Deer Lake Park in Winter
So remember when I told you how Deer Lake Park in Burnaby was an all-season park and I intended to go back and explore it some more? Yeah, I know. I forgot too.
Oops.
I’m hanging out in Solo again, which means I have no excuse to not get myself back to this park. And so, one afternoon last week when there was fresh snow on the ground, I went for another walk with the friend who introduced me to Deer Lake Park.
It was stunning. I’m rather partial to my own park (that would be the one they call Stanley), but whenever I get a bit uppity about the park in my backyard, something or someone reminds me of how many fabulous parks there are all over Greater Vancouver.
Have a look at what I saw that afternoon.
Winter Wonderland
Last year around this time, I was bemoaning the lack of snow on the North Shore mountains. The ski season proved to be a washout ― one of the worst ever.
This year, the snow conditions couldn’t be more different. The North Shore mountains received a record amount of snow in December, and the three local ski resorts are reporting their best holiday season ever. The quality and quantity of snow we’ve received thus far this winter promises to give us one of the best ski seasons ever ― quite the contrast to last year.
The mountain where I play was operating at capacity the entire Christmas break. I witnessed those crowds for myself yesterday when I was up there to go snowshoeing with some friends. I’ve never seen anything like it at Cypress Mountain.
But for all the chaos, once we got going, it was like we’d passed through the Wardrobe Door and entered Narnia. It was certainly a winter wonderland. And that is what I love about Cypress: as busy as it gets, once you’re on the ski runs or the snowshoe trails, you have the mountain almost to yourself ― the resort is that big.
And it’s only a 20-minute drive from downtown Vancouver. I, for one, certainly don’t take that kind of wilderness access for granted.
Here are a few of the many photos I took yesterday. I kept stopping my friends so I could take yet another photo, although by the end of our snowshoe trek I did wonder aloud how many photos of snow-laden trees one might need.
Maybe just one more.
Through My Lens: Holiday Orca
Here’s one more holiday photo to finish out the year. This magnificent orca whale is a new display for 2015. Made by hand in Slovakia, it contains 6000 LED bulbs and was put up in Morton Park at English Bay as part of this year’s Lumière Festival.
A rather spectacular addition to the neighbourhood, don’t you think?
Through My Lens: Robson Square Ice Rink
Robson Square Ice Rink was looking mighty festive tonight. I wasn’t the only one who thought so ― check out the line of people on the left side of the photo. They’re all waiting for their turn on the ice.
Canyon Lights
The Capilano Suspension Bridge has been a Vancouver attraction since 1889 when George Grant Mackay, the man who owned the land on either side of the Capilano River, built a footbridge out of cedar planks and suspended it over the canyon using hemp rope. The bridge and the park that has developed around it is still privately owned and, to my mind, far too commercialized and far too pricey for what it offers. There are heaps of forest walks and plenty of other bridges to be accessed for free on the North Shore as an alternative to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. It’s on those walks and to those bridges where I take my out-of-town visitors who want a taste of the region’s rainforest.
However, sometimes out-of-town visitors have an agenda of their own and you end up tagging along wherever they want to go. I’m easy. I mean, it’s their vacation, right? And who knows? I might learn something new or see something spectacular.
Such was the case when last week a friend of mine in town for the holidays wanted to see the Canyon Lights at the Capilano Suspension Bridge. In its tenth season, these light displays are part of the park’s massive efforts over the past decade to draw in more and more visitors.
And here was the surprise for me: the Canyon Lights are tasteful and magical, and I highly recommend them as a Vancouver tourist attraction if you happen to be visiting during the holiday season.
Here, take a look. (Click on any photo to open up the slide show.)
Capilano comes from Kia’palano, the name of a Squamish chief during the early 1800s. It means “beautiful river.”
One last note: if you have a fear of heights, Capilano Suspension Bridge might not be the place for you. But here’s a pro-tip: in the dark, you can’t see how high up you are!
The West End
I can’t let last month slip by without acknowledging that my neighbourhood, Vancouver’s West End, was awarded at the beginning of November the title of Great Neighbourhood in the fifth annual Great Places of Canada competition. (The contest is sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Planners, the same folks who bestowed the title of Great Street of Canada on Lacombe, Alberta, a couple of years ago.)
What makes the West End so great, according to the jurors of this year’s contest? They selected it because of its walkability and its diversity, and for the natural beauty that is its heart and soul: Stanley Park and the beaches of English Bay.
In short: it’s a community that rates high on the livability scale.
About that walkability: the main streets lining the edges of the neighbourhood allow easy access into and out of the West End for vehicles ― both public and private ― but what’s unique about the neighbourhood are the numerous parkettes, round-abouts, and one-way streets used to discourage traffic on residential streets. More than 40 percent of the population walks to work ― that’s a higher percentage than anywhere else in Vancouver. West Enders also typically walk to access their services, whether it’s their grocery or produce store, their butcher, fishmonger, or baker, the liquor store or pet store, or a doctor, dentist, or hairdresser. (Your every need met within a ten-minute walk!)
About that diversity: the West End, in particular Davie Village, is home to Western Canada’s largest LGBT community. Almost half of the neighbourhood’s 45,000 residents are between the ages of 20 and 39, a demographic reflected in the high number of residents (80 percent) who rent their homes. That, and a large concentration of Asian language students, makes for a high turnover in residents.
Despite being a transient population, the West End has more children than many areas of Vancouver traditionally considered family neighbourhoods. Those children are educated in two elementary schools and a high school that celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2014. The West End is also home to a large concentration of seniors (evident by the number of times I have almost been mowed down by one of them on a scooter). They have their own community centre at Barclay Manor, a heritage house in the centre of the West End.
Vancouver’s West End is bordered by West Georgia Street to the north, English Bay to the south, Burrard Street to the east, and Stanley Park to the west. As is all of Vancouver, the West End is unceded Coast Salish territory that was logged and developed after the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway. By the 1890s, it was home to Vancouver’s elite. When those elites crossed False Creek and began to settle in Shaugnessy, the West End became the transient community ― peopled with new arrivals to the city and the country ― that remains its defining characteristic to this day. Robson, Denman, and Davie streets became the business hubs, and apartments buildings were built: low-rise ones in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, and multi-storey towers from the late 1950s on. Even so, many of the original houses from the late 1800s are still in use, creating an interesting architectural mix of heritage and modern buildings.
With everything it has to offer as a great place to live, work, and play, the West End is not without problems, however. Its housing is the least affordable in the city, yet the median annual income of its residents is far below that of Vancouver as a whole. St. Paul’s Hospital is being relocated some three kilometres away, leaving no acute care facility in the entire downtown peninsula. This is a worrisome issue in a city where a major earthquake that could happen at any time is likely to collapse all of the bridges that provide access to the downtown peninsula.
Development continues at lightning speed, and the buildings are becoming taller all the time. In a three-block stretch of Davie Street alone, three five residential condo towers are being proposed ― that’s a lot of construction in my near future only steps from my door.
But for all that, I wouldn’t live anywhere else. And so, here’s a photo that shows everything I love about my neighbourhood: natural beauty, architectural diversity ― and my own beach (that I, um, share with several thousand neighbours).
Through My Lens: Freezing Fog
The meteorologists call it freezing fog.
I call it get outside and take some photos.
Dishing: Ask for Luigi
Here’s what happens when you visit a review-worthy restaurant shortly before leaving on your summer holidays: the blog post you wrote sits in your draft folder for months and months until you completely forget about it. We ate at Ask for Luigi on a beautifully hot summer evening last August. Here is what I wrote the next morning.
Note to the host of Ask for Luigi: ignoring the woman for the guy she’s with is not smart in the current century, especially when the gentleman in question is crouched down and clearly pre-occupied with his phone.
That ten-second encounter almost put me off, but I set my ego aside and told the host my name and the number in my party. Ask for Luigi takes walk-in guests only, but anyone not accommodated in the first seating ― we managed to snag the last table ― is texted when their table is ready.
Voted one of Vancouver’s best new restaurants when chef and co-owner J.C. Poirier opened in late 2013, Ask for Luigi is one of the bright spots in Vancouver’s transforming Railtown. Once we were seated, the service was beyond attentive ― our table was wiped down after each course and the reflexes of our server were quicker than all three of us combined when yours truly clumsily knocked over her Spritz ― the Venetian-style aperitivo made with Aperol, Prosecco, and soda water that is the only option for a before-dinner drink.
The antipasti orders came almost too quickly ― with only 36 seats the emphasis seemed to be on turn-over ― but nothing was going to make us wolf down these delectable platters of perfection. We savoured every bite of anchovy-infused octopus carpaccio, sliced paper thin and liberally sprinkled with baby basil. Luigi’s famous golf ball–sized meatballs were dense and chewy. Smothered with a rich, smooth, crimson tomato sauce and accompanied by toasted 
Tuscan-style bread, they were marred only by the crunch of eggshell in my first bite. Geometrically correct cubes of crispy pork ciccioli, moist and wet on the inside, crunchy on the outside, were served with canary-yellow saffron aioli and deep-fried shishito peppers — a sweet green pepper about the size of my little finger. About one in ten shishito peppers are spicy — my sister was the lucky one in our group.
On to the next course. Tagliatelle with rabbit and olives was flawless, the olive taste subtle but present, and the shredded rabbit liberally coated with a creamy sauce. The rye penne, on the other hand, was overcooked, although not the creamy egg yolk placed on top, nor the gently sautéed broccolini and perfectly crisped guanciale. The pasta special ― conchiglie with garlic sausage, pale kernels of organic corn, and black summer truffle ― was the surprise of the night with its spicy kick and sweet taste of summer. All pasta is made fresh daily and served family style. (Gluten-free options are available.)
Two courses would be enough to fill any sane person, but we soldiered on. The vanilla-bean panna cotta was particularly creamy and made complete by almond biscotti and delicately stewed prunes. Chocolate budino ― a flourless cake with 70 percent chocolate ― was as intense as you would expect a flourless cake with that much chocolate to be. A mini loaf of warm olive oil cake, topped with a quenelle of rich ricotta cheese, was nestled on a bed of glazed orange slices.
The rustic décor was pleasing ― the desserts were served on mismatched china and the wine in small juice-sized glasses ― but pity the poor sods stuck in the back corner, too far from the wide-open windows or floor fans to get any respite from the August heat. Extra entertainment (in addition to yours truly spilling her drink at the start of the meal) was provided when my dining companions recognized a well-known actress sitting behind my right shoulder ― although, she wasn’t so famous that they were sure of her name. Each then whipped out their respective smart phones to check if they were right, while I remained focus on photographing our food.
We’ll go back to Ask for Luigi, but I’m thinking only if we can squeeze into the first seating again; I’m not convinced it would be worth an hour or more wait.
Note: The benefit of waiting three months to post a review is that I can change my assessment: I have decided I do want to go back to Ask for Luigi, regardless of the wait time, as long as I am with people whose company I enjoy. (Which is usually what happens when I eat out, so I should be all right.)
Through My Lens: English Bay
Of course, I don’t need to take a ferry ride to find an awesome view.
This photo was taken from the Stanley Park seawall a couple of Sundays ago. The wind (and the surf) was up, so I had a bracing walk.
My favourite kind of seawall walk.
Through My Lens: Sansum Narrows
Naturally, a mini-break on Salt Spring Island means photos were taken.
This view from Salt Spring’s Channel Ridge is of Sansum Narrows. The land mass to the far left is still part of Salt Spring Island, but straight ahead and to the right are Vancouver Island.
There and Back Again 