay and avoid Stanley Park by heading west down Chilco Street.

Vancouver has become bicycle friendly, so that if you want to really get around the city, you could spend the entire day cycling the seawall.

The Stanley Park section of the seawall, which is the original seawall, also makes for a great early morning run for those fanatics who need intensive exercise, even on their holidays.

From the West End, I really used to enjoy the early morning runs from English Bay toward Siwash Rock, when I used to still run a few years ago. I am a bit of a storm chaser. And so, I would also enjoy running during rough weather days with the waves crashing up against the seawall and spraying ocean mist, arching over the seawall. If you cannot run all the way around the Stanley Park seawall, you can cut through the park about halfway where the waterpark for the children is on the north side, and if you are running in the opposite direction, the Totem Poles on the south side.

The totem poles have been in Stanley Park for several decades with many families, having taken family pictures next to them at least once, if not twice, when the grandparents came to town. The totem poles presence in Stanley Park is just one indication of the need to have respectful interactions and long term relationships with Indigenous Peoples.

The city has leased large new spaces to established franchise restaurants along the seawall, while several beach concessions offer a smaller meal, including a hotdog stand at English Bay near the Smiling Faces Park at the three way junction of Davie Street, Denman and Beach Avenue. You can get there quicker from the Stanley Park Causeway by taking the Chilco Street shortcut that I mentioned earlier.

The English Bay Bathhouse has been at English Bay in various forms for over one hundred years. This area is popular for sunbathing during the day and watching the sunset in the evening. On good weather days, the beaches are densely occupied with people arriving to find a space in the late afternoon with the intention of staying until after sunset.

Several retail bicycling shops in the Downtown rent bicycles, by the hour or by the day. The city has licensed strategic spots for pay-as-you-go bicycles where a row of maybe ten bicycles are left 24/7 in an area just off to the side of the street where people can rent them similar to pay parking except you pay and go as opposed to pay and park.

Vancouver also has dedicated bicycle lanes through the Downtown. Dunsmuir is a dedicated bicycle commuter lane with a cement divider to keep the cars at a safe distance, but cycling on the city streets is still a bit dangerous with some vehicle drivers just not liking the idea of sharing the road with yet another mode of transportation. Be aware that some cyclists are a bit inexperienced and, at times, reckless.

A third type of cyclist is the road racing cyclist, many of whom are fanatically cycling all year long on two to three hour routes with two or more other cyclists. You know cycling has become popular when the cost of accessories, such as cycling shorts, doubles over three years.

PISTE

I have several favorite cycling routes. One route begins near the TransCanada Freeway exit to Cypress Mountain and follows north toward the Horseshoe Bay Ferry terminal, whichever way you get there. I take the village down ramp at great speed until slowing down for the lights, just before a hard S-curve into the village. From here, the climbing starts out of the village to get to Marine Drive, where a two lane road twists and turns along the coast all the way to the Lions Gate Bridge.

A nice roller coaster triple dip starts passed the entrance to Lighthouse Park and then continues past the West Vancouver Firehall. Part of the adrenaline rush from cycling comes from sharing the road with other cyclists as well as the many residents driving cars along this road. Be alert for cars travelling in the opposite direction crossing the center line into your lane. I will favour the right hand side of the lane going up hills and also down hills, and even on flat stretches, keeping in mind the possibility of parked cars on the right with mysteriously opening doors, and drivers merging onto the roadway immediately in front of you, even though they should be able to see you cycling toward them travelling at substantial speeds of 30-50 kilometres per hour.

Check out my Piste sports blog on the ONTHEGO page for more routes and cycling tips.

SEAWALL

Cycling along the seawall takes you to the end of the day, particularly since you have to go back from whence you came. The Skytrain does allow passengers to take bicycles on board during non-peak hours. And the public transit buses have bicycle racks in the front (on the outside of the bus) that are relatively easy to use. The bus driver will help you out with the rack by pointing directions from the other side of the windshield.

SWIMMING

Swimming in Vancouver is easy except in the Pacific Ocean, especially if you are from the south, since the ocean temperature never really warms up all that much. Oh sure, warmer than in the winter, but not like surfing the ocean in San Diego, California or Sao Domingos do Capim in Brazil.

Vancouver completed a multi-million dollar renovation of the historic Kitsilano pool, which is a 137 metre heated saltwater pool along the ocean. Unfortunately, the renovations were compromised by a magic storm a few years ago, causing the city to orchestrate a shortened season, and some hums and haws among city officials and community leaders about what to do with the popular fitness amenity.

Kitsilano Pool is a great area for families as well as for sunbathers, with a large concrete deck and grassy knoll inside the pool compound, and also a grassy park area outside, around the pool grounds where people can picnic and just hang out. The pool concessions, and the restaurants just across the street, are there if you don’t have a picnic basket.

THE BARGE

The massive ocean storm that damaged the aging Kits pool, at the same time washed ashore a giant barge near Sunset Beach along English Bay. The presence of the barge became a natural selfie spot, while befuddling city officials for months. In the end, the barge had to be taken apart one metal bolt at a time just to get the prop off the beachhead.

I also like Spanish Banks further down the south shoreline to the west near the University of British Columbia Endowment Lands, especially when the tide is out. Beach goers can walk the mud flats for what seems like a Miracle Mile towards the opposite shore, a planetary alignment often providing the illusion that you can cross over to the otherside in West Vancouver, only to find the deepest coldest ribbon of water still present in the inlet stopping you. This tide-out time is also great for kiting, with most days being windy enough for guaranteed lift offs.

People are allowed to operate barbecues on the beach at Spanish Banks, as long as the fire is under control and supervised. The city has recently allowed BYO alcohol consumption on this beach and certain other beaches, except at the high volume English Bay, where there are obvious crowd/noise control issues so close to the West End residential community, and the supporting restaurants and shops.

The city also maintains an oceanside pool at Second Beach just inside Stanley Park. The pool is much smaller than Kits, but the facility is well maintained with a shallow area for the kids right along the English Bay portion of the Stanely Park Seawall.

IRONWORKERS MEMORIAL

New Brighton Pool is near the grain terminals and the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge. This public pool has a small sunbathing area inside the pool compound, and a much larger park area outside. East Vancouver residents have a lot of pride in being from this working class neighbourhood. The Port of Vancouver provides good union jobs and a lot of secondary and tertiary employment in a very busy industrial environment.

DAY OUT

You might want to take one day off from the city and head out of town.

To the south of Vancouver is Centennial Beach inside the boundaries of Boundary Bay Regional Park in Delta. Centennial Beach also has a tide-out time when beach goers can walk the mud flats. If you took my advice and left your car at home, public transit can take you to Centennial Beach, although the trip takes a bit of time, requiring an early morning start. Take the Canada Line SkyTrain to the station at Bridgeport. From Bridgeport Station find a public bus that takes you south toward the Canada/USA border and the connector bus to the beach area. Centennial Beach also allows barbecues on the beach.

Since you are already looking in that direction, you might want to consider another option to the southwest where a large car ferry terminal can provide you transport to Victoria, on Vancouver Island. Victoria has a large historical district tenanted by restaurants and pubs that will keep you occupied for a day.

To the north of Vancouver there are also large car ferries to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, and smaller car ferries to the Sunshine Coast. The ferries are very expensive for passengers taking a motor vehicle, but you can also arrange to take the bus, or walk on for a very reasonable rate. Passengers are allowed to take bicycles onto the ferries.

If you love the ocean, the ferry trip from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo is 30 nautical miles in about 100 minutes. These large car ferries have restaurant quality food in self-serve cafeterias. The ferry trip to Gibsons (Langdale Ferry terminal) is 10.5 nautical miles in about 45 minutes. The ferry trips are just awesome, especially on a warm summer day with the cool ocean wind in picturesque surroundings.

Travellers to Nanaimo have to purchase tickets when they leave and when they come back. Travellers to Gibsons only have to pay going there. The Langdale Ferry Terminal is just a few minutes by car from Gibsons. Gibsons is a small fishing town that has been retrofitted over the years to welcome tourists.

As well, a passenger ferry goes from Coal Harbour to Nanaimo.

SISTERS

The twin hornblende diorite 1600 metre peaks high in the northern sky are called the Lions. The First Nation Peoples know the oldest plutonic rocks on the west coast of Canada as the Two Sisters. Hikers can reach the Lions from Lions Bay, and also from the parking lot at Cypress Mountain. The hike takes about fours each way. Once you are there, at the twin hornblende diorite rocks, be careful, because scaling the East Lion is not permitted for a very good reason, and scaling the West Lion is probably not recommended. Two more lions are located at the south entrance to the Lions Gate Bridge, and two more Lions have been sculpted into the Vancouver Art Gallery. If you see a Lion in Chinatown or Richmond, the Lion is probably a Chinese dragon. Wish someone good luck! And good fortune to you!

Hollywood North is the name given to Vancouver for the film industry, whose presence is indicated by the white metal boxes with electrical cables on the roadside. The white boxes generate electricity for the crews on the movie sets. White trucks are dressing rooms for the stars, concierges for the crews and for transporting equipment. Hollywood feature films often edit out Vancouver’s distinct city landmarks and skylines, and then throw an American location label on the overall production. And digital imaging tech companies in Gastown provide computer animation for films.

CHINATOWN

Chinatown is just a few steps from the Stadium District and Gastown. Chinatown has gradually been renovated, as opposed to redeveloped, over the last few years, with many shops and restaurants, including Chinese medicinal shops along Pender Street welcoming the cruise ship passengers and East Vancouver residents. Continue down Pender Street to Main Street and then turn right down Main Street. Turning left will take you into the dilapidated and often dangerous Inner City known as the Downtown Eastside, or if you prefer, a national embarrassment that just will not go away.  Three SkyTrain stations service this area, if you are on a walking tour: Waterfront, Stadium and Main Street-Science World Stations.

Unfortunately, the neglect of the Inner City has resulted in crime spilling over into Chinatown. Since covid, the Inner city population has simultaneously grown and become increasingly desperate with the entire area having this feeling of being locked-down, especially with the constant screams of first responder sirens heard throughout this area, all day and night long.

VAG

The Vancouver Art Gallery has redesigned the north courtyard. The courtyard has become home to many sit-in type demonstrations and protests. This large meeting place area now has a concrete tiled floor, as well as benches and flower boxes where people can meet. If you want to enter the art gallery, there are line-ups in the summer months. The Gallery has a gallery shop as well as a cafeteria style bistro serving gourmet meals. Guests are allowed entry into the shop and bistro without the purchase of a gallery admissions ticket. I occasionally will have lunch at the gallery cafeteria on the small outdoor patio on the south side. People are welcome to take the meal and sit on the gallery steps.

NORTH SHORE

People can easily spend a day on Marine Drive on the North Shore visiting Lonsdale Quay, Park Royal, Ambleside Beach and Dundarave Village. These neighbourhoods are higher income neighbours with a more personalized shopping experience.

Park Royal is a large shopping centre that has been modernized.

Visitors can take several different buses from Lonsdale Quay along Marine Drive to the transportation hub at Park Royal, and perhaps all the way to Horseshoe Bay. The 250 Horseshoe Bay bus from Park Royal will take you to Ambleside, a small village atmosphere of restaurants and shops as well as grocery stores, with beach access and a seawall. The bus continues to Dundarave Village. The 250 bus also goes to Lighthouse Park for those people looking for a picturesque picnic area and hike. Further yet, Horseshoe Bay has a number of restaurants and shops, including an ice cream parlour nearby a very busy ferry terminal.

I frequently road cycle from the West End to Horseshoe Bay and back again. But now I fear that I have said too much.