13 December 2025 – Poised for a trip on SeaBus, I am…

across Burrard Inlet from Vancouver’s Waterfront Station to Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver.

The draw is the engrossing show currently on view (to 1 February) at the Polygon Gallery — American photographer Lee Miller, whose body of work encompassed both high society and high fashion…

and the stark realities…

she documented as a wartime photographer.

As usual, the ferry ride to the North Shore is an uneventful 15 minutes or so.

Also as usual, we are met by a welcoming committee of cormorants at the Lonsdale dock.

The man standing next to me is waxing lyrical about their inherent grace, their ease with being exactly what they are (unlike fretful striving humans). I am less lyrical. Every time I see these birds, I hear again the cry of my outraged friend, that day in the Bruce Peninsula, who thought we were looking at loons, and discovered they were only — and I quote — “F**king cormorants!” FC’s they became, and FC’s they remain.

I leave that nice man being lyrical, and carry on, looping my way toward the Polygon via the Lonsdale Quay waterfront, with its long views back south.

Another black bird, this time a solitary crow, soars over helipad and private pier.

His backdrop is one stretch of the south shore of this busy port: a line-up of monster freighter cranes, like so many orange giraffes, with a monster freighter (COSCO Shipping, says its lettering) before their high-stretched necks and downtown buildings at their backs.

From one solitary crow, to a veritable panorama of Eternal Love.

Lock upon lock upon lock. (Upon lock.)

Different foreground, same Port of Vancouver background. L to R: the cranes; the COSCO freighter plus another, equally massive but unidentified; the white fabric “sails” that comprise the roof of Canada Place; a SeaBus placidly bustling back to the south shore. Behind all that, the city skyline. (North Shore shows us mountains; South Shore shows us towers.)

Return trip, those towers grow larger in the ferry windows…

and, approaching the terminal, we glide past a heavily laden freighter…

being nuzzled by an attentive crane.

But were you greeted by a welcoming committee of FC’s? you want to know.

I have to confess: I did not notice.