What’s nice about Vancouver is that most places are only about twenty minutes away from one another. We had a spare half hour before our event for the evening so the beloved asked me what was the place I wanted to visit? I had seen Vandusen in its autumn glory; I wanted to see it…
Category: Nature
Rainbow Park, Alta Lake (Whistler Part 4)
Do you want to know how Whistler came to be a popular weekend resort? It involved a dream, a chat, and this stunning lake full of trout. Around 1911, Alex and Myrtle Philip left Maine for British Columbia. Alex came to manage the Horseshoe Bar & Grill in Gastown, Vancouver. In the spring that year,…
Lost Lake (Whistler Part 3)
Lost Lake used to be Whistler’s longtime nudist beach naturally enclosed with a border of luxuriant evergreen trees. Since lodging structures have been built around this secluded lake, it has become a lively picnic park in the summer and part of the municipal park’s cross-country skiing trail in the winter. From Whistler Village, you can…
Whistler Village and Food (Whistler Part 2)
What can you find in a “remote” village in the wilderness? You’d be surprised! Since the 1990’s, Whistler has always garnered top votes among North American resorts for alpine skiing. It gained further global recognition when it hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics which The Village icons, stores, and memorabilia will give you nostalgic reminders of. This village…
The Road to Whistler, B.C. (Whistler Part 1)
“The journey is equal to the destination,” Brent declared about our trip to Whistler as he drove the tour shuttle from downtown Vancouver onwards on the Sea-to-Sky Highway. With a 7am pickup, it would have been nice to nap all the way but Brent’s compelling, juicy narration kept me awake. He talked about the history…
English Bay
How many cities can say they have a beach park downtown? Well, Vancouver can… here at English Bay Beach (among other beaches around the city). From the late 19th century, the legendary lifeguard, Joe Fortes, taught Vancouver residents how to swim right on this beach. In 2015, some 2700 liters of cargo ship oil spilled into the…
Stanley Park
In 2014, Stanley Park National Historic Site of Canada [yes that’s its official name] got ranked “Top Park in the Entire World” by TripAdvisor [based on] consumer reviews. For about 130 years, it has been designated as “green space.” The land on which the park stands was home to First Nations (indigenous) people until 1858 when…
VanDusen Botanical Garden, Vancouver
VanDusen Garden is a sight to behold! Named after Canadian lumberman and philanropist, Whitford Julian VanDusen, it is one of five parks in the posh Shaughnessy neighbourhood, occupying a parcel of the old Shaughnessy Golf Course. The man who designed the garden, R. Roy Forster, was given the second highest honor for merit, the Order…
Bowen Island Photography Hike, British Columbia
Still part of Metro Vancouver, Bowen Island is an island municipality in Howe Sound, a network of glacier-produced narrow ocean channels between bodies of land northwest of Vancouver. From Vancouver, you can take the BC-99 Northbound bus to Horseshoe Bay and take the 30-minute BC Ferries service to Bowen Island. The aisle to open water,…
Queen Elizabeth Park, Vancouver
Queen Elizabeth Park is one of the top go-to places for Autumn leaf-peaking in Vancouver. It used to be a forest with salmon-spawning creeks, making it a favorite hunting ground for bears, wolves, and elk. In 1870 when Europeans settled here, they got rid of the wild animals, cleared the forest, and built pathways on the…
BUTTERFLY IN THE SPRING 