July 1 was Canada Day, the anniversary of when Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were merged into one dominion under the British Empire in 1867. As the sesquicentennial of this act, this year’s Canada Day festivities were huge. Vancouver’s celebration was second only to Ottawa’s in size.
We drove up to Vancouver from Seattle on the 30th. Unlike earlier trips, we had company in the car: Julian’s cousin Kitty and her friend Ank, both from the Netherlands. The logistics were complicated. We had to pick them up from the cruise ship terminal in the morning. We got a quick lunch, then went to a hand surgery appointment for Kitty. (She’d broken her arm the week before when she was visiting us, after a fall at the Edmonds train station to pick up Ank.) The appointment was delayed by an evacuation of the clinic building. We never found out why, but I’m guessing a toaster may have been used too close to a smoke detector in a break room. As a result, we didn’t get on the road until 4 pm. Thanks to holiday weekend traffic, the 3-hour trip took nearly 5 hours. We dropped them off at their friend’s house in the suburbs and headed to our hotel in the city.
I mentioned in a previous post that Vancouver was being overtaken by high rise condos. This year we’re staying at a hotel in the midst of Robson Street. This is the view from our 9th floor suite.
So much for a view.
Canada Day in Vancouver was a sea of red-and-white-clad natives and tourists, not to mention shameless commerce. Robson Street had vendors, musical acts, and other entertainment on nearly every block. We first stopped at the Roots store so I could get some shirts for my niece and nephew in NY. (Fun fact: This quintessential Canada retailer was founded by two guys from Detroit.) Later we took a water taxi over to Granville Island. Big mistake: About 150,000 other people had the same idea. Moving around was a challenge, let alone finding lunch. The line to take the water taxi back downtown snaked across the island, so we walked back downtown on the Granville Bridge and up Davie Street. We stopped at the Transylvanian Traditions bakery to pick up some post-fireworks desserts. We chilled briefly at the hotel while plotting dinner and fireworks strategy. Most of the restaurants on the Robson-Denman drags had long lines, but we found seating at the Legendary Noodle. Although the noodle soup wasn’t transcendent, it at least calmed down my queasy stomach and cured my dehydration.
The fireworks were set off from a barge near Canada Place. We watched from a bridge in Stanley Park on Coal Harbour. Some of the pyrotechnics closer to the water were obscured, but the show lived up to its billing. Congratulations/félicitations, Canada! May you remain nice.
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