Falling in Love with Vancouver

Bald Eagle protects its dinner at the side of a country road on Mayne Island, off Vancouver.

Okay, folks. Cards on the table. We've pretty much fallen in love with Vancouver, British Columbia. This is a world-class city...Not only is it spectacularly beautiful, being nestled under the mountains to the north, it is utterly international, very clean, with great, great parks, beautiful trees, green, green, green because of the dampness. Maybe that's the only downside to Vancouver: There's rain on a daily basis. Not lashing, grinding rain. More like a misty rain that feels pretty good on your skin.

Jo and I have driven and walked the city. We have wandered through the amazing parks with laburnum trees that are totally coated in yellow, dripping blossoms. We have talked to the giant Redwoods and towering Douglas Fir trees. But, as always, it is the people who are the standouts.

We were on Granville Island last week and had wandered through a thousand shops filled with aboriginal art. We were beginning to sag and ordered a lunch at the Indian food booth. I took my buttered chicken and lentils and rice and veggies and nan to our little table, then I left to get coffees. When I returned, Jo was chatting with a woman of our age who asked to join us in the crowded eating area. Emily had emigrated from Newcastle, England, a year before I came to the U.S. She'd come directly to Vancouver in 1960 and had lived on the main street back then. “There were so few cars, only one every few minutes came by our house,” she said. Believe me that is not the case today.
Emily said she and her husband had lived in a VW bus for two years before coming over. They had land-trekked from England to the continent and had made the overland passage through Europe and Asia to Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and ended up in India. This is an impossible land journey today because of the strife.

Vancouver is very much an Asian city today. No matter where we walked or drove, we were conscious of being in the minority. Everywhere you look are Koreans, Japanese, Hong Kong Chinese, Filipinos, Malaysians and Indians. The population of Hong Kong Chinese is so high the city sometimes is called Van Kong or Hong Couver.

Jo and I are staying with friends who originated in Scotland. Scott works for a security firm as their top salesman. His wife, Linda, is a teacher. Both have retained their Scottish accent. They live in luxury in one of the best parts of the city in a seven-bedroom home. Our rig is parked on the street outside, probably bringing down property values as we linger here.

Their two sons and daughter have been giving Ting a workout. In addition, this is her first experience of living in a real bricks and mortar home, with stairs and wooden floors that allow her to slide at will. She is in the best physical condition of her life with all the exercise.

We left her in the rig on Friday and Saturday while Jo and I took off on an adventure aboard the ferry system for two days. We cruised the Straits of Georgia, through the islands and came to Mayne Island where by the greatest coincidence in the world, we met up and stayed with my old landlord from Namibia in Africa. Frank and Helga Zellner are retired now and enjoy life on this lovely island. On a drive around the perimeter road, we came upon a massive bald eagle, eating the remains of a baby deer that had lost a battle with a car or truck. The eagle hunched over the deer to protect its food supply from two turkey vultures who seemed to think they should get in on the action. I left the car to edge closer and the vultures took off, followed by the eagle, which spread his enormous and powerful wings and flew off to hover overhead until we drove off. Beautiful sight.

As we returned to the mainland, the sun had burned off all the clouds that have been shrouding the massive mountains range behind Vancouver. Our panorama view of the snow-covered peaks was breath-taking as we cruised across the straits.

Scott told us, when we got back, that he'd gone out to the RV to bring in Ting for some play time with the kids (and him!). She slipped between his legs, however, and escaped into the street. She disappeared under the rig and Linda said her life flashed before her eyes as she imagined having to tell us Ting had been lost to traffic. The cat eventually came back out from under the RV and Scott pushed her back inside it and locked the door. Enough was enough.

On Sunday, June 6, we left our Scottish-Canadian hosts, bundled up our cat and headed east to the town of Hope. B.C. where we parked for the night in a First Nations campground. This is how Canada refers to aboriginal Indians. We parked on the banks of the raging Fraser River, roaring along at about 10 knots. Our rig faces the river and we are in an idyllic spot.

Now that we have headed out from Vancouver we are at that part of the journey where we think we have come a long way. But it is just a tiny part of the journey we now face as we climb north into the wilderness of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. It reminds me of the quotation from Sir Winston Churchill: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Tomorrow, we head north. North to Alaska.