19 September 2025 – You come back home with fresh eyes for your own city.
I wake up yesterday and, just before 7 a.m., stare awe-struck at the grandeur of clouds drifting above and among the mountains, in a still-opalescent sky.
Aand today, just now, I fall into fits of giggles at the decals on this slightly battered car.
First, the grouping as a whole…
and then, the exquisitely perfect placement of the cat claws vis-à-vis the dings in the car body.
After that I stroll the perimeter of Dude Chilling Park, just ’cause it’s my local park and I love the way The Dude watches over us…
from his perch on the south/east corner of this ordinary patch of grass.
“Ordinary” to the eye, that is — not-very-large rectangle of grass, some trees around, some benches around, and that’s it. But people gravitate, in considerate and companionable ways, and they enjoy themselves and they thrive and they make magic.
Today’s magic: what I find at the south/west corner of the park.
A pop-up street sale is underway, one I’m sure no City authorities ever heard about (let alone licensed) and who cares, because it’s only a few tables and lots of good humour. I learn this young woman has clothes on offer because she’s moving to Rome tomorrow and can’t take everything; I learn this other young woman collects stuff and then moves it on, y’know?; and I learn that grizzled guy, the one with the racks of old LPs, is a Rolling Stones fan. I learn this last factoid because, when I tell him it was a thrill to see the name of jazz great Joe Pass once again, he replies, eyes a-gleam, “With the Stones!” I manage to contain my enthusiasm for the Stones, he ditto for Joe Pass — but we agree in our enthusiasm for Dude Chilling Park.
20 January 2025 – We’re in a cold snap. Nothing like the extremes back East, just temperatures hovering below/above zero from night to day — low enough to set the hoar frost blooming early each morning.
Including along the Shoreline Trail, the pretty little trail in Port Moody that runs between Rocky Point Park and Old Orchard Park, cupping the eastern end of Burrard Inlet as it goes.
As I wait for my companion outside the SkyTrain station, I realize the oak leaf on the artwork at my feet and my own fingertips are in agreement: there’s a bite in the air.
But it dances through a blazing bright sky, and it is magical.
Hoar frost sparkles on the boardwalk across a marshy inlet…
encircles an ice-rimmed pond…
and sweeps across the entire marshland, right to the creek whose waters steam gently in the sun.
We cross mudflats on this rebuilt boardwalk, and agree it is much safer and more accessible than its wonky predecessor and is therefore A Very Good Thing — but also agree we miss the charm of that predecessor.
Then we quite rightly stop being such ingrates, and settle down to enjoy ourselves.
A waterfront blind farther along offers a chance to watch wildlife unobserved…
though at the moment we see only the stumps of old pilings, remnants of the McNair Cedar Mill that once operated here.
I’ve visited the mill site on previous Trail walks; tide is low enough to allow us to explore it today as well.
Only later online do I both learn the name of the mill and also see this 1925 photograph of the mill in operation. (Thank you Tessa Trethewey, for posting this photo on the I Love Port Moody blog on April 25 last year.)
Before we rejoin the Trail, I stop to admire this ziggurat, meticulously constructed from old mill bricks still lying around on-site. (I think for a moment, by ricochet, of the ephemeral clean-fill sculptures created out on Toronto’s Leslie Spit, by visitors who celebrate what lies to hand.)
Back on the Trail, what we have to hand is a collection of nature’s own tree-sculptures.
Companion burls high up one trunk…
and a whole lot of winter moss. An old scar, cushioned in moss, for example…
great rounded folds of bark rising from a mossy base…
and a moss-splattered tree that stands politely to one side as we look across reeds and marshes, across Burrard Inlet itself, to the mountains and distant snow peaks.
Warmed by the growing strength of the sun and also our own exertions, we decide we have more than earned lunch.
We retrace our steps, greeting hikers and patting dogs as we go, and settle into generous servings of Mexican comfort food. Our cheerful waitress, a rose tattoo peeping out from under her left cuff, says it is the perfect day to walk the Shoreline Trail.
7 September 2024 – It’s suddenly hot — so much for the pivot to autumn! — and I decide to go chill with the Dude, in Dude Chilling Park. As you probably know, I’ve done it before. Today, I want to do it again, and for the same reason.
Half an hour, I tell myself: half an hour on a bench, to share once again the pulse of this little neighbourhood park with no amenities but so much community.
One amenity: the Michael Dennis bronze statue…
whose appearance gave rise to the nickname for both the statue (officially, Reclining Figure) and the park itself (officially, Guelph Park).
I find a bench in the shade, with the street to my back, a breeze in my face and a clear view across the little square of grass that constitutes the park.
I sit. I watch all the quiet ways that this park, and this community, engage.
Tattoo Sleeve, hurling a frisbee again and again for her wildly happy little dog
Book Lady, cross-legged on her blanket in the sun, her spine admirably straight
Vape & the Baseball Cap, lugging their basket to the one table on the grass, setting out their picnic while their dog nudges hopefully for some ball-throwing
Stroller Mum, in the shade on the far side of the park, over by the Dude’s feet, spending time with both her baby and her book
Gossip Guys, laughing & fist-bumping over whatever stories they’re telling each other close to the Dude’s shoulder
Labrador Man, whose arrival with a Golden Lab sets off a whole round of dog dynamics: dogs of varying sizes & loyalties inspecting each other, inspecting each other’s frisbees, checking if perhaps any other dog wants to play Run In Crazy Circles (and some do)
It’s a whole lot of nothing, isn’t it? It’s just nothing.
It’s also everything, I think. Quiet pleasure in simple actions, simple interactions.
{Later, I will cross paths with a neighbour, who tells me his very small, and very old & frail, dog likes this park: “The dogs are always friendly.”)
I rise from my bench. I only then notice the plaque…
and realize that I have not been sitting here alone.
14 February 2024 – Two parks, both small, and so very different in the story they each tell.
One, a park I only discovered recently, thanks to falling across the Vancouver Park Guide blog, in which Justin McElroy takes on the task of visiting every park in the city. The other… well, it’s my local, innit? Some people have a pub, I have a local park.
Yours To Enjoy (within limits)
Thanks to McElroy, I’ve headed south on Granville Street into Kerrisdale, to walk through what he (& the City’s own website) calls Shannon Mews Park, but which the signage identifies otherwise.
A modest little name, by definition quickly outdated, but on the edge of a property with considerable architectural and historic significance. To the rear right, the Beaux-Arts mansion commissioned early in the 20th century by B .T. Rogers (founder, British Columbia Sugar); to the rear left, some of the mid-20th century apartments designed by renowned BC architect Arthur Erickson and, in the 21st-century, “revitalized” by the 10-acre site’s subsequent owners, developer Peter Wall and the Wall Financial Corporation.
There is also a street-side map showing “accessible” walking routes, with the usual icon of a figure in a wheelchair. However, thanks to McElroy, I have been warned. Though there is indeed some public space in front of this complex, it offers minimal accessibility to non-residents, whether in a wheelchair or on their own two feet. And, he added darkly (in a post that is now just over a year old), there is some on-going history of attempts to limit the pesky public even more.
I put my pesky-public feet on one of the designated pathways and walk on in.
Even mid-winter, with the Italianate gardens severely shorn, it’s an attractive walk. There is a small children’s playground to the east, and a few benches to the west and north. It’s fine.
But then, boom…
I’m up against it. A locked gate, barring access. Go away, pesky-public-person, says the gate. I try another path, and soon find myself in front of another lockable gate — which, at the moment, is ajar.
I walk on through. i want a closer look at the mansion.
Well, good luck with that.
As long as I keep my pesky-public feet on the path, I am allowed to look across the lawn and the water feature to the mansion beyond. But I am now on PRIVATE PROPERTY, and everywhere I now turn, there is another big red sign to remind me of my interloper status.
So I leave.
Before I do, i squint my eyes at the gargoyle midway on the wall just beyond the water feature. Spread the photo, you can see him as well. He is either grimacing in solidarity with me, or laughing at me. I choose the former interpretation, and go on my way, head held high.
A public park, yes, but cold. It does not welcome us. We are on sufferance.
In contrast to…
The Warmth of the Chill
I am back in my “local,” Guelph Park. Known to us all as Dude Chilling Park, in honour of the Michael Dennis bronze sculpture that is the park’s only claim to aesthetic merit — officially Reclining Figure, but the nickname is the name we use.
It’s a small and simple park, with a few amenities: benches at the periphery, a bit of a playground, two tennis courts. But this park is ferociously loved and much used. And also much-adorned, by all the people who think of it as their own.
Our area Yarn Bomber, for example, has hung her work on the mesh fence and wrapped each of the poles that dot the park.
Beyond this pole, you see people gathered around one of the benches. The park has its regular visitors, each group with its regular bench or set of chairs — just like any local pub.
A tree near the south end of the park is typically covered in changing ornaments, each one a testimonial to someone, to something. (One day a young man detached himself from his cluster of friends to tell me about one of the people he associates with that tree, and the memories it sparks for him.)
Today, the tree base is freshly circled with these bright hearts and flowers, and a new selection of stones. That grey stone reads: “But until then, I’ll see you in my dreams”
For the first time, I notice the plaque on one of the benches along the western edge of the park.
This is a park that, despite the chill in its nickname, is very warm indeed. It welcomes us all — and it even gives us a role model. Who would not want to be known as a “Chill dude with the best laugh”?
12 January 2024 – But first, an acknowledgment. It is merely -11C as I write this, not (for e.g.) the -33C of Calgary nor the NWT temps that Lynette is recalling in her Baby It’s Cold post.
But still, for Vancouver, -11C is nippy. Yesterday, as Polar Vortex warnings hit our media and temperatures dropped to -3 or so, I decided I had to prove to myself that six years of Vancouver life had not rendered me incapable of going for a sub-zero walk.
Down to False Creek.
Snow-promising skies beginning to build, up there behind the World of Science dome…
and, by mid-afternoon, snow clouds massed even more dramatically all along the Coast Range Mountains.
It did snow.
Just a skiffle, nothing deep, but — given the temperatures — it has stayed on the ground.
Today, over those same Coast Range Mountains, the sunshine that comes with greater cold.
I bundle up once again. I am still not a wimp!
I decide I don’t need to go far: I can satisfy honour with a quick loop around Dude Chilling Park, and a respectful salute to The Dude himself en passant.
Other bundled-up people along the way (and some bundled-up dogs).
I reach the park. There’s The Dude.
With … what… something white… in the crook of his shoulder. Please don’t let it be litter, I murmur to myself. I’ve enjoyed, taken confidence from, the respect people show The Dude. Please let that continue.
Well of course it’s not litter.
It is the world’s smallest snowman, lovingly shaped and lovingly placed, cuddled up with The Dude.
Behind my face-scarf, I am all scrunched up with delight.
And then I take my tingling fingers back home, and wrap them around some hot chocolate.
"Traveller, there is no path. Paths are made by walking" -- Antonio Machado (1875-1939)
"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes" -- Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
"A city is a language, a repository of possibilities, and walking is the act of speaking that language, of selecting from those possibilities" -- Rebecca Solnit, "Wanderlust: A History of Walking"
WALKING WOMAN 