Vancouver rain

It certainly rains a lot in North America's Pacific Northwest. From a climatic perspective, starting in Northern California and moving up the coast of British Columbia to Alaska, the prevailing conditions are those of a temperate rainforest.  While the summer months are usually drier, most of the year the rains come steadily.  This results in luscious vegetation and tall tree cover. The forests are full of moss, and new saplings grow easily from the trunks of trees long dead. Things just seem to grow anywhere and everywhere and the earth is in a constant state of renewal.

While these growing conditions are perfect for plants, the constant precipitation can make humans rather gloomy. Regan D'Andrade, a Vancouver writer and teacher, wrote about this a few years ago. Her little essay was inscribed on a rock at Kits Point, overlooking English Bay.  Her words are worth sharing. The inscription reads:

"Vancouver is famous for its rain. It can rain here for weeks on end, but it does not usually bother me. However, several years ago I found myself coming close to being thoroughly disgusted with the rain.

"I walked home one evening in the pouring rain, mumbling under my breath the whole way that this weather was only suited for ducks. The building I lived in was large and square, and it surrounded a brick courtyard. I came around the corner into the courtyard and there, to my amazement, was a beautiful Peking duck, in a huge puddle in the middle of the courtyard, quacking and splashing with obvious delight. I had to smile, glad that such joy could be found in the grey wetness of such a day.

"I have often thought that we do not have nearly enough words for rain, especially as this was once a rainforest. There is booming rain, whispery rain, rain that lulls you to sleep, and rain on the leaves which sings you awake; there is soft rain, hard rain, sideways rain, rain that makes you instantly wet, and rain that leaves soft kisses on your cheek, like the kiss of a butterfly.

"Rain brings us all the shades of gray, but it also brings us the wonderful greenery that surrounds us and blesses us."

Related posts:

Venice in the rain
Ottawa rain and a storyteller from the past (Hemingway)
Toronto evening

Vancouver moment

We talked recently about some San Francisco impressions. Now that I've lived in Vancouver for a while, I've done a lot of walking around and, naturally, have accumulated impressions about this city as well. Yes, it rains a lot. But the air off the Pacific Ocean is always clean and the summers are never muggy.

There is a little parkette above West 8th Avenue, where you can sit under the shade of trees and look northward across the city centre to the mountains. It's a nice patch of landscaping with grass, patio stones and benches with planters, tucked in behind an office tower on Broadway Avenue. This little oasis is elevated on the Fairview slope, and like so many properties in town, is bordered by an evergreen hedge. What's unique about it, however, is the view it offers of this fortunate city.

When you stand near the hedge, you can see over the neighbourhood rooftops, over the water of False Creek, to the tall city buildings and the North Shore mountains beyond. You also get a glimpse to the west of English Bay and the waters of the Georgia Strait.

It's a tranquil place, especially after office hours. It's nice to be there when the sky clears after a stretch of cloudy weather. Twilight can be special.

On certain quiet windless evenings, wispy layers of white cloud hang motionless just below the coastal peaks, hugging the trees on the mountainside, leaving the tops clear.

Looking between the buildings over to the west, you can see the cargo ships on the glassy water of English Bay turn on their lights as the sun disappears behind the silhouette of Vancouver Island beyond. The lighthouse at Point Atkinson blinks on and off, signalling the arrival of nightfall.

It's a place and time that soothes in so many ways...


Photo credit:
Thanks to Jason Antony, who made his shot available at sxc.hu

Additional Links:
False Creek
Point Atkinson pictures
English Bay
Vancouver Island
Georgia Strait

Previously in this blog:
A seal and a ferry in the Strait
False Creek at night
English Bay view

False Creek at night

There is a section of Vancouver that exhibits a dreamlike quality at night. Dreamlike because when you're in this area at night, you see nothing but soaring lights: visions of a surreal place. You could be forgiven if you think for a moment you're in a science fiction movie. Bridges are illuminated in warm tones and vehicles move rapidly in and out of a golden city on suspended lanes; you don't hear them much down here, only see headlights moving in the air above the bridges.

In the black water, colour spills and mixes in reflective pools and patterns, like molten metal. Occasionally a silver light will appear out of the gloom and a slap-slap sound tells you a canoeist or kayaker is out there, his helmet light turned on for safety. Then out of the dark, the soft sound now of a small wave being pushed in front of a rounded bow...it precedes the appearance of a green light and a red light; and the shape of a small water taxi takes form. It heads for a nearby pier.

A ring of bright pearls decorates the shore. The towers of light go up into the sky.

Seen from this vantage point, the city looks like an imaginary place, like Oz, or some far-off, extraterrestrial future city, or perhaps instead an image from the 1920s, a golden re-creation of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

It is, instead, False Creek at night, with its reflections of the condo towers, it's ten marinas and it's four bridges; quiet and peaceful, with it's walking path and parks ringing it, in the heart of Vancouver.




Photo by Jonesy22 shows False Creek, taken from the south shore at Charleston Park. Made available under creative commons license

Under Granville Bridge, Vancouver

Granville Island is a popular Vancouver attraction. From its days as an industrial area, the island was transformed in the 1970s and 1980s into a popular destination for both residents and visitors of the city. A colourful public market offers a plentiful selection of fresh food of all types, while art galleries, pottery studios, a university, waterside restaurants and many different shops give people good reason to stroll the area for hours at a time.

My wife and I stopped for a cappuccino at the Blue Parrot coffee shop under the Granville Bridge, and I couldn't resist taking out my notebook. The view here is looking towards the north shore of False Creek

A historic building

This tower with its balcony sits atop the tiled roof of St. Paul's Hospital on Burrard Street in downtown Vancouver. This research and teaching hospital was founded in the 1890s by the Sisters of Providence, a Roman Catholic women's religious order, and grew with the city into a comprehensive health centre.

I sat at a coffee shop across the road and looked up at the roof of the multi-storey building and for some reason the little tower appealed to me.

In a city that is largely dominated by modern glass and steel architecture, the hospital stands out as an example of a previous era.

A gentle giant

This post is a short photo essay. Last weekend I had the pleasure of watching this ship, the Diamond Princess, depart from Vancouver harbour for its seven-day run up the North American coast to Alaska.
It's a really big ship, as you can see. This picture was taken from the roof of Canada Place, which is already about 10 storeys above the water line. Launched in 2004, the Diamond Princess can accommodate 2,670 passengers, and a staggering 748 cabins have private balconies. Built in Japan, it is one of the two largest ships in the Princess fleet.
During the height of the cruise season, weekends are busy in the harbour as ships prepare to leave. This summer, the Diamond Princess departed from Vancouver and arrived in Whittier (Anchorage). It then followed the reverse path with new passengers.
The bridge features the extensions pictured here, which provide excellent sight lines of the sides of the ship.
To facilitate docking procedures and preparations for getting underway, the ship is designed with these side doors that allow the crew to coordinate the release of mooring lines with workers on the dock. The ropes are whisked inside by a winch mechanism. The thick lines are guided by large rolling pins on the outside of the hull to keep the side of the ship clean.
Side-mounted engines provide the needed lateral force to maneuver the massive ship away from the dock.
116, ooo tons of steel and thousands of passengers begin a leisurely voyage out of Burrard Inlet and up the Pacific Coast. Along the way, passengers will see glaciers and mountains, fiords and forests.
Bon voyage!

This is the view from the cable car station on Grouse Mountain, just north of Vancouver.

NBC Sports has selected this spot to set up its Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics studio.

Grouse may be one of the view places in the world where one can hop on a city bus and be skiing just a short time after having walked on the beach.

In the summer it's the home of tourists and exercise enthusiasts who experience the hiking and other outdoors activities in and around the nearby peaks.

I celebrated my birthday by walking in the area, hiking along the north side of the mountain where I was surprised and scared out of my wits by a large bear on the trail. I was very happy to later celebrate my escape with a bottle of beer and by taking in the view from the peak, at just over 1,250 meters above sea level.

A view of English Bay

Here's one of my sketches of English Bay from Vancouver's West End.

From this densely populated area of apartment buildings and hotels the view looking out to sea is spectacular, especially at sunset. Tankers arrive from far away ports and wait in the Bay to be called in to the harbour for loading. They have become an integral part of the city's view. At twighlight, they turn their navigation lights on and they twinkle out on the water. The building on the right with the dark ring around it is the Empire Landmark Hotel, which sports a rotating restaurant on the top floor.

According to englishbay.com, the area acquired its name from the 1792 meeting between the British sea captain Vancouver and his Spanish counterparts Valdez and Galiano. The same meeting resulted in the naming of the Spanish Banks nearby, an area which is home to three of Vancouver's best beaches.

This is a quick sketch of the view below Vancouver's Lions Gate Bridge as seen from the seawall in Stanley Park. Structures like this fascinate me. Thousands of tons of steel suspended in the air, held up by cables hundreds of metres in the air, vehicles and passengers crossing it every day. It's an amazing sight from both below and from above the road surface. When you're looking up from underneath you can clearly see all the support beams and how the weight has been been distributed; you hear the rumbling of tires over grated steel as vehicles move over each section.

Completed in 1938, the Lions Gate Bridge spans the First Narrows section of Burrard Inlet, linking the city of Vancouver with the municipalities of North Vancouver and West Vancouver on the northern shore of the Inlet. The construction of the bridge was made possible by a purchase of land by the Guinness family, the same family related to the famous Irish beer. Together with other entrepreneurs, in the late 20s and early 30s they bought a large tract of land on the mountainside in West Vancouver. This allowed the project to proceed, as many local residents and business people were originally against the idea and had voted against it.

The bridge is popularly known as the Lions Gate, because it points in the direction of the Lions, two mountain peaks north of Vancouver.

The other day, I rode my bicycle across it. There is a separate sidewalk and bike lane on either side of the road surface. Only a handrail remains between the bridge and the empty space below. For someone like me who's not comfortable with heights, it takes a bit of courage to ride your bike next to that rail, but the view is spectacular.

Here's an overhead look , taken by a photographer in a seaplane landing in Vancouver harbour:


The bridge is a classic Vancouver landmark. On the day I rode across it, I was headed back downtown when I saw a large cruise ship leaving harbour. I stopped my bike, leaned it against the railing and waited for the ship to pass underneath. With a couple of pedestrians who had also stopped halfway across the bridge, I peered down on the thousands of people who were enjoying the view of the coastal mountains from the deck of the Norwegian Sun. Young people were playing basketball on deck in an enclosed area and the swimming pool was busy; but mostly passengers had gathered in the upper decks in the front of the ship or on their private balconies to get a last look of Vancouver as they headed off either to Alaska or down the coast to California, I don't know which. Everyone waved. The great ship passed. I carefully got back on my bike and headed downhill into the coolness of the forest in Stanley Park.

Notes:

Aerial photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
For a related story on Stanley Park , see this post.

Vancouver's summer

After a week in Vancouver, I'm starting to wonder if this is the same city I visited a few months ago. It's been sunny and very hot for seven days in a row and more of the same on the way. Normally, the city has moderate temperatures and lots of precipitation. Many homes and apartments don't have air conditioning. In the morning, standing at water dispensers in cool office buildings, people have been sharing their insomnia woes. Fans and air conditioners have been flying off store shelves.

Sleepwalking or not, it's still a great time for those who like to hang out at the beach.

But for some, the heat and dry air have been bad news: forest fires in the province's interior and in the mountains have forced residents to leave their homes. The fires have been sparked by lightning strikes, mainly. While crews have battled flames non-stop in the wilderness, including a fire at Blackcomb, near the site of the Winter Olympics, here in the city there is no sign of rain.

We have had artificial fires, mind you, with the HSBC Celebration of Light event, which is an annual fireworks competition on the waterfront. This year it featured teams from South Africa, Canada, the U.K. and China. You can get an idea of what it's been like by watching this casual YouTube video, posted by a local resident.

To the newcomer, Vancouver stands out for its Anglo-Asian-Aboriginal ethnic mix; but it's also a city of many languages. Like Toronto, this city is a true cultural mosaic. In addition, cruise ships arrive at dawn and discharge hundreds of tourists and shoppers fill Robson Street and the downtown core. I've heard Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Russian, Farsi and a whole range of other languages in my walks downtown. The 2009 World Police and Fire Games are being held in nearby Burnaby, and this has added even more visitors to the streets, as groups of fit-looking people (mainly men) wander in groups wearing their national colours. Coincidentally, it's also time for Vancouver's gay pride parade. I'm not saying the two things are related, of course, but you get the picture.

Vancouver is also very cyclist-friendly, with many biking trails in town and near the seawalls. Lots of people also commute to work on their bikes. They've inspired me, and I have bought a bicycle of my own.

Outdoor patio

Summertime, and the living is easy.

A drink under an umbrella, some conversation and all the life of the city within walking distance.

This was the scene at a restaurant patio in the Yaletown area of Vancouver, a few weeks ago. My wife and I were waiting for an important phone call and I decided to spend the time doing a little sketching. These were some of the people at the nearby tables.

The shade of a large patio umbrella is always a welcome thing.

I hope you're enjoying your summer !

Vancouver's Stanley Park

The first time you venture inland from the seawall that borders Vancouver's Stanley Park you realize instantly that you're treading on hallowed ground: one thousand acres of centuries-old, sky-reaching trees that quite simply take your breath away. These monuments of nature tower around you and overpower you with the scents of cedar and fir. If you wanted to wrap your arms around one of their trunks, you'd need three friends to do it. And as you step into the forest, the sounds of Vancouver's busy West End mysteriously fade away and you are enveloped in tranquility. Walking along the park's trails, you are drawn to the mystical; the combined stillness and energy of the place seeps into your being and awakens your senses in a way that must be experienced to be understood.

What city in the world can claim to have a park of this size, home to approximately half a million trees, within easy reach of its downtown? Little wonder, then, that Vancouver's citizens take such pride in it and were so moved by the effects of a devastating wind storm in December of 2006 that they pledged more than three million dollars to a special fund to restore the damaged areas of this unique urban forest.

Larger than New York's Central Park and jutting into the channel that leads to Vancouver's harbor, the park was opened in 1888 and dedicated to Lord Stanley, Canada's Governor General, in 1889. More than a park, this natural playground, bordered by mountains and the Pacific Ocean, is a testament to environmentalists who were well ahead of their time.

In 1886, the citizens of Vancouver, working through their city council, approached the Canadian government in Ottawa asking to lease what was then a logging peninsula in order to convert it for park and recreational purposes. The city council set up an elected committee to govern all parks in Vancouver, and today the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation is said to be the only elected body of its kind in the country.

Stanley Park is separated from the ocean by a seawall that is more than five miles, or eight kilometers, long; a paved ribbon that attracts walkers, cyclists and skateboarders who take in the sea air and admire the Lions Gate Bridge that connects downtown Vancouver to the North Shore of Burrard Inlet. In the summer months, enormous cruise ships pass underneath the suspension bridge on their way up the coast to Alaska's glaciers. Walking at a steady pace, it takes about two hours to complete the seawall circuit, so be sure to wear appropriate footwear.

On a recent early evening, I was walking along the western seawall at low tide when, no more than fifty paces away, a pair of bald eagles suddenly swooped down from the trees and, talons outstretched, stole a fish from a seagull that was perched on a large rock in the water. Unperturbed by either the angry seagull that dive-bombed them and cried vehemently, or by the human onlookers that had stopped to watch, the pair of large eagles had their meal. Once close to extinction, bald eagles have made a remarkable comeback on the West Coast.

Further along, at Second Beach, three swimmers swam lengths in the park's public pool, quiet now and relatively still as dusk approached. The wide facility, with a connected wading area for children, is an elegantly designed infinity pool, with its edge matching the horizon and creating the optical illusion of the ocean and the pool being one and the same.

It was a splendid evening, with Vancouverites gathering on the beach at English Bay. People with guitars emerged, couples held hands and sat on logs laid out on the sand, seniors and children alike were talking amiably -- all there to enjoy the sunset. A little off to the side of the path, by the tennis courts and behind the building that houses the Board of Parks and Recreation, rose a cacophony of cries, a curious sound like turkeys gobbling and cats fighting. Looking up into the height of the trees, you could see many families of blue herons nesting. A wooden rail had been erected to keep people on the sidewalk; a raccoon combed the ground at the base of the trees. Droppings covered the leaves.

Overlooking the beach, diners at the Boathouse Restaurant sat on the open deck and talked quietly as the sun slid down behind Stanley Park and the distant mountains on Vancouver Island; watched freighters in the bay turn on their lights as the flat sea turned a silvery gray. Two kayakers paddled softly home and glasses and cutlery tinkled over the boardwalk.

A visitor senses that Vancouver's people know full well they've been entrusted with a gift of nature; something worth preserving, just as the park's founders intended more than one hundred years ago.


(This item is also posted on Helium.com )