The Great Canadian Epic, Part 4: In and Around Vancouver

So here I am once again in Vancouver, Canada’s great urban gateway to the Pacific.  And, as so often before, I am not actually spending that much time in Vancouver.  I’ve seen most of the urban attractions of the city before, and wanted to get out and explore the countryside round about.  No places I’ve never been before, either, but just that I’d rather be close to trees, water, and mountains than malls, towers, and traffic.

Having said that: if you plan on driving in/around Vancouver plan plenty of extra time.  The road network is continually jamming up due to the natural bottlenecks caused by waterways.  North of the city to the north shore of Burrard Inlet there are only two bridges.  Long lineups are common to both.  South across False Creek: two bridges, same problem.  The bridges across the north arm of the Fraser to the airport and Richmond can get pretty bad too.  And I’m not just talking about weekday rush hours.  Govern yourself accordingly.  The lineup from the north to the Second Narrows Bridge today (Sunday afternoon) stretched back for about 5 kilometres of freeway!

On Sunday I drove north along the shoreline of Howe Sound to Squamish, where I had lunch.  This is one of the most breathtaking roads I know.  It’s called the Sea to Sky Highway and the name is perfect.  One minute you’re racing down a steep slope towards the dark blue waters of Howe Sound and the next minute you’re shooting up a curving hill so steep that there’s nothing solid showing beyond the concrete barrier on the corner!  This is far from being the scariest road I’ve ever driven, but I still don’t want to overdrive it when I’m not used to the road or my rented car.  The locals routinely roar up and down this hillside roller coaster of a road at speeds 20, 30, even 40 kilometres per hour over the posted limits.  Keep right and let them go by!

Most of the route is actually four lanes now, although a few two lane stretches still exist, carved into tiny ledges on the cliff faces.  The entire highway is an incredible feat of engineering skill and dexterity.  Because of the tight quarters there are very few places where pullouts can be constructed for people to enjoy the spectacular views, and some of those are only accessible when southbound.  Whichever direction you travel, getting back on the road after you turn off is a fraught exercise in which stamping pedal to the metal while simultaneously switching on the 4-way flashers is the recommended procedure.

Photography between the marked viewpoints had best be left to a video dashcam.  Only a born bloody fool would try to text or take pix or selfies by hand on the Sea to Sky Highway.  I’m sure some morbid idiots with compulsive death wish syndrome do it. 

For all these reasons, I recommend the more timid or cautious drivers to take a bus tour!

Well, from today’s lazy, hazy summer Sunday here are my pictures taken along this amazing road, starting at Squamish and proceeding southwards.

The view northeast from the town of Squamish to Mt. Garibaldi:

The towering rock face of the Stawamus Chief, looming high above Squamish:

A panoramic view of Squamish, the Stawamus Chief, and Mt. Garibaldi from the next lookout south along the road:

A broad view of Howe Sound and the mountains from the provincial park at Porteau Cove:

This view, also at Porteau Cove, shows the difficulties of the environment the road builders had to contend with -- and without disturbing the railway line which already ran along the base of the cliffs from North Vancouver to Squamish and beyond.

Monday was in fact an in-town day, although much of it was not spent in town.  The morning I passed in the fabulous urban wilderness that is Stanley Park.  I took the time to do something I didn't have time for on my last visit a year ago, and went for a good long walk along the Seawall.  This encircles the entire peninsula that comprises the park, but the stretch I went for was the northwest quadrant, so to speak -- from Third Beach up to the Lions Gate Bridge and back.  Here are a few pictures to show the wild scenic beauty of this stretch of the coast.

As you can see, the Seawall walkway is clearly split into two separate portions: the inner part, raised a little higher, for cyclists and rollerbladers, and the outer half next to the actual wall for pedestrians and joggers.  Even though it was a Monday morning, ample numbers of all these groups were out and about.  It was still a most enjoyable morning exercise.

For lunch I met a friend living in the west end, and after lunch we walked at some length along the continuing pedestrian/cycle path lining the beaches of the city's west end.  And after that I drove down to Steveston, a riverside neighbourhood village which I first seen last year (pictures here: Lotus Land Revisited ), to pay an extended visit to the Georgia Cannery Museum, and to have another nice patio dinner near the river.  

The museum was fascinating, if a little repellent.  Kind of uncomfortable to find out in detail about all the steps that had to go into making a "simple" can of salmon -- and to experience some of the sights, sounds, and smells first-hand!  It was uncomfortable in another way too.  In the early days, most of the cannery workers were Chinese, and they got the dirtiest, most backbreaking manual drudge jobs which nobody else would do.  Just inside the entrance is a machine which was eventually invented to take out a lot of the manual "grunt work" of prepping the salmon.  Its patented name, engraved right into the machine's frame -- no word of a lie -- is "The Iron Chink".  

At any rate, this was a much better than average museum devoted to an industry, and I learned a great deal in the course of my visit.  Dinner on a riverfront patio was at a local restaurant I had not visited before, but it was very good: a delicious grilled chinook salmon fillet (not canned!!) on a stir fry of vegetables and noodles.

Word of warning:  I made a severe error in judgement and used my

video camera to also take still photos on the next day.  Big mistake, the 

pictures are rather grainy.  Apologies for the poor quality of the next few!

For my last day in Vancouver, I decided to take a day trip northwest of the city to the “Sunshine Coast”.  This is a mainland region, but can only be reached by ferry since there are no roads linking the area to the outside world.  This map helps to show why – especially when you realize that all the land areas shown are mountains rising straight up out of the ocean!

 The crossing of Howe Sound gives you a spectacular opportunity to photograph this incredibly beautiful fjord from its southern end opening into the Gulf of Georgia.  The crossing takes 35 minutes.  Since the ferry is the only way in or out of the Sunshine Coast for a vehicle, you are charged the full round-trip fare on the inbound route from either south or north. 

The ferry arrives at Langdale, which is just a ferry terminal and nothing more to speak of.  But it takes only a few minutes to drive south from Langdale to Gibsons, which was the filming location of the 1970s CBC TV series The Beachcombers.  This show has achieved cult status in many parts of the world, and people come from all over the map to see the buildings and places associated with the show.  The central character’s boat, Persephone, is preserved in a parkette on the main street.  Gibsons is a pretty little place with a few interesting shops, galleries, restaurants and pubs – as well as multiple marinas and amazing views over Howe Sound.

Gibsons also features some rather quirky treatments of streetside hydro junction boxes.

I then drove a few miles west and north to Sechelt, on the inner end of Sechelt Inlet, another fjord.  There I had a waterside patio lunch of a halibut sandwich and salad, while contemplating the fact that you could walk overland here from the Gulf of Georgia to the end of Sechelt Inlet in half an hour or less, while it would probably take you a pretty full day to sail around on the water (see map above).

After lunch, I drove back to the beach on the Gulf side and walked for a few minutes, then returned to Gibsons for a coffee on a café patio.  From there, it was back to Langdale and the return ferry ride.  Back on the mainland I detoured for the first time ever up the Cypress Bowl Road, and came to the viewpoint which has the best mountaintop view of Vancouver I’ve ever seen.  In spite of the smog the view stretches for miles into the distance, and the closer-in parts are much clearer than they can be in summer.  It was a fitting crown and “highlight" to my three days of Vancouver adventures. 

 By 6:30 pm I was back at the station, waiting to board the train for the first leg of my return trip, from Vancouver to Jasper.