Day 46 - Vancouver, Granville Island, Haida

Rockies 2008 – Day 46 – 08.06.08
Vancouver, 25 miles total and 19.0 mpg. Totals for the trip, 7456 miles, 27.7* mpg. Those are the stats.

Our first full day in Vancouver on this trip. We’ve been here before, with Gary and Jane, and we actually stayed only a couple of blocks from where we are now. I’d say Vancouver seems very familiar! At least this little part of it.

Breakfast today was at a little café on Denman Street. Good breakfast, fast and inexpensive. We’ve become city folk real fast, walking to each meal. So far we’ve only eaten on Denman Street, less than 4 blocks from our room.


The plan for today includes two things – Granville Island and the UBC Anthropology Museum. It turned into a full day, with very little driving. I’m not going to describe Granville Island – you can check that out at http://www.seegranvilleisland.com/ or any number of other sites. It started as a source of cement, which it still is, and in the 70’s began a transition to an arts and crafts and fresh food groceries kind of place. It is small, is tremendously popular, has little parking, a lot of traffic, and interesting things to see.
I spent most of the time with the boys, so I’ll ask Sally-Heath to describe the stops we made. What I did do while there was 1) eat, 2) watch the boys, and 3) visit a gallery of Inuit art run by a guy named Robert, who, in the early 1990’s had a similar shop at Pinnacle Peak and Pima! The art in his Gallery, Eagle Sprit, was superb – I wish we could afford just one piece. Robert had a lot of strong opinions about the current president and the (hopefully) future president. All I’ll say here is that the international view of our country and our president/government is not good. See my other blog for more on that.


(S-H; I entered the gallery through a locked door. I had spotted masks by First Nations groups that I recognized. There were perhaps twenty incredible examples of masks. One of these had been used in a dancing ceremony at a potlatch. He was “Smiling Man” and smile he did. I could just imagine the person wearing it taking on a happy persona. The other fabulous one was a transformation mask. This has one face (an eagle) which opens up to show a “person”. It was exquisitely carved. There is a buyer for its $13,500 price and it is worth every bit of that.)


As always the boys drew more than their share of attention. Daniel, a little boy there with his mom spent so much time with them that Sally-Heath was able to get a picture when she came out of a shop.


After Granville Island, we continued west (yes, you can still go west from Vancouver) to the UBC Anthropology Museum. On the way we snailed it along the beach road – what a long, beautiful, very popular beach! The view of Vancouver from here is great.


The museum has many exhibits covering many subjects, but their focus is, apparently, Haida and other northwest coast First Nations people. Here again, I’ll ask Sally-Heath to elaborate and describe what we saw. But I’ve got to say, The Raven and the First Men, a wood sculpture by Bill Reid, was captivating. And the story, the Haida version of the creation, is fascinating too. You can see better pictures than mine, and read the story, at http://www.billreidfoundation.org/banknote/raven.htm. I really like the Haida version. (S-H: At ASU I took a course of Native American art that was one of those special courses a person gets from time to time. The professor had first hand experience in her subject especially with the Northwest Coast groups. I learned quite a bit about their art pre “Canada” and how the ceremonies were shut down and later how rebellious artists decided that their culture shouldn’t die. It is very exciting for me to see the UBC Anthropology Museums presentation of the art from the time it was first photographed in the 1800’s to the art being produced today. There is a replica Haida Longhouse at the Museum along with Totem poles both old and fairly recent. We missed this the last time we were here, I’m glad we got to see it today.)

We drove back, making only one or two wrong turns. I know the bridge really well now. I dropped Sally-Heath off at Curves, about a 2km walk from there back to the room. When she got back it was really hungry time – so we went for a walk to select our meal. Found a great Roast Lamb special, did it! I love lamb. We brought the bones back for the boys, who chewed for about 3 minutes before we had to take the remaining splinters away.

That’s it for today – a great day, warm, clear, sunny – basically a heat wave for Vancouver! Catch you tomorrow.