Local Ecologist Blog

Travel is such an interesting state of mind. On the one hand, you want to do more where you are, while on the other, you are thinking about home and its comforts. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with family in Whistler! However, we wanted to see a bit more of Vancouver and we knew that after Vancouver was home. (Well, one of us would have stayed in Whistler indefinitely, especially if a similar-aged cousin stayed, too.) We drove unto Granville Island. We did not have a specific itinerary but I wanted to visit the Granville Island Public Market.  Our first stop was Ron Basford Park.  Ron Bamford was a long-serving Canadian Cabinet Minister, and accodring to Wikipedia entry, "he was known as "Mr. Granville Island" for his support of the Granville Island redevelopment project in Vancouver." The park was adjacent to where we parked and after a long drive we wanted to be outdoors. The hill in the center of the park also beckoned! From there we walked along...

The drive to Whistler was gorgeous. All bay and mountains. We stayed in Whistler Village in a VRBO condo. We liked our hotel in Vancouver but the condo in Whistler felt like a home stay. We made a lot of our own meals and instead of some of us sleeping on an "it's seen better days" pull out couch and in a roll away cot, most of us slept on real beds. The condo had a deck but we spent much of our time outdoors, so it was hardly used. We spent the morning of the first day at Whistler at Lost Lake, one of five lakes in Whistler. Lost Lake is in, can you guess, Lost Lake Park. From Whistler Village, you walk through wooded developments into the park. From the "beach" all you see is sky and forest. It's so easy to superlative when describing about BC! The water was warmer than I expected it to be but it was no bathtub soak - my preferred water temperature. The younger ones among us waded up to their knees. One cousin swam out to a swimming platform in the la...

Unlike previous days in Vancouver, we didn't head out on our day's exploration until the afternoon. We walked clear across Vancouver, from Downtown to Sunset Beach. It was the classic uphill there and back! And it was a HOT day. Getting to the beach, kicking off our shoes, and wading in the cool water was refreshing. We walked on Thurlow passing the almost 3 acre Nelson Park. We spent some time admiring Arts & Crafts houses in the neighborhood. On and off Thurlow we saw several examples of traffic calming gardens such as the one above. As part of its Green Streets program, the City pays for the first planting. Volunteers maintain the gardens and provide additional plants. Thurlow is a residential street. We wanted to take a more dynamic route home, so we chose to return to the hotel via Burrard Street. I'm glad we did. We discovered the very large and verdant Davie Street Community Garden at the corner of Burrard and Davie, one of the West End's ...

We filled our third day with two major tourist spots in Vancouver -- Stanley Park and Chinatown. The Aquarium is in Stanley Park so technically we had already visited the park but we wanted to see more of it. After all, I'm an urban forester! Here's a description of the park on the City of Vancouver website: Explore the 400-hectare natural West Coast rainforest and enjoy scenic views of water, mountains, sky, and majestic trees along Stanley Park's famous Seawall. Discover kilometres of trails, beautiful beaches, local wildlife, great eats, natural, cultural and historical landmarks, along with many other adventures. The park offers a wide range of unforgettable experiences for all ages and interests, including Canada’s largest aquarium. August 10th was another overcast day and this one brought with it, rain. Thankfully the rain was light so we did not turn back. We walked along the lake, picking and eating blackberries and dodging Canada geese ...

The Vancouver Aquarium was a treat! We are land and sea lovers (though two of us get queasy on boats) so it was a pleasure to stroll Stanley Park before and after seeing the sea life at the aquarium. One of the highlights was the small jellies. It was mesmerizing to watch them propel their bodies, which are composed of mostly of water (96%), through the water. We made our visit at mid-morning to avoid crowds and we were rewarded with lots of hang time at all the tanks. Can you tell that this octopus was fascinating?! I like that the aquarium offers lots of ways to learn about the marine environment, both local (British Columbia) and far away. The aquarium has exhibits and galleries, shows, and activities, and staffed pop-up experiential displays. You can visit the aquarium in person or online via live cams and videos.  The Strait of Georgia exhibit in the Pacific Canada Pavilion was one of my favorites interior areas of the aquarium. We didn't attend a live-...

We made a work and play trip to Vancouver this summer. And we had a great time. We also visited Whistler. One of us needed a brand new passport. Congratulations on your first international trip, Little Sea! We flew from New York to Vancouver on a red eye. Luckily we all went back to sleep until a reasonable time in the morning. We started our stay in Vancouver with a low-key exploration of the Vancouver Harbor shoreline. This part of the city is all sky and water and mountains. We saw lots of man-made signs of the nature of the city. We played at Coal Harbor Park which you can think of as a green roof since it sits atop the Coal Harbor Community Centre. This is a new park; it was built in 2000. The total cost of the park, $1.5 million, was borne by Marathon Development Inc. and was a portion of the company's "community amenity contribution." From Coal Habor we walked upland of the Seawall, admiring another wall. The Vancouver Seawall is "the w...