16 May 2025 – It’s a chores + pleasure walk that will loop me west for a while and then back home. Practically just out my door, I’m standing transfixed by this — let’s face it — unexceptional street corner.

It’s exceptional only in that it is so very… city.

Street & sidewalk & sleek black new-build & fake Tudor old-build (to be incorporated into yet another new-build) & street murals & hydro wires & parked cars. Also trees bursting with spring blossoms & a blue sky over all.

All the entangled grey & green of a city. Grey, the hardscape of human construction; green, persistent nature; also “green,” human intervention meant to enhance nature, and co-exist rather than simply dominate.

Hardly an original thought, but it sticks in mind, and shapes how I see what I see, for the rest of my walk.

Oh, all right! It does not shape how I see what I see right here, chalked on a south-side rampart for the Cambie Bridge.

I throw this in, just because it is irresistible. Doubly cheeky, as well.

First, it suggests that We absorb Them, not vice-versa. Second, it demotes Them to the less-autonomous status of territory, not province. (Provinces exercise constitutional power in their own right; the three territories — Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut — exercise delegated powers under the authority of the Parliament of Canada.)

Highly amused, I leave patriotic red & white behind me, and return to urban grey & green.

Lots of grey, as I start north across the bridge.

A bit of green, in those tall trees on the far right edge — and an impressive display of “green,” though it is literally coloured grey. Just left of the green trees, you’ll find what looks like the five fingers of an upraised hand, complete with fingernails. Those are the exhaust stacks of the Southeast False Creek Neighbourhood Energy Utility down below. The NEU transfers waste heat from area sewers to insulated underground pipes, which in turn distribute the energy (via hot water) to the neighbourhood.

Panoramic views of grey & green as I near the north end of the bridge, with parkland and trails either side of False Creek, framed by city buildings beyond.

Some tucked-away green, a “green” initiative of the City, below the north-end ramparts…

where some local residents sponsor a garden, under the City’s Green Streets program.

I cross Cooperage Way, heading back toward the water, and skirt the side of a kiddy playground. It’s an important amenity, amid grey Creek-side condo towers — “green” in itself, and with the hidden “green” of recycled car tires underfoot instead of concrete.

Plus! all that fresh-mown very green grass. And the intoxicating smell of fresh-mown grass.

More fresh-mown grass, and indeed the mower mowing, as I come alongside Concord Community Park.

Grey & green & “green.” And a question mark. Three acres of park, with basketball and volleyball and table tennis and Muskoka chairs and landscaping, and it’s all swell. It is also, maybe, temporary. Concord = Concord Pacific, “landlord” (as the City itself puts it) of great swathes of this land, and busy building buildings, because that’s what they do. I can’t find any clear statement of whether, or how long, this park will remain green before transforming to the grey of another condo tower.

I do find this City of Vancouver page about Northeast False Creek park design, all about revitalization plans for various City parks in this area. Which is good. The partners, however, are the City, the Vancouver Park Board (which the current City council wants the Province to eliminate) and Concord Pacific (aka the “landlord”).

I’d say the future balance of grey & green is still unknown.

Another unknown, as I round the end of False Creek and pass a bike ramp in Creekside Park.

Not a mystery to rival “who is Banksy?”, but a mystery nonetheless. I’ve seen several other of these whimsical little creations in other parks, signed OXIDE. No clue as to their artist’s identity, not even online — except for various people fretfully asking “Who is OXIDE?” and getting no answer.

The bike path, this bit behind Science World, is always busy. Grey, green and “green.”

I’m particularly taken by the living fences, the way living shoots are bent to edge the landscaping, growing more lush as the season progresses.

Bike accommodation across Quebec Street, on the pavement surround for the Main Street / Science World SkyTrain station.

Lots of grey, and, with those bike racks, some “green.” Literal green in some of the mosaics as well, especially this one in the foreground, titled Environment.

I lean in, to read the sticker somebody has slapped at the centre of each mosaic.

Well now.

If “green” is about preserving the planet, about co-existence and sustainability… then I hereby declare this sticker to be Honorary Green.