city guides

Versatile Vancouver

From its bustling port to its international eateries, Vancouver offers diversity in every direction.

Yes, it rains in Vancouver, but locals are only joking when they speak of monsoons. In fact Springspring and summer tend to be dry and sunny. Snowstorms are uncommon, but organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics are praying for some flakes.

Visitors marvel at the city’s laid-back atmosphere, despite locals’ tendency to watch the clock: Watches are set to the noontime “O, Canada” horns atop the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre and the Nine O’clock Gun, a cannon on Stanley Park’s eastside.east side.

Bridges connect the Westside,city's west side, the West End (and the remainder of the downtown peninsula) and suburban West Vancouver.Vancouver on the North Shore. The Queen Elizabeth Theatre is downtown, and Queen Elizabeth Park isn’t. False Creek is truly an inlet. Granville Island is (you guessed it) a peninsula, not an island. Paradoxes aplenty. That’s Vancouver. Canada’s Lotusland.

Some call it Terminal City for its bustling port—the biggest on North America’s west coast. Local author Douglas Coupland dubbed Vancouver “City of Glass” for its abundance of tall buildings with windows in green and blue hues. For a while, it was “No Fun City” after city hall cancelled some popular festivals and street parties. A change in the mayoralty ushered in a renaissance of fun.

However you name it, Vancouver is undeniably a diverse place, where international culture and cuisine, particularly from Asia, are never hard to find. You really can golf, ski and sail on the same day in February, but you’dyou may require Gore-Tex rain gear. You can buy that from Mountain Equipment Co-op, the nationwide outdoor recreation outfitter founded in 1971 by penny-pinching university students. The global environmental movement was another Vancouver innovation after Greenpeace got its start here the same year—not surprising, since Vancouver is on nature’s doorstep. Bald eagles soar between office towers, seals cavort among the harbor’sharbour’s barges and black bears sometimes prowl North Shore neighborhoods.

This is where Starbucks started its international expansion. You could say it cornered the market with a pair of cafés at the chic intersection of Robson and Thurlow. Pick one, but don’t blink. You could miss a close encounter with one of many A-list celebrities shooting TV shows or movies in the true Hollywood North.

The city’s character

In the shadow of southwestern British Columbia’s Coastal Mountains, Vancouver is surrounded by water from the Pacific Ocean and Fraser River. Mount Baker, a snowcapped volcano, rises ominously to the southeast in Washington State.

Vancouver’s coastline was dotted with Coast Salish tribal villages when Spain’s Jose Maria Narvaez sailed here in 1791. A year later, Britain’s Capt. George Vancouver did the same. The city of 1,000 was dubbed Vancouver, instead of Narvaez, upon its 1886 incorporation because of Canada’s membership in the British Empire.

Vancouver’s tendency to remake itself began early and out of necessity. Within two months of its birth, the town site burned in a fire. A year later, the first trans-Canada train arrived. Engine 374 and the old Canadian Pacific roundhouse were renovated for the Expo 86 World’s Fair, celebrating transportation and communication history.

Vancouver is conveniently situated halfway between Western Europe and East Asia, maintaining vestiges of its colonial past while gazing eagerly into the future. It’s old enough to have a history, but it’s still carving an identity.

Vancouverites make a sport out of ridiculing eastern cousins in Toronto, especially when Canada’s financial hub suffers a blizzard while crocuses are blooming on the west coast; but they share a common climate,climate and love of the environment and entrepreneurial spirit with their southern neighborsneighbours in Seattle. The city’s residents are content to keep the border where it is—24 miles south—so the metro population remains a manageable 2.1 million.

What Vancouverites want you to know about their cityVancouver’scity:Vancouver’s weather is milder than that of many northern U.S. cities like Boston, Chicago and New York, and when it’s raining here, it’s probably snowing in the rest of Canada.

____________________________________________

bob mackin is a freelance writer in Vancouver. Email Bob at editor@executivetravelmag.com.

Inside the Vancouver Guide

Explore and share advice on:

• What to see and do in Vancouver
• Getting there, getting around
  
• Recommended hotels in Vancouver
• Restaurants in Vancouver
• Entertaining clients in Vancouver
• Unwind at Whistler

Required reading:

• Canada Resource Guide

• Canadian business etiquette by Nancy Branka
  
• Doing business in Canada by Amanda Joyce
  
• Riding the Canadian rails by Hilary Davidson

_____________________________

Special thanks to the tourism and airport media relations staffs in Vancouver for the information provided in this resource guide.