Off on the next Adventure – Whitehorse to Vancouver
Cathy and I left Whitehorse yestderday to begin a 4-day exploration of Vancouver followed by an Alaska cruise and land tour with 4 friends from Ontario.
We picked up our house-sitter just before 07:00 and a few minutes later were at the Whitehorse airport where check-in at the Air North counter was quick, simple and friendly as always. Once we had cleared security, it was a nice surprise to find free coffee and cookies in the departure lounge.
We pulled away from the gate at 08:00 and a few minutes later were over the Yukon River – that’s Marsh Lake in the distance.
My little buddy Nanook is with me to see more of the world 🙂
Vancouver airport was very quiet and we took a taxi to our hotel, the Westin Bayshore. We checked in but knew that we were much too early actually get a room, so just checked our luggage and went to start exploring the city. This is the lobby of the beautiful waterfront hotel.
There is a wonderful walking path along the waterfront. Vancouver is an extremely walkable city, compact and pedestrian-friendly. The very active floatplane base is in Coal Harbour, close to the Bayshore.
I was pleased to see that an impressive memorial to the Komagata Maru tragedy is under construction. I agree that acknowledging disgraceful events from our collective past will help prevent such things from ever happening again.
A ho-ho bus tour is a great way to get an overall feel for a city, and we caught a Big Bus at Canada Place. The skies were threatening but only a few drops of rain fell during the day, so we were able to be in the open part of the bus (where the good photography is!)
I’ve always been a huge fan of the architecture in Vancouver, and I think that it gets bolder and better all the time.
It’s nice to see some buildings paying homage to details of past architecture. I could spend days (weeks?) doing nothing but photographing buildings in Vancouver.
An original street facade is going to be incorporated into the new building going up on this site.
There is some wonderful public art. I can’t find the details at the moment, but I believe this was supposed to be a temporary installation but people love it so it’s now permanent. [Edit: it’s called A-maze-ing Laughter and was first installed in 2009]
Rooftop gardens are common in Vancouver but trees this large aren’t!
Stanley Park – aaaah, the green, the wonderful Spring smells!
Back to architecture – the old building is St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church.
I was surprised and pleased to see a community garden on Davie Street – this is very valuable property to be gardening on 🙂
Crossing the famous Art Deco Burrard Street Bridge.
A closer look at the Granville Island Market is definitely on the list.
The Vancouver Public Library’s Central Branch is certainly one of the architectural gems in the city.
We got off the bus back at Canada Place, and had a look at the Pan Pacific Hotel. This is the impressive view from the lounge.
Canada Place is a very popular place with locals as well as visitors.
By 4:30 when this photo was shot, floatplane traffic was getting quite heavy as people returned from a day in Victoria in particular.
The cruise ship Coral Princess was getting ready to depart for another voyage to Whittier, Alaska. This is the ship that I worked on for 3 weeks as naturalist in 2010.
While the freighter Aigaion departs for who-knows-where, the ultra-luxury cruise ship Seven Seas Navigator gets some major work done in the shipyards of North Vancouver.
Getting ready to sail. It sounded like the sailway party was well under way on the Lido Deck.
The windows behind the lifeboat allow light into “Obstructed Oceanview” cabins, but not much of a view. The Verandah cabins above give you the view at a much higher cost – a cruise for almost any budget.
The last mooring line just didn’t want to come off, so a knife was eventually brought out to free the ship!
Away she goes – Bon Voyage!
More buildings 🙂
This gutter down the center of stairs along the waterfront trail appear to be designed make skateboarding down them impossible – even the railings have blocks to make it impossible 🙂
The plaque on this donated bench says “Harry & Madeline Lyon – Waterfront Property… At Last – Love From Marci Bernie & Stu”.
Another of the many floatplanes arrives.
Very cool public art!
The rowing club was very active. This was shot from the French balcony of our room on the 9th floor of the Westin Bayshore. The hotel had called my cell phone while we were on the bus tour to tell me that our room was ready.
As we were about to go down for dinner, Cathy spotted an otter swimming across the pool! I wasn’t fast enough to catch that but did get him climbing out. 🙂
A dinner cruise boat heads out.
A final look at the city before going bed after a Most Excellent Day in this exciting city.
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