Vancouver

The Disney ship was in port as we arrived. Mickey Mouse is on the bow.

  It’s a big city!

Moving south from Alaska we dropped anchor at Vancouver, a city of 642,000 but with an overall metropolitan population of 2.3 million. Vancouver is a modern and large coastal city that hosted the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic games. The 10 metre high Olympic cauldron is now mounted at the front of the Vancouver Convention centre and was “turned on” for the night as the ship was in port.

Olympic Cauldron circa 2010

The lure of gold is what drew European settlement to this area. The Hudson Bay Company set up shop in 1858 and began buying gold from prospectors in a settlement called Gastown.

Gastown has the look and feel of “The Rocks” on the foreshores of Sydney with cobblestone streets and a pavement mounted steam driven clock that whistles every fifteen minutes. In the 1890’s streams of Chinese immigrated to this area to supply the labour backbone of the rail and road construction. This is reflected today in a large Chinatown area, the largest in Canada.

As a tourist destination you land in a large city that is bustling with its own sense of busyness so don’t expect warm and friendly hugs from the Armani, and lesser Hugo Boss, clad locals as they zip between skyscrapers. To do the tourist thing in a big city is daunting and you have to walk long distances between key landmarks so grabbing the hop on hop off red bus is a must but you won’t find anything like the Statue of David or the Colosseum in Vancouver, the Totems get close.

A lot of fun is had by going to the Granville Island Market which is a Sydney “Darling Harbour” or San Francisco “Fisherman’s Wharf” type of place with lots to eat and trinkets everywhere to be bought. It is named as “One of the Worlds Greatest Places” to visit.

Cute little mini-ferries. I don't think they would survive on Sydney Harbour.

The cute thing to do from here is to take tiny little toy ferries up and down the harbour to the various landmark places. These ferries are largely driven by teenage University students or dropouts who have not yet mastered the English or French language.  Any parent will recognize the unique odor and grunting language of these boys making communication on directions and venues easier.

There is also a 1000-acre park in the centre of town called Stanly Park that includes a large Aquarium and a Totem Pole Garden which can consume some of your time. Big cities do not effuse the culture uniqueness that many international travellers are chasing so you are left a bit cold, culturally speaking and climate wise. I have heard that Victoria is the place to find the Canadian village-like culture so that is the next stop.