1 November 2026 – I hadn’t planned a capital-W Walk for today, I only had the “stops” part of this agenda in mind, but spectacular weather pull me out the door and onto the streets for a more ambitious adventure.

Late-morning timing and brilliant sunshine offer me “shadows.”

So here I am, me and my shadow, heading off north on Scotia Street. My destination — very eventually — will be St. James Anglican Church at Gore & Cordova in the city’s Downtown East Side (DTES).

More shadows on Station Street as I approach Pacific Central Station, thrown by a flaming maple tree not only on the sidewalk, but on the equally flaming Construction sign, which shows us the obvious: the new St. Paul’s Hospital / Providence Health Care campus, just ahead, is one massive (and much needed) project.

I’ve been chattering with people all along the way. We’re all beaming at each other, wriggling with pleasure in the brisk-but-friendly weather, exchanging the usual social small talk, agreeing it’s a great day for a walk, yessiree, it sure is.

Canada geese, here at Thornton Park just past Pac Central, agree with the humans. I stare at this trio calmly stepping their way across Station Street…

and think of Lynette d’Arty-Cross’ post on 19 October, A Duckie Adventure, with adorable ducks crossing a much busier street. (If you don’t already know her blog, Pictures and Stories of Life, here’s the moment to pay it a visit.)

I have to do a little navigating, in order to weave northward around the construction while still avoiding Main Street (a game I like to play with myself). This particular weave benefits from conversation with a DTES woman who describes where best, at this stage of hospital construction, to cut through barricades and make it to Gore Street.

I follow her advice. It brings me to the foot of Gore, between Prior and Union streets, where homes still display their Hallowe’en pumpkins.

Jack o’ Lanterns are a seasonal icon; over the next few blocks, I encounter three more icons with staying power.

• Black Strathcona: This lamp post plaque is a tribute to Hogan’s Alley, a narrow lane home to Black immigrants “that became a flashpoint for its vibrant night life and for urban renewal schemes that ultimately destroyed it.”

• Asian Strathcona: referenced in the sidewalk mosaic of lotus and koi at the corner of Gore and Keefer.

• A crow! Of course. All the time, everywhere, with this particular one at Gore and East Pender.

Finally I reach Gore and Cordova, and this 1930’s take on 14th-c Gothic style architecture. The building is the third iteration of St. James Anglican Church, this one in durable concrete, unlike its vulnerable wooden predecessors (the first having been destroyed in the Great Fire of 1886).

I’ve attended architectural tours of this building, and would do so again. But that’s not my purpose today. Today is all about the church’s magnificent Casavant Frères organ — a three-manual, 31-stop organ of 1,760 pipes — installed in November, 1938. I and other event attendees, ranging from the deeply knowledgable to the humbly fascinated (like me), are here for a show-and-tell-and-play with the church’s Music Dirctor, Dr. Abraham Ross.

You see? I am now moving from the “shadows” of this post to the “stops” (and everything else to do with organs).

It turns out, I’m not quite done with shadows yet. I step into the church, where I am struck by the play of shadows among the sun’s rays, as light streams into the Lady Chapel.

Dr. Ross (“Call me Abe”), rounding off his first year in this post, wears his knowledge lightly, a characteristic that I deeply admire. We listen, we question, we discuss, as his fingers and feet dance and his words and music fill our heads and hearts.

Later, when he invites anyone interested to sit on the bench and make music, both Red Jacket and Blue Jacket (above) respond. They had each listened intently and asked thoughtful questions — no surprise they each also play the organ well.

Smiling and thankful and light-hearted, we all wind back down the steps, ready to leave. Then… a surprise. The organ again swells through the church, this time with a soprano voice in soaring duet. (I remember Dr. Ross’ comment, that in commissioning this organ, St. James instructed Casavant to adapt away from classic French cathedral style toward the Anglo-Catholic style of the Church of England, a more mellow sound suited to the C of E interplay between organ and choir.)

I look up from the nave to the gallery, and, transfixed, watch and listen for another moment: the singer standing to the left of the seated organist, an observer off to the right.

Then finally I do leave.

Because the day is so extraordinary, and I am so buoyed by both day and music, I do not turn toward home. Instead, I follow Cordova Street on east, deeper into Strathcona. Eventually it occurs to me that while music and sunshine are all very fine, lunch would also be fine, ’round about now.

So I say good-bye to Cordova at Hawks Street, and follow Hawks south to Keefer and to the Wilder Snail.

I’ve visited this venerable café/grocery store before, and I’ve already shown you its mammoth suspended snail mascot at least a couple of times. “Snail” could have been the third “s” in this post’s title.

But it’s not. Because, while I’m charmed by the spooky-season addition of a black tarantula, I am even more charmed by another discovery.

Along with its vintage wooden floors, and its vintage trick of steadying wobbly table legs with folded bits of paper, the Wilder Snail has genuine old vintage steam radiators. “S” for “steam.”

I warm my insides with broccoli-cheddar cheese soup, while the radiator gently warms my outsides.

Then I take my insides and outsides back home, and put on my lined jeans. T’is the season!