This hard to remember anthem was written in 1908. Apparently, it was an adaptation of a song from Quebec written 30 years earlier. One brother from Quebec, a Brigadier-General no less, found the composition quite rousing and sent it to his brother in the west (Vancouver) who also welled up with pride at the sound. The lyrics were another matter though. It seems that when you translate patriotic songs from French into English, they don't have the same impact. So he sat down at the piano with his daughter and wrote his own lyrics. For many years it was the most popular patriotic song in the west. However, there was a rival version (coincidentally also written in 1908) that eventually became the official anthem in the 1927. But the words, 'O Canada' remained. And let's face it, that's all most of us remember anyway.
I can't verify the accuracy of this story, but I can report that the 'O Canada House' bed and breakfast in Vancouver is now a delightful place to spend 7 days in Vancouver. Apart from a gorgeous interior; home-cooked breakfasts every morning (bacon and maple syrup pancakes, goat cheese frittatas, steel cut oats, and fresh berries depending on the day); a 24-7 pantry with home made cookies and cakes or muffins; free chocolates, sherry and wi-fi; it's in a great location within walking distance of almost everything.
And walk we did. A lot. Sure, we had some assistance from some cable cars, friendly locals, and buses, but there was a lot of walking. We also caught the water bus a couple of times (there's an interesting story there, let's just say transportation 3 - Swanboroughs 0).
We got a hot tip from my mate Pat before we left Australia. 'If you're in Vancouver, go to Joffres Lake' he said. So, we hired a car and drove the sea to sky route which goes from Vancouver up to Whistler through some spectacular scenery and past the odd waterfall (about an hour without stops). When the nice new, built-for-the-Olympics road stopped at Whistler, we kept going for another 50 minutes up towards a mountain pass. As we climbed higher, snow appeared on the ground. The higher we went, the more there was. I wondered if we were in the right place. Amanda was asleep and seemingly losing interest and I was about to turn around when we found a tiny pokey sign informing us we had arrived at Joffres Lakes. I've seen floodway signs in the outback with more signage.
This place really is a hidden gem. Out of the 10 locals we talked to about Joffres Lakes only 2 had heard of it (and we didn't meet them until later in the week). When we finally arrived, there was one other car in the parking area and two men. One was putting on cross country skis and the other had already climbed up the metre and a half of snow and started skiing.
With Amanda still sleeping in the car and, let's say, 'reluctant' to venture out into the cold air, I climbed up the snow embankment and started treading as carefully as I knew how. Sure, I slipped down to my knees a couple of times. Sure, the snow was almost as high as the toilet huts. Sure, the sign (which looked intended for summer hikers) said to make sure I was well prepared and that at least one other responsible person knew where I was (I wondered if Amanda counted as that person even though we were hiking together...). But then something remarkable, but not surprising happened. My stubbornness kicked in. As I walked back to the car, discovering that the snow on the hiking trail was more compact and was firmer under foot, I decided I was going hiking in... no, 'on' the snow. I roused Amanda from her semi slumber and found in her an equally equipped hiking partner. So out we went.
Joffres Lakes was, in two words, absolutely fantabulastic. Or, to use three real words, a serene wilderness wonderland. The hiking trails make their way to three lakes (Joffres Lakes). We made it to the first one in about 5 minutes. It was stunning. We'd never seen an ice-covered lake before. So we decided to keep walking along the trail for a few minutes as it meandered around the lake and through the forest
A few minutes turned into a couple of hours and in the end, we walked about 3.5km. (When we got back and looked at the map, we realised we must have been only a couple of hundred metres from the second lake... Oh well, next time.) Now, when I say we walked, I'm using literary license. We soon discovered that our shoes were slippery on the snow, so rather than looking like a giraffe walking in roller skates we started to slide deliberately. Just a little at first. Then a little more. Then after about 15 minutes we had developed a new method for traversing the snow. It was part walking step, part ice skating, and part jogging. We call it the Swanborough snow shuffle slide-step. (We're still working on the name.)
After thoroughly enjoying our time at Joffres Lakes, we decided to tackle the famed Grouse Mountain. Everyone we had spoken to who had anything to do with Vancouver had told us about Grouse Mountain. More particularly, the Grouse Mountain Grind. 'You've got to do it', they'd say. Quickly followed by, 'there's not much of a view and it's not a lot of fun.... But you've got to do it'... ...????
A bit more investigation and we discovered it is really just walking up the side of Grouse mountain as though you're walking up a giant staircase. Memories came flooding back of our climb up Capetown's table mountain in the fog a couple of years ago. But our good friends Carlos and Merran climbed the grind when living in Vancouver last year. We were also told it would save us the $38 cable car fee. Challenge accepted!
Naturally, we were devastated to find that it was still closed from winter due to the excessive snow. (We later discovered that is was just a public liability issue and as we sat at the top of the mountain we saw locals emerge from the top of the grind every minute or two... I suppose that's what we get for going through the official channels.
[additional useless info for non-Canadians] We also found out that the people who own the grind trails (vancouver city) are different to the ones who own the cable car and resort at the top. So, one bears the risk of being sued while the other reaps all the profit from visitors. Vancity council have tried to sell the grind to the resort owners but they're not interested, so the locals think there is some gamesmanship going on.)
We had a dilemma - we still wanted to go to the top of Grouse Mountain because two grizzly bears up in the enclosure had just come out of hibernation. There's also a range of snow sports available. Fortunately, we had a trick or two up our sleeve.... you see, there is a restaurant on top of Grouse Mountain. It's the sort of fancy restaurant with a view where couples go to get engaged and families go for special occasions. Amanda had discovered that if you have dinner there, the cable car fee is included in the price of dinner on the condition each person orders at least an entree (this is actually what they call a main... but that's another issue). At $39 each, this seems steep, but it's only a dollar more than the cable car. So, the fancy dinner ends up costing a dollar or two (plus tip) each! We also negotiated to catch the cable car a few hours before dinner so we could 'look around'.
The ski fields were closed because apparently there wasn't enough snow for it to be safe. Ironically, there looked to be about 1.5 meters of snow, which is as deep as Perisher or Thredbo ever seem to get! With the ski field closed, the tubing area not yet open, and feeling inspired by our Joffres Lakes adventure...we decided to go snow shoeing.
Everyone had told us about the Grouse Grind. Which, it turns out, is child's play compared to the beast known as the 'snow shoe grind', which goes higher, has steeper vertical ascents, and is, of course, done in snow shoes.
From the ski lodge we could see a tower of a mountain. It was imposing. It was staring down on us as if to say, 'Stronger men and women have tried to conquer me and failed - if you value your lives, don't even try'. It seemed like good advice to us, so we clumsily loped off in a different direction. (It looked as though we could see some people half way up the mountain trying to climb it. It was hard to tell because they looked like ants from where I was standing.)
The good news is that the snow shoe grind winds around that big mountain and off into the wilderness behind. The less good news - as we found out the long, hard, lactic-acid-in-our-calves-and-quads way - is that after it winds around that big mountain it snakes its way up a much bigger mountain that we couldn't see from the lodge.
But we climbed it. (If sliding, stumbling, and crawling counts as climbing.)
With that disorienting mixture of fatigue and pride, we completed the snow shoe grind and the views were spectacular. We were looking down on that other mountain. We had 360 degree views from what looked like one of the 3 highest peaks on the range. I suddenly had the urge to plant a flag in the ground and sing a national anthem, but didn't have one handy, so we took photos instead. Some areas were so steep that we couldn't walk back down them in our snow shoes. Instead, we ignored the fact we had dinner reservations in a fancy restaurant, wrapped our coats around our waists and slid down on our backsides.
While on Grouse Mountain, we also went to see the two resident grizzly bears. They look like they'd be great to hug if it wasn't for those teeth or claws. But they are big, powerful animals that we would not want to meet in the wild. (It made me think back to those tracks we saw in the snow at Joffres Lakes... it's quite sobering when you are walking in the wilderness and the only thing you can hear is the wind in the valleys and then you see a lone set of footprints that are not yours and are definitely not human!)
And the jury is out on 'bear bells' - little bells you tie to your backpack so that bears know you are coming and walk off so as not to be inconvenienced by wandering humans.
It could be wilderness myth, but fellow travelers retold how a wilderness guide told them to throw their bells away because they would attract 'rogue bears'. It seems that the Canadian forests are full of rogue bears who have a Pavlovian response to the ringing of tiny bells.
I just couldn't shake the mental image of these bears sitting on the outskirts of their pack, not doing any foraging or work in the field; just hanging around smoking cigarettes, calling out to any female bears that walk by, and then, when they hear a bell... 'It's dinner time boys!'. But my imagination digresses...
It wasn't all walking for us in Vancouver. On one day we took a bus trip in to the University of British Columbia which houses the Museum of Anthropology. We didn't really know what to expect but it came highly recommended by some fellow travelers. If you're ever in Vancouver, it's definitely worth paying the entry fee and spending a few hours of your day here. The main hall is dedicated to Canada's first nation people. It includes:
- some very large totem poles that are hundreds of years old (I've never really liked totem poles. The painted ones that were used to ward of evil spirits by cultures around the Pacific Ocean have always kind of disturbed me. They just look and feel 'dark' to me. However, these totems were not painted. They were carved out of giant - no, ginormous - cedar trees. They displayed their equivalent of family crests.)
- some very large potlatch dishes used for ceremonial feasts, which were also made out of cedar and used for very important celebrations. For example, at a marriage potlatch celebration, the community was invited because they needed witnesses who would remember that it had happened. The dish bowls appeared to be part of a sort of horizontal totem pole.
- some canoes, which were also hand carved out of... you guessed it, cedar. (The cedar tree was seen as the tree of life. It's leaves were used for medicine; it's bark for clothing, rope, and thread; and it's wood for all sorts of things. The grain of the wood grows straight and true so it is easier to split and work than the wood from many other trees.
One thing that stood out for me was how much practical knowledge previous generations possessed. Undoubtedly, we have ACCESS to more knowledge than ever before, but most of us don't POSSESS that knowledge. If I was stuck in the wild, knowing my way around a board room would not really help much, nor would having access to Bear Grills' videos on YouTube (unless of course I had a charged ipad and an internet connection, which seems unlikely).
The museum also houses room after room and cabinet after cabinet of artifacts from around the world - clothing, weapons, tools, utensils, china, jewelry, finger puppets, etc. For example, a man's winter tunic made with over a hundred ermine furs. Browsing through these treasures, Amanda and I were both struck with their beauty. Instead of filling their houses with both practical objects and decorations, their everyday objects were their art. And the artists were very good.
The last thing that stood out at this museum was the story of a German cardinal by the name of Bellarmine who was harshly persecuting christian protestants (ie those who disagreed with some of the unbiblical statutes of Rome). Apparently, this ruler was so unpopular that they put his face on their beer jars in an ironic form of mocking protest. When he found out, I think they told him it was because he was so esteemed. He believed it and so the underground protests continued, undermining his authority or influence.
The jars were subsequently named Bellarmine Jars. The same approach is used today - but with different objects. That reminds me, does anyone want a Kim Kardashian T-shirt?
We also spent some time at the local science museum and finally caught the Da Vinci exhibition (it was in Canberra last year, but we missed it). Such an incredible thinker and inventor. One quote in particular spoke to me:
"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do." (Leonardo Da Vinci)
The rest of our time in Vancouver was spent trying local food favourites, including a 'japadog' hotdog with seaweed and raw food 'pizza' with raw 'apple pie'; and walking a suspension bridge (the free Lynn valley one, not the expensive touristy one) where we saw some locals jumping into waterfalls despite signs saying someone was trapped underwater for 5 days doing that once; and biking around Stanley Park.
We hired bikes to ride around stanley park, but ended up walking a lot anyway! The 'park' is very big. It includes a range of man-made activities but the highlight is the hiking trails through forests with some very very old cedar trees. We also met a lovely and knowledgeable man who seemed to know the park like the backs of his hand. Amanda talked with him about wild edibles in the park and he taught her how to attract the park's squirrels and how to get one of the birds to land on her hand. He also pointed out where to go to see raccoons (cute animals - we'd both love to have one for a pet!). He and Amanda then started talking about life, God and the universe. I wasn't really in the conversation, so I walked a little behind them looking at the forest and thinking it was sad how when many people think or talk about the notion of a God, they are quick to blame or dismiss Him because of certain things people in the world have done of their own free will... as though they are somehow His fault. To me, it's a bit like blaming the dog because the cat ate the goldfish.
While I'm being philosophical, the 'vibe' of this city and it's people has certainly been impressed upon us in our short time here. They are stylish and friendly. Some locals gave us a lift home from Grouse Mountain and we'd only known them for two minutes (incidentally, they climb the grind twice a week or more and have done so for many years. It took some tourists we met 1 hour 40 minutes. These guys did it in just 38 minutes).
Earlier in the week, we went walking through the city and the annual marathon was on. The streets were lined with people cheering and encouraging the runners. The words, 'good job' (pronounced 'jahb' with the Canadian accent) were ringing throughout the streets as the city turned out to support complete strangers trying to achieve something special.
We definitely feel we could live here and would love to visit again some day. If we do, we may come in ski season or when the berries (which grow like wild plants on the sidewalk) are in season.
But for now, farewell Vancouver. Good Jahb!
J.
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