Time to say goodbye

After another walk in Stanley Park and a little time to do some shopping it was time to go to the airport.



Time to say goodbye to Mattie, before the long flight home. We had a wonderful holiday and I hope we will go back again some time!

Bike Ride in Stanley Park

It seems that the only way to travel in Stanley Park is by Bike! Here is our collection. Mine was the Pink one and the Yellow one is Mattie's pride and joy. I am not very good on a bike but when in Vancouver........at least the cycle tracks in the park are largely free of traffic, even if they are very busy with skateboarders, skaters and bikers.

I even got to try out Yellow Bike!

Stanley park has a collection of Totem poles.


Only part of the seawall ride was open when we were there as it had been badly damaged in the winter by a freak storm that felled a lot of trees and washed away part of the sea wall.
I managed not to fall off or damage the bike and I did enjoy it!

The Vancouver Maritime Museum

Our next stop was the Vancouver Maritime Museum. The Main Exhibit is the restored St Roch. The ship is tiny but it was the second ship to sail through the North West Passage.

Its hard to believe just how tiny this ship is.

Class: Auxiliary Police Schooner
Launched: May 7, 1928
At: Burrard Shipbuilding & Drydock Company, North Vancouver, B.C.

Length: 104 feet, 3 inches
Beam: 24 feet, 9 inches
Depth of Hold: 11 feet
Draft: 12 feet, 6 inches
Displacement: 323 tons
Rig: Originally schooner, now ketch


Built for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Force to serve as a supply ship for isolated, far-flung Arctic RCMP detachments, St. Roch was also designed to serve when frozen in for the winter, as a floating detachment, with its constables mounting dog sled patrols from the ship. Between 1929 and 1939 St. Roch made three voyages to the Arctic. Between 1940 and 1942 St. Roch navigated the Northwest Passage, arriving in Halifax harbor on October 11, 1942. St. Roch was the second ship to make the passage, and the first to travel the passage from west to east. In 1944, St. Roch returned to Vancouver via the more northerly route of the Northwest Passage, making her run in 86 days. The epic voyages of St. Roch demonstrated Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic during the difficult wartime years, and extended Canadian control over its vast northern territories.

Retired after returning from the Arctic in 1948, St. Roch was sent to Halifax by way of the Panama Canal in 1950. This voyage made St. Roch the first ship to circumnavigate North America. Returned to Vancouver for preservation as a museum ship in 1954, St. Roch was hauled ashore in 1958. Housed over in 1966 and restored to her 1944 appearance by the Canadian Parks Service, the ship is the centerpiece of the maritime museum complex at Kitsilano Point.

RCMPV St. Roch is a Canadian National Historic Site.
The Panipakuttuk family joined the ship to act as guides, interpreters and hunters.They lived on deck in this little tent.

Queen Elizabeth Gardens

We had another very hot day and in the morning we went up to the Queen Elizabeth Gardens. Whilst we were waiting for a cab we peered through the Windows of a small museum that houses one of Canada's famous Locomotives. CPR374 Was the first Locomotive to make the Journey over the Rockies. The Museum was closed but we managed to get a photo through the window.
The Gardens have wonderful views over the City and although parts were closed because of the Council workers strike we had a pleasant stroll around them.

Granville Island

Well we made it back to Vancouver and we have a couple more days of our holiday left. The temperatures soared this last weekend and it was very hot. Granville Island is a medley of small shops, art galleries, food markets and museums. On every corner there are street artistes. it is packed with Vancouverites and holiday makers especially on a Saturday , which is when we visited. We sampled a Canadian specialty here, Buttertarts, they are like a very rich treacletart! There are two ways to get to the Island one my road crossing the Granville bridge and we came this way, but after several hours we returned by water ferry.
Granville Island was originally reclaimed from swampland in 1917 and used as a site for an iron and ship building works. By the 1960s it was a derelict wasteland and rubbish dump.In the early 1970s work began to restore the Island and it is now a thriving market place

heron

Afghan Hounds




Relaxing on Granville Island


Street Artistes


Cement transporters

ChinaTown Vancouver

With a population of more than 100,000 this is the third largest China town in North America.it dates to around 1858 when Chinese immigrants flocked to Vancouver during the Fraser valley Gold Rush. Others followed to work on the railway. Citizenship and legal rights were denied to the Chinese until1947. Although Vancouver is now a multi racial city Chinatown remains exclusively Chinese.

Dr Sun Yat Sen Gardens

Our Third morning in Vancouver we went to visit these gardens, they are partly public and partly private and we did both halves.
A lot of thought goes into the different elements in the gardens all of which have some significance to the layout.

These gardens were named after the founder of the First Chinese republic,a regular visitor to Vancouver.
The gardens were created in 1986 and built by 52 artisans using 950 Crates of materials shipped in from the Peoples Republic.
The result ws the first authentic Chinese garden outside of China.

Feeding Time for The Fish at Dr Sun Yat Sen Gardens

I loved the reflections of the trees in the water.

Each morning the fish were fed and they were summoned by the vibrations caused by the gong in the water.
Some of the fish were enormous and over 50 years old.

Museum of Anthropology Vancouver.

The House board above was carved by Susan Point in 1977 who is Musqueam
Outside the museum there was a Haida House complex which includes the structures that would have been present in a nineteenth century Haida village. The village was constructed in 1962 and includes a large family dwelling and a smaller mortuary house similar to those used traditionally to hold the dead. In front of the houses are are examples of memorial and mortuary poles dating from 1951 Haida artist Bill Reid and Namgis artist Doug Cranmer oversaw the construction of the houses and carved several of the adjacent poles.

Museum of Anthropology Vancouver.

The First three photos are of Bill Reid's sculpture "The Raven and the First Men" It was completed in 1980 and was carved from a giant block of laminated Cedar.The sculture depicts a moment in the ancestral past of the Haida People, when a Raven, a wise and powerful yet mischievous trickster, has just found the first humans in a clam shell on the beach, and is coaxing them out of it.



The Museum contains approximately 35,000 ethnological objects and 200,000 archaeological objects.Not all are from The First Nation People ,there are may Asian artefacts and also some from Africa.



There are 196 First Nation Communities in BC today and in all about 170,000 people.Many live in Reserve communities situated within ancestral territories, whilst others live in Urban areas.
The creation of the Indian reserves was, and continues to be a very controversial issue. Negotiations continue with the BC and Canadian governments as The First Nation Peoples want to take control of their traditional territories