Vancouver and Victoria
Dave and Helen Damouth
www.damouth.org
September 15, 1998
Greetings from Vancouver. It is a delightful place. It feels young and brash - still with rough edges. There are old areas, but they aren't emphasized, and get lost among the huge amount of new construction. It's a city of fairly recent immigrants, from many countries. When the transcontinental railroads were finished, a large group of Japanese and Chinese workers were left in this area with nothing to do. They stayed, became the core of the fishing fleet, and also provided many of the workers for the processing and canning plants. Today, several generations later, there are very large populations of Japanese and Chinese ancestry. There are many other substantial-sized ethnic groups as well. We drove through neighborhoods of Korean and Vietnamese. We hear several Slavic languages on the streets.
The drive to Vancouver from Jasper was mostly through mountains. We chose to take Highway 1 - the older road which goes through the impressive Frazer River Canyon. We were initially worried about driving this road with the trailer, but it is routinely traveled by large trucks, and turns out to be no problem at all, providing you are not in a hurry. We stopped at Hell's Gate to look around, but didn't take the tram down into the canyon.
We wanted to spend Sunday morning, August 30, touring Minter Gardens, near Chilliwack so just before leaving Jasper, we called ahead for reservations in that area. The first several places we called were full on this Saturday night - a surprise since we thought we were out of the main tourist areas. After hunting through all three of our campground directories, we called Bigfoot campgrounds, near Harrison Hot Springs. They had "lots of space" and didn't even want to bother taking a reservation. It turned out to be a ramshackle and informal place, partly filled with semi-permanent seasonal trailers. After paying $19.23 (about $12.50 US) for full hookups, we were told to "go find an empty site". We did find one - 15 amp power and a cracked and leaky sewer connection The sites are small, and the place felt crowded, with large numbers of young families in popups or tents and a great many children running around. It's a friendly and cheerful place, and a great place to meet people, but wouldn't be a good choice for quiet contemplation. The owner had just finished setting up a little antique carousel, locally built in the 1920's, that he had recently purchased. It was sized for small children - tiny horses just right for a 4-year-old. The vertical center axle on which the carousel turned was a rear axle from an ancient automobile. The rest was welded together from angle iron. It was rusty and wobbly, and sitting out in the open, but worked just fine. The owner plans to spend the winter doing a complete restoration and building a roof over it. The kids loved it, and it was swarming with children from barely able to walk up to about five years old.
Minter Gardens is large and impressive. We were surprised to find semi-tropical plants thriving outdoors so far north. This valley has the right climate for growing almost anything. One section of the garden was built in a small forest of ancient cedars, with many different kinds of ferns thriving in the heavy shade. Another garden was mostly rhododendrons and azaleas - making us want to come again in the spring. The Penjjing Rock Bonsai collection is highly touted as the largest such collection outside of China, but left us unimpressed. We spent a long morning wandering through the gardens, then drove on to Vancouver.
Fort Camping at Fort Langley, BC, about 25 miles southeast of Vancouver, has turned out to be a good home base for our Vancouver explorations. It's a little further out of town than we would have liked, but is quiet, with large sites and mature trees. The campground is on an island in the Fraser River, with some campsites (not the ones with hookups) bordering the river. The sites in our section of the campground have very unusual and amusing concrete patio pads. After puzzling over these pads for a few days, I finally realized that they are sections of reinforced concrete salvaged from an old bridge. Some have an 18" high curb along one side, some have storm drains, some have bolt holes which originally held the steel side railings. All are very thick high-quality concrete. A provincial highway crosses a bridge from the south shore to the island. A few hundred yards past the campground, the road ends at a small ferry dock on the other side of the long narrow island. A free ferry makes frequent trips across to the north shore of the river. Although we feel quite rural and isolated on the island, a short walk across a bridge leads to a shopping area in the village, the Fort Langley National Historic site, the BC Agricultural Museum, and another local history museum.
Our first few days in the Vancouver area have been spent driving around to a selection of the many tourist attractions. Highlights include:
•• The commercial waterfront: This is probably the biggest, busiest, commercial shipping area that we've seen. We serendipitously stumbled onto a public viewing and interpretative area at the Port of Vancouver Vanterm, expecting to spend a few minutes and actually spending more like two hours. This huge area is a transshipping point for containerized products. Containers, up to 4300 cubic feet and 72,000 pounds, arrive by train, ship, or truck, and are temporarily stored, stacked in piles up to five high. Many of these containers must be opened, and the contents re-distributed to other containers. (A container containing bags of fertilizer arriving from the manufacturer may be opened, and a smaller quantity of fertilizer moved to each of several containers destined for distributors in various parts of the country. The out-going containers are likely to contain a mixture of a wide variety of products destined for a particular location.) The "fork lifts" that pick up these 31-ton boxes are very impressive machines. Actually, most of them are lifted from the top, using attachment points built in to the containers at the top corners. Many of the containers were stored in stacks on geometric grids painted on the pavement, with overhead cranes which moved back and forth over a particular grid, transferring containers to and from trucks. There was a continuous flow of trucks moving these containers in and out of the yard. Many of the trucks were making only short shuttle trips to and from trains, at one side of the site, or ships on the other side. Keeping track of all this is a mind-boggling task. I wonder how often they lose a container?
•• The cruise ship terminal: Fortunately there weren't any cruise ships there, so it was fairly quiet. This is a huge and interesting building, shaped like a gigantic ship, complete with four masts and simulated sails. In addition to the cruise ship facilities, it contains a large ornate hotel, a parking garage, an IMAX theater, and a bunch of shops and restaurants. The prow of the "ship" extends far out into the harbor and is a wonderful place to view the harbor area and the mountains to the north and east. We attended an IMAX movie, and had an excellent dinner at the Prow Restaurant, sitting outside on a balcony with a spectacular view.
•• The new Public Library: a hard-to-describe architectural extravaganza. We went there because we needed to find some books with local information, but enjoyed the building as much as the books.
•• Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site. This building was built as a salmon cannery (at the time, one of the world's largest) in 1894. When closed, in the 1950's, it was processing herring into oil and dry fishmeal, using very early, cobbled-together experimental equipment. This equipment is still in place, and is very interesting. Another portion of the building has been used to reassemble a salmon processing and canning factory typical of the late 1930's. Exhibits traced the history of the local fishing industry from its commercial origins in the 1800's up through the present. This harbor is still home to Canada's largest fishing fleet - over 3000 commercial fishing vessels. The fish populations in this area have declined more slowly than in the Atlantic, and although most of this fleet is idle, the fishery is still a major part of the local economy. Just a bit further along the harbor, an historic shipbuilding site is being restored. There's not much there yet, and it's not really worth a stop.
•• Van Dusen Gardens: One of the best botanical gardens we've seen anywhere. It's a delight, either for studying plants in the huge collecton, or just for the pure enjoyment of the overall effect. The design of the various garden spaces is inspired and extremely varied. The construction of the various features is of top quality (somebody spent a whole lot of money here). Ongoing maintenance is excellent. And the climate here is conducive to growing an incredibly wide variety of lush, healthy plants. What I found most surprising is that this garden was built from an abandoned golf course fairly recently (1986?) as a local community project, and is currently managed by the Vancouver Parks Department.
•• B.C. Farm Machinery and Agricultural Museum. This is a little gem established by the regional Farmer's Association. It's just a few blocks from our campground. The core of the collection is an extensive collection of farm machines and implements. A large number of early steam and internal combustion engines (tractors, stationary engines, and a few marine engines) have been fully restored to operable condition. While we were there, a guy was testing and adjusting an ancient one-cylinder kerosene engine, and it was a treat just to hear it run. There is also a substantial collection of logging equipment, including a huge 250-horsepower steam engine which powered a complete sawmill in the early 1900's.
In one corner of the museum, they were operating a type of water pump that I'd never encountered before: a "Ram Pump". It is water powered, from a water head as low as six feet, and can pump water up to 60 feet high, with only two simple reciprocating parts.
•• The Aquarium: We seldom miss an opportunity to visit a large Aquarium, and each seems to have something unique. This one has a group of beluga whales, which we hadn't seen before, and a group of sea otters. The female was very pregnant (due "any day now". The rest of the otters had been moved elsewhere, so that she had the large display tank all to herself until after the birth.
The Aquarium also has a permanent underwater microphone offshore somewhere along this coast. It transmits continuously in the commercial FM band, so anyone can listen in. It is used for research. They can keep track of visiting whales, identifying individuals by their voices. They can also identify many other man-made and natural things which pass through the area. It was pointed out that whales talk to each other over great distances - perhaps up to 100 km, and that in some busy shipping areas, the noise from ships may be destroying the family life of the whales by drowning out their conversations.
•• Restaurants: Rasputin: Russian food - a pleasant place, well-prepared food, but not memorable (how can a cabbage roll be memorable?); The Prow (mentioned above); Sprinklers: At Van Dusen Gardens. Excellent food, on an outdoor patio overlooking the gardens. Bedford House: walking distance from our campground, almost elegant décor (including white linen tablecloths and napkins), a touch of creativity in each entrée, the best steaks we've had in Canada (which isn't saying much), good-looking deserts which we were too full to try, nice wine list.
•• Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden: Although still small, this is one of the larger "formal" oriental gardens we've seen. It was built fairly recently, with materials, designers, and craftsmen imported from China. The formal garden is set among several acres of more naturalistic gardens. It is enclosed by high walls, and has strategically-placed windows in the walls, which "leak" selected garden views. The overall design and implementation is a marvelous accomplishment, and this is one of the most highly-advertised tourist destinations in the area. Unfortunately, some of the imported materials don't seem to be standing up to the local climate and are decaying. Worse, the maintenance budget is inadequate, and the whole place had a faint flavor of shabbiness. Worse yet, the surrounding neighborhood is a slum, with large quantities of waste paper blowing around the streets, empty weed-filled lots awaiting redevelopment, and spaced-out street people scrounging through the bushes for discarded cans and bottles.
While waiting for Helen to finish touring the garden, I spent half an hour in the truck, parked on the street directly opposite the garden entrance. In this short time: (a) a woman collapsed on the lawn in front of the garden, and an ambulance came screaming up to collect her. She was alone, and nobody was paying any attention; (b) While we were in the museum, a car had been parked just behind our truck, and left with all the window rolled down - probably stolen. Two young guys walked by it several times, leaning in to inspect something - probably getting ready to steal it again; (c): an unmarked police car rolled quietly up close before turning on flashing lights and bleeping the siren, surprising the guys (and me), then spent 15 minutes interrogating one of the guys (the other one instantly disappeared); While the cop was thus occupied, I stepped out of the truck (hopefully, inconspicuously) to get out of the criminal ranks by putting another coin in my expired parking meter; (d) after letting the guy go, the policeman walked over to me, noticed my license plate, and politely said "welcome to Vancouver. I hope you are enjoying the city." "By the way, I hope you don't plan to leave your truck parked here - it isn't safe and will probably be broken into by the local drug addicts." Moving right along …
Sept. 9: We've had a couple of hazy overcast days, and occasional rain, with another day of clouds forecast. We had decided to delay our ferry trip to Vancouver Island until the weather improved, so that we could get maximal enjoyment of the spectacular mountain and island views from the ferry. But the weatherman seems to be in error - this morning is cooler, with mostly clear skies and not much haze. We checked the ferry schedules, checked the campground guides, and at 10 A.M. decided to pack up and leave. Now that Labor Day has passed (the same date in Canada and the USA - how did that happen?), we won't bother with reservations. By 11:30, we were on the road, and an hour later, we were in line for the 1:00 ferry to Sidney. Buying the ferry ticket was painful ($153 one way for our 55-foot rig!), but getting the trailer on-board was easy, with long gentle ramps. We had heard that abrupt ramp angles at low tide could be a serious problem for long trailers, but we serendipitously arrived when the water level was fairly high, and so didn't get to test that rumor. The ferry is huge, with four vehicle decks and two passenger decks. Two vehicle decks can be loaded simultaneously from separate ramps. We are on the lowest deck, among tour busses and semitrailers. Since the ferry is operated only in protected water, it has huge expanses of glass in the passenger lounges, providing panoramic views from nearly any seat.
The ferry trip was indeed beautiful. Mountains to the Northeast and Southwest are capped by towering cloudbanks, substituting for the snowcaps we'd have seen earlier in the year. The ferry route threads a narrow channel through many sylvan islands. A number of these islands have cottages, boat docks, and even marinas tucked into secluded bays Several are accessible by ferries. (Ferries are ubiquitous along this coast - BC Ferries operates 41 ferries, serving 47 ports of call along a megameter of convoluted coastline.) (If "megameter" isn't a word it ought to be - much more efficient than saying "one thousand kilometers").
By mid-afternoon, we were settled into Fort Victoria RV Park. Helen headed off to do a big batch of laundry in the nicest campground laundry facility we've ever seen - bright and airy, convenient work tables 12 washers, 12 dryers, all commercial-grade, and all operational. I headed to the office to plug in the modem, retrieve Email, and download the results of today's stock market gyrations (do I really want to know?). Tonight's beef stew is bubbling gently in our new electric frying pan, outside on the picnic table.
We're seeing quite a few Europeans who have brought their own RV's across the ocean. At the moment, there is a small German travel trailer next to us, guarded by a huge German dog - some sort of hound that I don't recognize - tall, black and white, floppy ears, floppy jowls, a deep authoritative bass voice. As someone recently pointed out on the RV email list, the biggest RV's generally have the smallest dogs, and vice versa. There's also a small German class A motorhome in the row behind us. It's interesting to note the differences from American RV's. Besides being smaller, there are lots of little design differences. They are often lighter and simpler, although the ones we see here usually show the many little customizations typical of experienced long-term travelers. This trailer has a fully galvanized frame underneath. The awing is a light and simple piece of fabric, threaded manually into a track along the top of the trailer and held up with three tent poles and guy ropes. For storage, the fabric is simply slid out of the track and folded up. It is far less complex than a typical American RV awning, weighs a lot less, costs a lot less, and appears to work just as well.
Victoria is a very pleasant city. The central area is built around a lovely little harbor which is now given over almost entirely to the tourist business. The provincial legislature buildings, the Empress Hotel, and the original cruise ship terminal are all ornate, interesting, buildings clustered near the waterfront. The water is crowded with watercraft - small harbor ferries and tour boats bustling around, huge Zodiacs loading passengers in bright orange foul weather gear and life jackets to head out to the whale-watching grounds in open ocean, old and picturesque wooden sailboats loading tourists for short sails, an interesting ship bristling with antennas, spotlights, and assorted strange equipment that I suspect was an oceanographic research vessel, and a few shiny private yachts. Walkways along the water have been upgraded and landscaped, and have sprouted outdoor restaurants, shops, itinerant musicians, and stone-faced Indians busily carving soapstone animals. We're past the peak tourist season, no cruise ships were in port, and tourists seemed to be outnumbered by local office workers out for a lunchtime stroll and businessmen escaping from their meetings at the new (and impressive) conference center attached behind the old hotel.
Butchart Gardens, about 10 miles north of Victoria, is a world-famous attraction, and lived up to its reputation by being very crowded, with an endless row of tour busses disgorging crowds, each busload seemingly speaking a different language. The central part of the garden is in the bottom of what used to be a large limestone quarry. We could stand at several different overlooks to get a panoramic view of several acres of lush plantings, then descend a winding staircase through a steeply sloped rock garden for a close-up view. At the far end of the sunken garden is a small artificial lake, with a backdrop of water fountains, shooting jets high in the air. The many water jets were individually controlled in both pressure and direction, and programmed to create intricate and constantly moving patterns in a continuous curtain of water that was often 50 feet high and perhaps 100 feet wide. Dave also found the Japanese Garden section to be very pleasant - perhaps because the very dense foliage made it more closed-in and less Japanese than other "Japanese" gardens we've seen. Helen found it oppressively overgrown. Another memorable garden section was a walkway that was bordered for hundreds of feet with a continuous display of Dahlias - giving the impression that they had planted one of every variety known to man. Overall, the gardens deserve their reputation, but we would have enjoyed it much more without the mobs of people.
The assorted Victoria museums haven't had anything that particularly attracted us, so we've mostly walked and driven around the area, enjoying the weather and the scenery.
The Anglican cathedral, a few blocks from downtown, is worth a stop. It's a large, elegant, well-proportioned stone structure, with interesting stained glass.
The drive along the south coat, west to the end of the road at Port Renfrew, passes mostly through deep verdant forest. At several points, short walks or drives lead to the beach, providing spectacular views across the water to the mountains on the Olympic Peninsula. The latter part of this drive would be a bit challenging for large RV's. At several points, the road descends steeply into a small canyon, turns abruptly onto a single-lane Bailey Bridge, then ascends steeply up the other side. The last few kilometers, out to Botanical Beach Park on the south point defining Port San Juan, is narrow and twisty gravel. We hiked about a kilometer from the end of the road down to the beach. The trail was lined with ferns six feet tall, growing among huge fir and cedar trees. From the beach, we had a view past the tip of the Olympic Peninsula out into the open Pacific, Port Renfrew is the southeastern terminus of the West Coast Trail, a challenging backpack trip winding along a rugged roadless coast for something like 50 miles. I wish I was in condition to hike the whole thing.
9/13: Moving right along (but not very far): This morning we'll head 70 miles up the coast to Nanaimo. We'll stay in that area for a few days, and then move across to somewhere on the Pacific Coast of the island.