Vancouver: Mountains and the Pacific
Stanley Park, the North Shore mountains visible from every street, and a city that uses its landscape as actively as any in the world
I was in Vancouver in September 2016 — good timing, as it turned out. The summer crowds had thinned, the fall colour was starting in the mountains, and the weather was still clear enough for the views that make the city what it is. Vancouver without mountain visibility is a different, diminished experience; Vancouver when the North Shore peaks are clear above the city is one of the most beautiful urban settings in the world.
The first morning I walked through Stanley Park along the seawall. Stanley Park is 405 hectares of old-growth forest on a peninsula in Burrard Inlet, with a 9-kilometre seawall path around its edge. At eight in the morning, with the water calm and the mountains reflected in it, the totem poles at Brockton Point catching the early light, it was immediately clear why Vancouverites use "I live here" as an argument-ending statement. Living here is, in fact, an argument.
Stanley Park and the Waterfront
The seawall path continues from Stanley Park east along the waterfront through Coal Harbour — a marina of expensive yachts with the mountains behind — through the downtown waterfront to the Olympic Village neighbourhood. Cycling the whole seawall (28 km around the park and connecting sections) is the single best way to understand the city's geography: the inlet, the mountains, the parks, the downtown density, the residential neighbourhoods, the transition from urban to forest and back.
The Neighbourhoods and the Food
Vancouver's food scene reflects its position as one of the most ethnically diverse cities in North America — the Richmond suburb has a concentration of Chinese restaurants that rivals Hong Kong, the Commercial Drive neighbourhood has Italian and Latin American history and current independent café culture, Chinatown (one of the oldest in North America) is being gentrified and fought over simultaneously. The seafood is exceptional in the way that West Coast seafood always is when handled correctly: Dungeness crab, spot prawns, wild salmon, all local, all available.
The Mountains, Accessible
Grouse Mountain is 15 minutes by bus and gondola from downtown Vancouver, with hiking trails above the treeline and a view over the city and the Strait of Georgia. Whistler — the ski resort 120 kilometres north — is two hours on the Sea-to-Sky Highway, one of the most scenic drives in the country. Cypress Provincial Park is 30 minutes. The ratio of outdoor access to urban amenity here is unlike anywhere else in North America.
Vancouver
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