View from under a Bridge

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Kitsilano

I had to pick up my health card which had been mailed to my temporary post office box in the Kitsilano district of Vancouver. So I piled the pups into the truck and headed on up.

I've been trying to figure out the best way to get from here to there. So far, no way has cost less than hour or not involved getting struck in urban traffic at some point. Today's route, along the boundary line and then up highway 99 which turns into Oak Street is probably the best, although it still takes a long time.

Kitsilano is in the western end of Vancouver nestled between Granville Island to the immediate east and the University of B.C., on the city's jutting promonitory point to the west. It is an architecturally eclectic, demographically mixed neighbourhood of students, elderlies and upscale yuppies. The overall sense is: quiet and trendy.

Bowhow Box & Berkeley Bungalow

The main drag is West Fourth Street which is a non descript, fairly ugly commercial strip containing a mix of book-stores, health spas, bistros, cheapo import shops, home & futon stores, Lexis dealerships and second hand stores. In fact the Salvation Army store and the BMW show room stand face to face. The Mexican restaurant looked like it had passable norteño food with (they said) an entré or two from Oaxaca or Yucatan. Several doors down there was a French bistro, offering first and second "assietes" and a fixed price dinner for $26.00. I took note.

Kitsilano Beach Park (Low Key & Very High Dollar)

Away from Fourth street, everything becomes rather sedate and relaxed. Even in leaf-bare winter the trees have an emollient effect. I walked the doggies around and they were quite happy to sniff the wealth of doggie news insensible to us but evident to them.

We walked on over to the "Beach" area, which feels like a promonitory into the bay even though it isn't. I stared out over the bay, past Vancouver Island and out onto the immensely far away see horizon of the Pacific.

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One of the features that keeps on impressing me is how immense this area really is. On a map, Vancouver looks smallish - a decent sized city rather like San Francisco. But the sheer scale of things around here dwarfs the Bay Area. To my left lay a vast expanse of water... to my right a towering wall of mountainous rock that dwarfed the high rises at its feet.

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Kitsilano is an enticing urban alternative to pastoral Aldergrove. I need to find a quicker route so I can explore some more.

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A Certain Kind of Silence

Of late, I have sensed a certain emptiness of feeling. Was it the sense of a vast solitary expanse of geography just beyond the huddled confines of urbanism? I couldn't quite put my finger on it; and then, idling in a line of traffic it suddenly hit me : there are no bumper stickers in Canada!

What a strange place where everyone keeps his opinions to himself. It makes the place strangely silent

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Mountains Jagged Majesty

click to enlarge for somewhat better sense

The most distinctive and impressive feature of the Fraser Valley is the arc of jagged mountains that enclose it to the north and east. I don't think I've ever seen a horizon quite so violent and primeval. It is as if some demiurge ripped the sky with a sharp, uneven stone or perhaps just tore it open leaving a nasty rocky scar. It is quite awesome in its stoney and snow capped majesty. And still, it is beautiful.

Sometimes, as dogs sniff earth, I just stand and sight this majestic beauty that is strangely consoling in the humbling sense of smallness it engenders. At other times I am left with the sense that just beyond those jagged ranges, there lurk strange monsters in the howling arctic wind, or maybe the vast drop off of the world's edge into infinite darkness. Of course I "know" --- on the basis of those rumours we call education -- that it is not so, but I can imagine what the first men to approach these ranges must have felt and feared.

click to enlarge for somewhat better sense

A Different Kind of Fondness

I needed a haircut for which I need cash; and so, I stopped off at the Alder Credit Union where I extracted some real money.

The problem with indigenous countries like Mexico and Canada, is that once they decided to acknowledge their native roots their currency got emblazoned with hideous primitive motifs, like dismembered goddesses and Chac Mols for fresh, palpitating hearts. And so, as I held a newly minted 20 dollar bill in my hand, it was unsurprising, albeit disappointing, to see some grotesque depiction of bird beaked monkey men -- or whatnot -- crammed into some sort of paddle-bark. Where the hell was Her Serene Majesty ... mother to us all?

Well... what was this damn Indian thing anyway....? I googled. It is actually a modern sculpture by a modern Canadian known as Bill Reid...; in other words, a post-apartheit multi-cultural synthesis of kumbaya... But why take my word for it? Reid's sculpture depicts

"The Raven, the traditional trickster of Haida mythology, holding the steering oar; the Mouse Woman, crouched under Raven's tail; the Grizzly Bear, sitting at the bow and staring toward Raven; the Bear mother, Grizzly's human wife; their cubs, Good Bear (ears pointed forward) and Bad Bear (ears pointed back); Beaver, Raven's uncle; Dogfish Woman; the Eagle; the Frog; the Wolf, claws imbedded in Beaver's back and teeth in Eagle's wing; a small human paddler in Haida garb known as the Ancient Reluctant Conscript; and, at the sculpture's focal point, the human Shaman..."

Now wait a minute! Cunning birds, dogfish women, mama bears and would be draft dodgers??? How can you not warm to dollar like that? The engraved sculpture suddenly lost its alien primitiveness and made some (I almost choke to say it) universal part of me smile.

Yes, I still appreciate Her Serenity on the other side. How could I not, since she reminds me of my boyhood? But Haida Gwai's animal boat doesn't seem so alien after all and evokes a different kind of fondness. I'm glad it's there.

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Neighbour of a Different Sort

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Avenue Zero

After our pad about in a forested park, I decided to drive down to "Avenue Zero" -- the line between us and our Southern Neighbour.

At this longitude, Canada is hilly and forested, Southland is a vast flood plain. Both are beautiful in their own rights.

Off to my left, I espied a U.S. Border Vehickle, parked in the rushes vigiling against "potential terrorists" crawling through the grass to invade The Homeland.

As we drove back into Canada, I pondered the obsessive compulsive disorder that has seized the vast midrift of North America. Are they going to post Border Safety Vehicles every 1000 yards a mare usque ad mari?

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