Happy Canada Day!

Day 17
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Sightseeing in Vancouver

We awoke on Canada Day to a typical Northwest drizzle gently serenading us with a familiar tune on the roof of our trailer. All four of us rolled over and went back to sleep. It was perfect timing for a rainy morning. We needed the rest.

Canada became an independent country on July 1, 1867. We were happy to help our neighbors to the north celebrate their nation’s 143 birthday.

At about noon, we walked from out campsite to a “Sky Train” subway station and caught a train bound for the Waterfront station. Their subway system was cool, clean, efficient and easy to navigate although small in terms of coverage area. The trains are not staffed. Tickets are purchased from automated kiosks on an honor system backed up by spot-check verifications. Completely unstaffed trains operated on raised tracks most of the way, going underground only for the last three stops before the terminus in the center city.

Along the way we saw numerous clusters of high-rise condominiums. The city appeared to be planned yet had no zoning. We passed multiple centers of population with green belts between them, but within clusters there were hodgepodges of land uses. We saw a freight rail yard literally right next to a group of condo buildings and a church. None of the buildings looked more than a few years old. Strange by American standards (except Houston!) The effect is a sprawling metropolis that shows a flicker of genius when it comes to dispersing population and preserving open spaces, but which has an ugly side because of the unchecked mixed use. Unfortunately, even a casual visitor sees traffic problems. They either need more mass transit or roads, especially with dispersed centers of population.

Vancouver is a very ethnically diverse city with a sizeable Asian population. It is also very much a port city with signs of shipping and railroads everywhere, including alongside our campground!

We walked about the downtown area stopping at Canada Place and the Vancouver Convention Center. Canada Day was a lot like the Fourth of July. People dressed up in patriotic hats and clothes and waived red and white maple leaf flags. There were lots of activities along the waterfront including live music, some very competitive badminton matches and dozens of booths. Emily said her middle school gym teacher, Mr. Taylor, would have loved the badminton, noting “He’s really into badminton.”

We then walked down Cordova Street in the Gastown District. John “Gassy Jack” Deighton established the area in the 1880s. Supposedly he was named “Gassy” because he was prone to long-winded monologues. Gastown is a historic area set against a backdrop of very modern, glass high-rise office and condo buildings. Vancouver is obviously a big and crowded city, but it doesn’t have the feeling of “critical mass” that New York, Chicago and San Francisco have. Perhaps this is by design, but the feeling we came away with was that it was a second-tier city.

Frank thought the coolest thing in Gastown was a steam clock that played Westminster Chimes on the quarter hour through steam pipes.

Our preconceptions about the superiority of Canadian over American cities were slightly modified when we walked through a sketchy area, complete with addicts on the streets, between Gastown and Chinatown. Nonetheless, we saw nothing close to the ghettos of America’s Rustbelt cities.

Our Emily Vera was excited to see a Vera’s Burger Shack in Gastown, however, through a democratic process, we chose to eat lunch at Old Spaghetti Factory instead. After lunch we shopped along Cordova Street and Frank and Emily purchased matching Vancouver jerseys.

Although the second annual Canada Day parade was scheduled to kick off at 7 PM followed by fireworks at 10:30, we decided to call it a day early and rode back to our campground on the Sky Train. After dinner, Frank read another chapter of Sasquatch, although it didn’t have the same fear factor as when we were in Mount Rainier National Park!