All posts in category Walking

Of Moss, Muzzles & Monsters

2 June 2025 – Only moss is on the agenda. Muzzles & monsters turn up on their own.

Moss is on the agenda because it’s about to go into its seasonal decline. Moss thrives in cool damp, suffers in dry heat. I want one last fix, and the Camosun Bog is the place to pay tribute.

As boardwalk signage points out…

the bog is, literally, built on moss.

Fortunately, despite the glossy new salal leaves and the bright growing trips of the evergreens that encircle the bog and speak of this new season…

the mossy carpet is still green, not yet bleached to its mid-summer pallor.

The moss is not just on the ground, either. Look at these trees!

So, as I leave the bog and start meandering north-east through the neighbourhood of West Point Grey, I am still moss-optimistic. And, despite distractions like this spiral of Buddhist prayer flags on a street-corner shrub…

and this bear-moose duo, endlessly paddling their way across somebody’s front yard…

I do see more moss.

Just look at these sidewalk sentinels, still wearing their winter finery, as they march their way down West 19th Avenue!

After all this, my attitude is: agenda met. No more expectations. I’ll just keep walking for a while — get in those steps — and then catch a bus.

Next thing I know, down by Alma & West Broadway, I’m being muzzled.

This is such good news.

There’s a mural by this artist in my own neighbourhood, one that both pleases & frustrates me. I like it for its own sake, but the style very loosely reminds me of Toronto street artist BirdO…

and I really, really would like to know the Vancouver artist’s name. Can’t get close enough to the mural near my home to look for any ID — but here, there’s a whole wall-full of his images, in an open alley.

Multiple images, and a tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat (the crown, upper right)… and a plaque identifying the artist. I learn, and it is my pleasure to inform you, that this mural is the work of Tokyo-born, Vancouver-based contemporary artist Taka Suda.

I am happy indeed, as I drop down the last few blocks to West Broadway.

An eye-flick left, into another alley, where the little window in this tired old shed…

suggests it must have started life as a stable. Surely that was the hay loft, above?

After that, my eyes flick straight ahead, on down busy Alma Street.

Another high rise going up, ho-hum. But then eye-flick becomes eye-focus, as I notice the monster riding high at the angle of that top corner.

See it? Shades of Hunchback of Notre Dame…

A passing pedestrian notices my fixed gaze, and nods her head. “Like gargoyles, aren’t they?” she says, her smile showing she quite likes the idea.

“Gargoyles”? Plural? I walk closer, on down Alma. (I feel like I’m stalking the building.)

And yessirree, gargoyles-plural. There are three, one defining the top corner of each ledge.

The closer I get, the clearer they become, and I need to refine my language.

Not monsters. Not gargoyles.

Ravens. (Later online research tells me this building — a luxury residential rental building — is named The Raven.)

I spin around for an angle that shows them in triumphant profile…

and then, finally!, I catch my bus back home.

12 Comments
by icelandpenny on 2 June 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in Architecture, City, City Walks, Nature, photography, street art, Vancouver, Walking
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Posted by icelandpenny on 2 June 2025

https://icelandpenny.com/2025/06/02/of-moss-muzzles-monsters/

Wind & the Great Two-Four

19 May 2025 – There is a big difference, I realize — as I anchor my hat — between a calm 15C and a 15C with gusts that smack you in the face.

I’m just off the bus at the edge of Stanley Park, planning a walk through the park to celebrate this holiday long weekend. (Held the Monday before 24 May, and, both officially and unofficially, a single holiday with many names.)

My plan, before the hat-anchoring, was to walk across Lost Lagoon, out to Second Beach, and then whatever. Hat now anchored, I see the virtues of a trail walk among sheltering trees instead.

So I say good-bye to Lost Lagoon, despite the attraction of this mama duck and her babies (just off the point of those rocks)…

and this Pacific Great Blue Heron, posing right next to the path…

and, instead, I pivot my footsteps onto Tatlow Walk.

I don’t usually take any of the forest trails, and how silly is that? Here’s a whole 400 Ha of western rainforest, and I stick to the Seawall. Not today!

Tatlow offers me a whole different experience. See? (Ignore “You are here” — we are in fact in the upper-right curve of Lost Lagoon, about to slice diagonally through the forest on Tatlow Walk, and emerge at Third Beach.)

Why don’t I do this more often? Thank you, wind, for blowing me inland.

There is greenery — new growth climbing all over the old…

and woodpecker activity — scavenging insects from old trees…

and colour — the rich red of the cedar itself and the lichens on the bark…

and even sound effects — the angled tree squeaks as high-level wind rubs it against the trees that support it.

In the glade where Tatlow crosses Bridle Path (scroll back to that handy map, I’ll wait…), I meet a ghost.

One of seven ghosts, the stumps of the Seven Sisters, the soaring mix of Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar that once stood here and were so popular with 19th-c visitors that they had their own dedicated trail.

Alas, by 1953…

they had to be honoured in a different way.

But the glade, like the rest of the forest, still has plenty of soaring verticals.

Side trails beguile…

but I look at the mud, and the bike ruts, and choose to stick with Tatlow.

At Stanley Park Drive, I wait for waves of holiday traffic to pass, cars as usual, but also motorcycle clusters and cyclists…

and then cross over. Within moments, here I am, about to emerge at Third Beach.

Where wind has free access, and white caps prove it.

Rocks, freighters (waiting their turn to enter the Port of Vancouver), and white caps. That’s the signature of my walk back down the Seawall.

Plus the occasional float plane silhouetted high against the clouds, snarling its way to, or from, the Flight Centre at Coal Harbour…

and crows swooping low across the beach…

and cyclists dismounting to navigate intersections with high-traffic walkways.

I take advantage of low tide, and walk the last stretch below the Seawall, down on the beach itself.

Just past park boundaries, I climb back up to Beach Avenue, Morton Park and…

a pop-up street fair. But of course. It’s a holiday weekend, isn’t it?

Quick browse in the fair, satisfying lunch on Denman Street (Indian, this time around), and a walk north on Denman, where the soaring verticals are quite different from those to be found in the park…

and, finally, a bus back home.

2 Comments
by icelandpenny on 19 May 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in City Walks, Nature, photography, Vancouver, Walking
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Posted by icelandpenny on 19 May 2025

https://icelandpenny.com/2025/05/19/wind-the-great-two-four/

Mind Plans; Feet Don’t Care

23 April 2025 – My mind has created a very clear plan for the morning.

Follow the Quebec Street bioswale — not a ditch! a rainwater gathering/purifying system! — to Science World, down there at False Creek…

do the interview; walk my usual “Cambie Loop” to and over the bridge; and then zigzag eastward back home.

I do the interview. (The Mystery Interview. Be patient, a post will follow.) I start walking west along the False Creek Seawall.

All according to plan.

Suddenly, where Carrall St. butts into the Seawall, my feet execute a sharp right-turn. They don’t even inform my mind, let alone ask permission. They just take mind (and the rest of me) hostage, and execute their own plan.

Away we go. I find myself walking north on Carrall.

I decide not to argue: this could be interesting! The route offers a tidy cross-town slice past Andy Livingstone Park, through Chinatown, on into the Downtown East Side (DTES) and Gastown, all the way to Water Street with Burrard Inlet just beyond.

Poignant, powerful street art at West Pender, by the impressive street artist and DTES resident/advocate, Smokey D.

“It’s by Smokey D,” I hear two street kids say to each other, their voices full of respect. The City agrees. In tribute to his concern for others and use of his skills to inform and empower others, in 2023 Vancouver proclaimed March 11 — his birthday — to be Smokey D Day.

Another downtown symbol at Water and Cambie streets, this one much happier in mood: Raymond Saunders’ 1977 Steam Clock, still puffing steam and, in another 10 minutes, due to mark 12-noon with the opening bars of O Canada.

By now my mind fully supports what my feet set in motion: this is a promising route! I even manage to rediscover the Silvestre café and reacquaint myself with its Peruvian menu — another mug of Chicha Morada (purple corn drink) but this time, a Chicharron sandwich (pork belly) rather than an Alfajor dessert.

At Richards Street, my feet graciously allow my mind some say in what happens next. Continue west another block or two? Or turn south right here? Right here, says my mind, and my feet pivot accordingly.

Yet more patriotic fervour in the Macleod’s window at Richards & West Pender…

and appropriately vintage in style, as befits this rare, used and antiquarian bookstore.

I cross Dunsmuir, where signage informs me that this next stretch of Richards is part of the City’s “blue-green rainwater system.”

The last panel of the sign is an illustration of the pavers involved in the system. The caption asks, “Do they remind you of water flowing towards the tree?”

I step out into the street, check the pavers.

Yes, they do.

Another happy rediscovery, a place I can never find on purpose. I just have to, literally, walk into it…

the joyous, multi-level Rainbow Park at Richards & Smithe.

Getting closer to False Creek with every step!

On past Emery Barnes Park at Davie, and then across Pacific Blvd., right to the tumbling fountains of George Wainborn Park, which slopes down to the Creek.

Eastward along the False Creek Seawall, past a swimming dog (and ball-tossing owner)…

and then I’m beneath the towering girders at the David Lam ferry dock. Each girder base is incised with a different story of time & place.

This one commemorates the Great Fire of 1886…

when, on June 17, an authorized clearing fire on CPR property blazed out of control and destroyed the infant city, whose wooden structures were no match for the wind and flames. In the words of one survivor: “The city did not burn, it simply melted before the fiery blast.”

And then I walk some more, on past the Cambie Bridge, on along to Coopers Mews, with its symbolic barrels on high. At this point, mind, feet and the rest of me all agree on our course of action.

We follow the Mews to Pacific Blvd., and catch a bus for home.

11 Comments
by icelandpenny on 23 April 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in Architecture, City, City Walks, Nature, photography, street art, Vancouver, Walking
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Posted by icelandpenny on 23 April 2025

https://icelandpenny.com/2025/04/23/mind-plans-feet-dont-care/

Twists in Time

14 April 2025 – It’s spring time, full-tilt — but even so, twists of last fall and winter are still woven into the offering.

We’re once again at the VanDusen Botanical Garden. We’re eager for spring and, at first, that’s all we see.

Western skunk cabbages are once again a-glow in the boggy creek that feeds into Livingstone Lake…

and trilliums, Ontario’s provincial flower, are in their seasonal glory on a slope in the VanDusen’s Eastern North America garden.

Then we begin to notice the overlaps, the twists in time.

Glossy two-tone Southern Magnolia leaves are always with us…

but all around the R. Roy Forster Cypress Pond, those same two tones tell a more complex story. Here the green of new ferns begins to rise above the year-round ochre of cypress “knees.”

Just off the north end of the pond, the shadow fork of a still-bare deciduous tree frames the spring blossoms of this burst of Snake’s Head…

while over at the north end of Heron Lake, this Japanese Maple doesn’t yet obscure the long view down the lake. (But just wait another few weeks! Those leaves are about to unfurl.)

Face to face with the spring blossoms of this Sargent’s Magnolia, we’re also face to face with fall and winter. Petals already litter the ground — where they lie atop the desiccated leaves that fell last year. Visible also, there in the lower left quadrant of the photo, another reminder of last year: rusty skeletons of Mophead Hydrangea.

In the Fern Dell, the Tasmanian Tree Fern is — I think — putting out new spring fronds. (A hemispheric twist in time: from the Down-Under cycle of seasons, to our own, here in the Up-Over.)

There are things that don’t change, such as the deep-textured bark of a mighty Douglas Fir..

and things that do, such as the intricate spring coils of the Hedge Fern.

An old Emperor Oak leaf is caught in the glossy leaves of an Autumn Camellia (which saves its blooms, thank you very much, for fall)…

and this season’s cherry blossoms are already flying through the air like confetti…

as if they know that the Sakura Days Japanese Fair has now ended.

No, I take that back.

Yes, the Fair has ended, and yes, petals are flying — but these Daybreak Cherry trees are still laden with blossoms.

How fitting that the marble sculpture they shelter, titled Woman, is by Japanese artist Kiyoshi Takahashi.

8 Comments
by icelandpenny on 14 April 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in City Walks, Nature, photography, Vancouver, Walking
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Posted by icelandpenny on 14 April 2025

https://icelandpenny.com/2025/04/14/twists-in-time/

Zen & the Thoughtful Dog

31 March 2025 – Neither Zen nor any kind of dog is in my mind, as I step out the door into the fresh morning air.

My mind is perfectly happy with just the beginnings of a plan: walk to False Creek; take a ferry from Olympic Village to Granville Island; walk on west along the Seawall at least to Vanier Park, then head south into town, and then… Oh, never mind. Events will take over. As they do.

I’ll see what I see.

Vehicular back-chat in an alley, for starters…

followed by back-chat on a literal human back, as I near the Olympic Village dock on False Creek.

When I tell the cheerful young couple that I admire the image, the story gets even better. As he poses for my camera, he prompts her to take credit and explain. Turns out this is a line of jackets rightly called SwapWear, since — thanks to zippers and Velcro — you can swap out that back panel for additional choices. A changeable art gallery, right there on your back.

I walk off, much amused, to catch my ferry.

I’d’ve been even more amused had I known that — along with a Thoughtful Dog — more cat’s ears and more fish would become part of this walk as well.

But I don’t know that. And my Aquabus ride is quite enough to keep me up-energy and happy with the day.

Last time I was on Granville Island was February 20, when my post title summarized the experience: Off-Season Drizzle. Now the site is all warmth! and people! and signs everywhere that a new season has arrived.

Dragon boats are already in the water, with trainee crews digging in furiously as their trainers just as furiously shout instructions. Much more peacefully, racing sculls and kayaks are piled in colourful stacks at water’s edge.

I walk on, per my sort-of plan.

But not for very long.

I’m barely at the public fish market when detour signs send me inland. I had forgotten the mammoth construction project down there at water’s edge. Oops. Time to channel, yet again, the wisdom of a dear Toronto friend and co-founder of our two-woman Tuesday Walking Society. Every time we miscalculated and had to backtrack, she’d shrug. “We’re out for a walk,” she’d remind me. “It’s all walking.”

So I behave myself, navigate boring stretches that are nonetheless All Walking, and keep heading west, as close to the water as possible.

I am rewarded for all that good behaviour at the corner of West 1st and Burrard — just across the street from the point where (I’m pretty sure) I’ll be able to work my way down to the Seawall again. As I wait for the lights to change, I notice a little girl and her parents, also waiting.

I compliment her on her cat’s ears headband; we agree Cats Are The Best. She raises her hand, to show me the bouquet of flowers she has just picked. We further agree that Dandelions Are The Best. Red light turns green, and she scampers ahead toward Seaforth Peace Park, calling back as she goes: “Mummy! Look! More flowers!”

Her mum reminds her to pick only three, “and leave the rest for the bees and the birds.”

All this causes me to notice the chamomile blossoms scattered through the grass…

and also the craggy rock sculpture rising up from the grass. It is message-heavy.

First I read the plaque, describing this tribute by the Latin American community to the courage of their first wave of immigration (talk about the entangled nature of darkness and light)…

and then I read the incised recipe for Sopa Sur, “enjoyed all over Latin America.”

Iconic seafood soup, something I might not have discovered, but for a little girl with cat’s ears on her head.

(Is Sopa Sur part of your life? Have you comments, or a recipe to share? I’d love to hear.)

And then, yes, I do make my way back to the Seawall, and yes there are people and dogs and benches and blossoms and crows and gulls all around. And chamomile blossoms in the grass.

And, as I round the curve to the west end of Vanier Park, there is also the Blue Cabin…

the floating artist residency program, now moored in Heritage Harbour alongside the Vancouver Maritime Museum. On April 1st, it will welcome its first resident artist of the new season.

On round the next curve, on to Kitsilano Beach Park, where nobody is waiting for April first.

Dogs are in the water, or furiously chasing sticks. Humans are on the beach proper, though still well bundled up. The day may be warm, as early spring goes, but the temperature is only about 10C.

Then I see the one exception to all this prudent behaviour: a woman stripped to her bathing suit, explaining herself to a clearly amazed, and very fully clothed, passer-by.

Enough chat. Putting her body where her mouth was, she runs into the water and starts swimming.

I admire her, but I’m glad to be up here on the path. Where I also admire the beach volleyball net being slung into position.

It’s the last to go up, the other seven courts are already in full swing. (Full swing? I didn’t plan the pun, but let’s all enjoy it.)

Time for city sidewalks, I decide. I leave the park at its Cornwall St. border to head south on Yew. Smack on the corner, a combination I was not expecting.

It seems to work. I don’t know how many eyeglasses they’re selling, but the café end of things is doing a brisk trade.

Another unexpected combination, a few blocks farther south.

I finally meet the Thoughtful Dog!

Oh all right, Zen and dog are not woven into one package, not like the eyewear/espresso duo — but they are visually if not commercially paired, and that’s quite enough for me.

More city blocks, a break for lunch (avo-chicken sandwich plus butternut squash soup, yum), and after a while I’m on West 10th.

Here, near Hemlock, a fresh new camellia blossom showing all those buds how it’s done…

and here, at Birch, a lot of weary old skateboard tips,,,

that still provide, despite their age, a crisp, good-humoured edge to the volunteer-tended traffic circle and sidewalk gardens.

Just past Oak, I stop to take one last picture.

A couple of pedestrians pass behind me.

She says: “Canadian flags!”

He says: “Looks good, doesn’t it.”

10 Comments
by icelandpenny on 31 March 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in City, City Walks, Nature, photography, street art, Vancouver, Walking
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Posted by icelandpenny on 31 March 2025

https://icelandpenny.com/2025/03/31/zen-the-thoughtful-dog/

The Light!

25 March 2025 – Politically, the world grows steadily darker. All the more reason to notice and embrace light, whenever and however it presents itself. It, too, is real, and it offers us courage and strength and joy.

I am giddy with it, this early-spring evening: temperature well into the teens, and each day longer than the one before.

It is 7:30 in the evening, and the sky is still bright. The crows have not yet flown home to Burnaby (mid-winter, they go through by 4:30 or so), and — look — golden sunlight still bounces off the library branch window opposite my building.

Here’s the source: the sun just dipping out of sight in the western sky, the sky itself warm with rosy-gold.

Over at Dude Chilling Park, just minutes later, women chat beneath a sky that has now lost its rosy-gold, but is still bright with pink and blue.

Daffodils offer their own gold to the sky, tall against the community garden fence. Warmth & light inform the scene: children romp just inside the fence, parents call encouragement from the far side of their allotment and, behind them, the west face of the school building is a-glow.

But by now, natural light is fading fast. Tree branches are black against the sky…

and it is street lights that illuminate these butterfly ornaments draped on a residential tree…

and it is the security light in someone’s yard that pops my own silhouette back at me from the directional arrow in this traffic circle.

Car lights glitter on the leaves of a street-side hedge…

residents’ lights tumble a visual waterfall through this apartment building…

and the entrance to a neighbouring building punches its shaft of light & colour out onto the street.

Only 45 minutes since I left my door, and artificial light, city light, is now dominant. I peer down an alley, looking for a bit of sky that is still itself, still wears its own colours.

There.

The last washes of indigo and pewter-grey.

Good night.

8 Comments
by icelandpenny on 26 March 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in Architecture, City, City Walks, Nature, photography, Vancouver, Walking
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Posted by icelandpenny on 26 March 2025

https://icelandpenny.com/2025/03/26/the-light/

SeaBus & Showers

16 March 2025 – If my 1 March post was a love-letter to urban clutter, this one might strike you as a love-letter to maritime clutter. At least, while still on the Vancouver side of Burrard Inlet.

I’m in the long approach to the Waterfront SeaBus Terminal, in the connector between Waterfront Station, with all its urban transit links, and the SeaBus Terminal proper, down at water level. It’s a sunny/cloudy/rain-splattered day, with the intervals of sunshine throwing long shadows across the walkway.

But where’s the promised clutter? you ask.

It’s coming.

I slow down. The next ferry will depart in 1 min. 27 sec. time (the count-down screen is counting), and I know I won’t get to the waiting room in time. Nor does it matter — the ferry after that is the one I want to take, the ones my north-shore friends will meet.

With no need to hurry, I look around.

There’s the Vancouver Harbour Heliport, caught in the V-slashes of these window frames, with a helicopter on the pad, and maritime clutter all around — a line-up of harbour cranes, stacks of shipping containers below their voracious grasp, and two crows on the light standard so you know you’re in Vancouver. Plus reflections dancing merrily on the window pane.

Either you think the reflections spoil the picture, or — like me — you enjoy them as part of the moment, more visual information jumping into the story.

Next window pane offers rain splatters as its contribution to maritime clutter, and the view of a laden freighter, just starting to make its way back up the Inlet toward the Pacific Ocean and its next port of call.

Low-hanging clouds in that scene as well, running horizontal streaks across the mountains beyond, and snowy peaks above all that. (Nature’s own clutter.)

More clouds, more containers, more cranes — all caught in a fleeting glimpse as the escalator rolls me past another window on my ride down to sea level.

The waiting room window shows me the back end of the ferry I missed, making her stately way past the nearest cranes…

and the scratched & splattered window of the ferry I catch rewards me with sun dogs that bounce silver across the water. (Brooded over by those cranes.) (And by pale reflections of overhead lights, here inside the ferry.)

No scratches in sight, once I’m off the ferry and halfway up Mount Seymour, going walkabouts with my friends. Rain drops, yes — but as sun showers on our heads, not on a window. Reflections, also — but as rain crystals that turn the winter moss to neon.

Just look at it!

We pass endless happy dogs, whose owners laugh when we apologize to the woofs that all we have to offer is adoration, not treats.

I point out a dramatic tree trunk, beside the path. Wow, says my friend; even more shredded than a few days ago. Those Pileated Woodpeckers have been busy!

Not to be outdone by hungry woodpeckers, we return to their place and show what hungry humans can do to a post-lunch treat of dark chocolate and dark coffee.

4 Comments
by icelandpenny on 16 March 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by icelandpenny on 16 March 2025

https://icelandpenny.com/2025/03/16/seabus-showers/

Urban Clutter

1 March 2025 – Clutter? “Juxtapositions” is more accurate, also better PR, but I suspect there’s some kind of rule against using five-syllable words in a title.

So Urban Clutter it is. There’s a lot to be said for it, by whichever name — so many possibilities, all piled atop each other! The pile-up tells stories, and it both sparks and rewards curiosity.

At least, that’s the effect on me, as I stand at Davie & Richards, en route an Urban Treat — a noon-time performance at the Scotiabank Dance Centre. While my feet wait for the light to change, my eyes say, “Look at that!”

So I do.

It’s nothing special, it’s just… it’s just very urban. Tram lines overhead; traffic signals to one side; and, framed by both, the residential towers that lie behind Emery Barnes Park and before Helmcken Street.

The Shiamak dance performance is wonderful. Afterwards I adapt their “Have Feet Will Dance” slogan to my own “Have Feet Will Walk,” and start north on Seymour. (North-ish, downtown streets are on a slant, but I’ll spare you the precisions.) The day is balmy, I’m happy, and I decide to walk right to West Pender, where I’ll catch a bus back home.

But then I get distracted, and my simple plan goes all fractal. Blame it on urban clutter.

Before I even reach Nelson, I’m laughing at this literal sign of our politico-cultural times.

Left on Nelson, right on Granville, and I’m up against the busy construction work beneath one of the street’s stubborn theatrical survivors: the Vogue. It’s a 1941 movie theatre (now event venue), built in Art Deco/Art Moderne style. As you can see.

I veer onto Smithe just past the Vogue Theatre. No particular reason for the change of direction — but suddenly here I am, just before Seymour, at the entrance to Ackery’s Alley.

The alley backs the Orpheum Theatre on Seymour, and celebrates the venue’s long (and continuing) history of live performances. It was painted and generally spiffed up in 2018, the idea being to welcome pedestrian as well as the existing delivery-truck traffic. I had recently arrived in town, walked it then, and yes, it sparkled.

It hasn’t had much maintenance since, and it’s a lot grubbier.

But it’s still in pedestrian use and, with its strong lines and commercial functionality, it is very Downtown Right Now.

Out the other end at Robson, where a window sign apparently invites me to dial down my consumerism.

Well… not exactly. This is the window of a cannabis shop, which prides itself on bargain prices. So: keep spending money, just spend it with us! (And discover the wonders of our products.)

Since I still plan a quick ride home, I take to Granville again, heading for the bus stop at West Pender. But then, when I reach Pender, I look farther down Granville and I am again distracted — beguiled! lured! tickled! — by urban clutter.

It’s the dome. I start wondering about the dome.

I could always walk one more block and check it out — but what fun is that? Especially when, just before I reach that next corner, I can instead dive into Alley Oop, the first of the downtown alleys to be spiffed up, back in 2016.

Also grubby by now, but it does have that hanging sphere at the far end.

Which rewards my head-tilt very nicely. Geometry at work.

This brings me to Seymour and West Hastings, with Waterfront Station in the distance and this building opposite, whose upturned lip always makes me think of whale baleen. (That frog-splattered white car, even closer, is a gift from the Traffic Light Gods.)

By now I’m well off-track for the mystery dome. I correct course and walk west on Hastings. This time the urban clutter offers me a distant view of the Marine Building at Burrard, framed against glass towers, and a close-up of elaborate lanterns and trim on another heritage building right next to me.

The bus stop at Granville is a reminder that the cruise ship terminal is nearby and, in season, its passenger loads wreak havoc with local traffic.

Perversely enough, I now head away from the mystery dome. Instead, I follow the raised Granville sidewalk all the way north to the lookout at Burrard Inlet.

Small but satisfying, this little plaza lies between the East Convention Centre (with its “sails”) and the cruise ship terminal on one side, and, on the other…

harbour cranes, Waterfront Station, the SeaBus terminal, train tracks and a helicopter landing pad.

About face!

Back up the raised sidewalk I go, now aware that this entire four-building foot print — including the mystery dome — comprises the Sinclair Centre. I knew this, I really did. It just took a while to reconcile my memories of this once-busy office/service/retail complex, with the boarded-up reality of right now.

??? They look like giant condoms, ready for action. What is going on in there?

I don’t know, is the answer to my own question. The complex seems mostly closed, and I later read online that a massive redevelopment proposal has been under review. Is work now underway, or becalmed? I can’t tell.

Whichever, it is a sad sight.

Walking the West Hastings side of the complex toward Howe, I pass a medallion face looking suitably distressed. As it should. The wooden door is in good condition, but the plaque beneath the medallion has been hacked away.

Corner of Howe, I take one last look at the dome that started my long, happy loop-about through all that urban clutter.

Then, satisfied, I finally board my bus for home.

There’s one last delight, as we roll south on Main Street, and I manage to grab a shot through the bus window.

The Pacific Central train station is in the background, but who cares. I’m focused on the red & white “flag” now installed above the pub entrance, right at the cross-street. It is yet another literal sign of our politico/cultural times.

The final, perfect detail? The name of that cross-street is… National Street.

4 Comments
by icelandpenny on 1 March 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in Architecture, City, City Walks, photography, Uncategorized, Vancouver, Walking
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Posted by icelandpenny on 1 March 2025

https://icelandpenny.com/2025/03/01/urban-clutter/

Off-Season Drizzle

20 February 2025 – The month and the day pose the question:

Q: We think about tourist attractions in all their high-season dazzle — but what are they like, in off-season drizzle?

A: I head for Granville Island, magnet for tourists and locals alike. The month is off-season, the day is off-weekend, and the weather is definitely drizzle.

I leave the bus with the driver’s tourist-friendly patter still in my ears: Follow Anderson Street under Granville Bridge, it will lead you onto the island, and when you want to return to wherever you came from, the bus stop is right across the street — see? just over there.

Good patter, but not needed today. Only one possible tourist alights with me.

Anderson Street, its car lanes and sidewalks routinely thronged with traffic, is virtually empty.

All those rental bikes, still locked in their slots!

Ditto for the rental water bikes, tied up in Broker’s Bay.

But mid-week off-season has its uses. It is a good time for maintenance, for example, whether to Granville Bridge overhead…

or, inside Net Loft boutiques like this hat shop…

a good time for staff to catch up on pesky chores, and have a bit of a chat.

Despite some people eyeing the hats, this saleswoman agrees “it’s pretty quiet,” and she can finally spend a few moments scratching the stubborn label off a vase she wants to use for display purposes. We gossip amiably about my favourite hat brand (Tilley, that’s a plug), I resist her wheedling to try on one of the latest arrivals, and off I go.

To have another bit of amiable gossip in the Market Kitchen Store.

About cats.

“What’s with cats this month?” asks the saleswoman, puzzled. “We always have these mini-spatulas, but suddenly there’s cat themes all over the place.” I concur, and tell her about the book I had just noticed on prominent display in Paper-Ya — entitled What Do Cats Want? and written (says the blurb) by “Japan’s leading cat doctor.”

Despite respectably full parking lots, the Island’s streets and plazas are nearly empty. The fire pit blazes away outside Tap & Barrel, but any customers have parked their bottoms inside, warm & dry.

Kiosk tent-tops glisten…

a hardy duo hunch shoulders slightly as they check the ferry-dock map…

a hardy gull claims a parking lot perch…

and, hardy as I may personally be, this puddle tells me the obvious:

the drizzle is on its way to downpour.

And I say, Basta.

A wet day in the off-season is a very good time to visit the shops — you can chat and look about in a more leisurely way — but, finally, wet is wet, and it’s getting wetter.

One last discovery, as I walk back south on Anderson, heading for the bus stop.

This poster.

It’s the perfect end to this little story, is it not?

(On the bus I admire a child’s unicorn raincoat, complete with twisted horn on the hood. But… no. That would launch a whole other story.)

🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦


7 Comments
by icelandpenny on 20 February 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in City, City Walks, photography, Vancouver, Walking
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Posted by icelandpenny on 20 February 2025

https://icelandpenny.com/2025/02/20/off-season-drizzle/

“Today in the Garden”

17 February 2025 – Only a few days since my Frozen post, and the city has unfrozen itself. I’m off to meet friends at the VanDusen Botanical Garden, where we’re hoping for early-spring blossoms.

We arrive with hit lists: turns out we each lingered at the “Today in the Garden” displays on the way in, where volunteers regularly display sprigs of what’s seasonal, and cross-reference their suggestions to map locations.

It gives us a tempting and manageable list: Witch Hazel, Dogwood, Winter Aconite, Cornelian Cherry and the wonderfully exotic-sounding Dragon-s Eye Pine — plus, of course, whatever else comes our way.

The day is mild-ish and misty, with a barely perceptible drizzle in the air. Evergreens are dark against the sky as we veer right at Livingstone Lake…

and head for our first targets, along the Garden’s Winter Walk.

And there they are. Witch Hazel…

fiery Dogwood branches…

and a discovery we didn’t know we were going to make, the Ghost Bramble.

Even pruned back for winter, it’s easy to see how it got its name. In behind, another discovery — at least for me — the American Holly (on the left), with bright yellow berries rather than red.

The buds of the Cornelian Cherry are also bright yellow, though still very small and tightly furled.

We leave the Winter Walk, cut cross-country toward Heron Lake with a further target in mind — but are reminded, en route, that you don’t always need new growth for winter interest.

Sometimes, as the American Beech points out, all you have to do is hold on to your old leaves from summer.

Two more en-route bonuses: mist droplets glistening on the Giant Sequoia needles overhead…

and pretty little Winter Aconite buds bursting through leaf litter underfoot.

Plus — because I always notice — winter moss. This lot is on a wonderfully gnarled Something.

I don’t note the tree name; I’m too besotted with the moss to bother.

And then we’re across the zigzag footpath over Heron Lake, up the trail, and coming out the far end of the rocky tunnel that leads us to the Heath Garden.

Pretty as this garden-room is — and it is very pretty, all those heaths and heathers in all their jewel tones — it is not why we’re here. We’re hunting something at the periphery, over by the Laburnum Walk.

We want the Dragon’s Eye Pine.

And we find it!

With its bursts of green and white, it holds its own against the the birch, holly and evergreen backdrop.

More displays of moody evergreen needles against a moody sky…

and finally we’re circling back along the edge of Livingston Lake, with lunch by now uppermost in mind.

Until, that is, we see what the gardeners have done with the winter-yellowed ornamental grasses that cover the lake-side slope. They could have just let the the weary old blades flop on the ground. Or they could have cut them down and hauled them away.

But, no!

They braided them. Clump by clump, spiral by spiral.

We are properly delighted. We forget all about food as we discover the many varieties of grass-sculpture that inventive weaving can create.

When we do finally head off to lunch, we are in very good humour indeed.

4 Comments
by icelandpenny on 17 February 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in City Walks, Nature, photography, Vancouver, Walking
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Posted by icelandpenny on 17 February 2025

https://icelandpenny.com/2025/02/17/today-in-the-garden/

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